It’s time for the list so many of you have been waiting for: the best apps for aspiring entrepreneurs. These are the apps which have helped me or people I know become more successful and grow their business.
Best Apps for Entrepreneurs
We’ve split this list of entrepreneurship apps into five different sections to make it easier for you to jump to an area of particular interest.
They are:
- Productivity
- Mindfulness
- Self-improvement
- Business
- Bonus
Best Productivity Apps for Entrepreneurs
As an entrepreneur, time is rarely on your side, and with only 24 hours in a day, it’s important you’re as time-efficient as possible.
The following apps are proven to shave precious hours off your day so you can focus on what’s important.
1. Evernote
The leading online business program is fantastic for keeping your thoughts, notes, and ideas organized. Its standout feature is automatic file sync across all your devices, including the web browser version.
You can also upload photos/doodles, create to-do lists, and add voice recordings.
2. Todoist
Definitely one of our favorite task-management apps. Todoist has a simple, functional, easy-to-use interface with great team collaboration capabilities. There’s also an app version for nearly every device meaning you and your team can access the task boards from almost anywhere.
It’s also incredibly easy to set up recurring tasks which our team found helpful (and time-efficient!)
3. Trello
Another popular task management app using the Kanban board system, Trello is again astonishingly simple to set up and use.
The app’s strength lays in its card system – where every task detail can be tracked, managed, and shared with other members of your team. This includes checklists, due dates, attachments, notes, and color-coded tags.
4. Passpack
When it comes to online password management and security, there aren’t many apps better out there than Passpack.
The app’s security features are second to none, including a packing code and a 2-factor authentication system.
However, the standout feature from a team management perspective is the ability to securely share passwords and messages with other members.
If you step back and think for a second about all the different SaaS packages and social media accounts your team is managing, and then consider each one has an individual, randomly allocated password, you can see how helpful Passpack will be!
The app is accessible on all Windows and Apple OS, as well as individual applications for iPhone, iPad, and Android.
Best Mindfulness Apps For Entrepreneurs
Mindfulness and meditation can help combat stress, anxiety, and lack of sleep (the unfortunate side effects of entrepreneurship!)
5. The Mindfulness App
If you’re new to meditation and looking after your mental health, then this iOS app is a great place to start.
Specifically designed for newcomers to the scene, Passpack eases you in with a five-day introduction to mindfulness, coupled with a series of guided meditations.
You also have access to timed, silent meditations that last between 3 to 30 minutes and can also customize sessions to fit your needs.https://www.youtube.com/embed/kXa0D88lDKQ?feature=oembed
6. Insight Timer
Insight Timer has a huge, ever-increasing library of free guided meditations from experts in areas such as stress, healing, sleep, creativity, anxiety management, and more.
Also, people spend almost 3x more time on Insight Timer than any other mediation app. So if you’re looking at relieving stress and improving your sleep, this app’s a good place to start.https://www.youtube.com/embed/LPKmu14MeLo?feature=oembed
7. Headspace
Insight Timer is another fantastic installment to the mindfulness app series. Similar to Insight Timer, Headspace offers a variety of quality meditation sessions, tips, and daily videos, as well as sleep and exercise-specific content.
A nice edition after creating an account is the “Wake Up,” series of short videos. They explain to first-time users some of the basic meditation concepts, as well as the need to step away from daily mental stressors – something entrepreneurs can definitely use a hand with!
Best Self-Improvement Apps For Entrepreneurs
As an online business school, we’re obviously big believers in self-improvement. Learning should be a continuous process if you wish to stay relevant and on top of industry trends and changes.
So with that in mind, here are some self-improvement apps our instructors and co-founders recommend getting your hands on.
8. Kindle
When thinking about eBook apps it’s impossible not to mention Amazon Kindle. It includes bundles of books (sometimes free to access) spanning a whole variety of genres. This includes material on marketing, B2B copywriting, growth hacking, finance, start-ups – everything you need to thrive as an entrepreneur.
9. Spotify
For the audible learners out there we recommend you give Spotify a try. While better known for its music streaming services, it’s also an increasingly popular place to access podcasts.
In fact, one of our favorite entrepreneur podcasts, Killing It, is streamed exclusively on Spotify.
This series covers an overlooked topic in entrepreneurship – mental health – and tells the stories of successful founders and how they were able to deal with rising levels of stress, anxiety, and sleep deprivation.
10. Economist Espresso
If you like to keep up to date with market news, industry trends, and changing share prices, then the Economist Espresso app comes highly recommended.
It’s incredibly easy to navigate and scroll through the daily abstracts of world events, before diving into articles of greater interest.
A good way to spend 10-15 minutes over your breakfast or morning commute.
11. Pocket
With the fast-paced nature of entrepreneurial work you’ll often skip over articles or reports telling yourself “I’ll come back to that later…”
Of course, by the time you’re able to sit down and take a minute for yourself, those articles and reports are but a distant memory.
Well, Pocket is an app designed just for that. It will save articles, reports, and videos you come across for reading when you’ve got a spare moment.
Best Business Apps For Entrepreneurs
The next group of entrepreneurship apps we’ll go through are all related to managing/helping you with the business side of things.
12. Coconut
Hands-down one of the best apps out there for managing business finances is Coconut – especially for sole traders.
Coconut connects to your bank account to help you track income, claim expenses, and work out how much tax you owe.
The app will also work out how much money is left over after all expenses and taxes have been paid, giving you insight into how to reinvest that money and into which areas.https://www.youtube.com/embed/7sVPHtTIj00?feature=oembed
Coconut is currently only available in the UK
13. Mint
Mint was one of the first financial management apps to hit the market. Initially aimed at personal customers, the app has a host of useful features for businesses too.
Like Coconut, Mint automatically tracks expenditure by importing data from your connected accounts. Having this information on hand allows you easily monitor where your money is is bing spent, your highest expenditures, and areas you might want to consider cutting spending.https://www.youtube.com/embed/JPfI6iOAbbI?feature=oembed
14. Google Drive
Google Drive is a powerful, easy-to-use cloud storage service. It’s essentially Google’s version of Dropbox and Microsft’s OneDrive.
Your team can save their Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides into Drive, which can then be shared or simultaneously worked in by other team members. No new file versions need to be created and re-saved – all Google files are “live” documents.
Another handy feature is the ability to edit and work in traditional “Office” files such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint without the need to constantly convert them to new file formats.
You can also assign different levels of file access to individuals or groups of people ( read-only, comment, and edit).https://www.youtube.com/embed/gdrxAoqfvbA?feature=oembed
15. Slack
Managing internal communication can be challenging as your venture continues to expand. Add in the number of external partners or agencies you’re working with and it can soon spiral out of control.
This where cloud-based messaging platforms such as Slack can really make a difference.
Think of it as a Whatsapp for business, removing the formality and time consumption of traditional email.
With Slack, you can also set up various “channels” to which certain team members can be assigned (think specific projects) as well as private channels for restricted conversations to pre-approved team members.https://www.youtube.com/embed/EYqxQGmQkVw?feature=oembed
16. Google Chat (Hangouts)
A great alternative to Slack is Google Chat.
It has pretty much the same feature list (group channels or “rooms”, private channels, file sharing, etc.) however, it doesn’t have the option to create public channels if working with outside agencies.
If you are already running Google Workspace, then using Chat might be easier to keep everything under one roof.
But the two tools work essentially the same.https://www.youtube.com/embed/DvFZaljVpjc?feature=oembed
Bonus Apps
Now onto our list of “bonus” apps that come highly recommended by entrepreneurs, but don’t really fit into the aforementioned categories.
17. The Fork
I guarantee you’ve been in this situation before…
You’re scheduled to meet investors, partners, or perhaps the internal management team for lunch/dinner. It’s up to you to organize. However, your favorite local eateries are all booked and you’re desperately scrolling through online reviews in search of a last-minute replacement.
What to do?!
Step in The Fork.
This restaurant booking app not only offers heft discounts for users (up to 50% of the food tab!) but segments search results by location, number of seats, and booking time.
It’s saved many an entrepreneur!
18. Uber
This one should need no introduction!
Uber is arguably the world’s leading ride-hailing app, and particularly handy for entrepreneurs on the move.
Whether it’s taking a cab from the office, airport, or hotel room, you’ll want this app handy for quick, painless travel.
It’s available in over 10,000 cities worldwide, meaning you can be pretty confident of finding a taxi no matter where you are.
19. TripIt
We’ve got another one for the busy, on-the-move entrepreneur.
TripIt is a travel itinerary app that magically converts an inbox full of bookings, flights, and restaurant reservations into a single travel plan.
It’s accessible offline and syncs with your phone’s calendar.
Help solve the entrepreneur’s dilemma
How can a small team be on top of everything all the time when they’re so intent on focusing on their core mission? These apps can help. This new year season, consider gifting the entrepreneur in your life with some great apps to help their business flourish.
1. Evernote Premium
While Evernote is a great service that can be used for free, there are various reasons the entrepreneur might need the premium version.
In my experiences as an entrepreneur, here are the features I found I most needed:
- Viewing previous versions of each note
- Sharing and collaborating on notes with colleagues
With recently updated versions of Evernote for desktop and mobile, there’s no other app I prefer to use to keep things in order. I highly recommend it for any entrepreneur who wants help staying organized.
2. Basecamp
Keeping track of multiple projects and due dates is mind-boggling, but with a paid service like Basecamp, collaborating on projects is easier than ever.
What I like about Basecamp (and I’m sure thousands of teams around the world would agree with) is that the user experience is a simplified as it needs to be. Nothing is over-complicated or full of unnecessary features—it’s just what a team needs to get things done.
3. Things 2
Pro tip: If your entrepreneur friend needs a mobile to-do list, you might want to look into Things by Cultured Code.
Accounting Software
Maybe I have a soft spot for accounting software just because I’m so bad at accounting, but I know that this is a sore spot for many entrepreneurs out there. Here are a few services I recommend:
4. Harvest
With a simple, intuitive interface, getting you and your team on board is fast and easy on Harvest.
5. Outright
Outright helps small businesses and those who are self employed with online bookkeeping through their exceptional accounting software
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6. Mint
Manage your budget with easy to use personal finance tools and calculators on Mint. Track spending and monitor your online banking account. Free to get started.
7. Lemon Wallet
Lemon Wallet, it’s a mobile app that allows you to store a digital copy of all of your cards in your wallet so you can access them whenever you need.Hiring accounting help is a great luxury for small-time entrepreneurs. By pitching in with accounting software inholiday season, you may just be gifting the one thing the budget hadn’t made room for.
Mindmaps
From a creative and organizational perspective, mindmapping can really help put ideas in order. Some mindmaps are free with limited features, but splurging on a great piece of mindmapping software might help. Here are a few options:
8. Mindmeister
Create, share and collaboratively work on mind maps with MindMeister, the leading online mind mapping software. Includes apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.
9. Mindnode
MindNode‘s focus and flexibility makes it the perfect brainstorming tool. The clutter-free interface lets you concentrate on generating and connecting your ideas.
10. XMind
Xmind is intended to assist users in capturing ideas, organizing various charts, and share them with collaboration.Pro tip: Use a mindmap to organize your business (organizational chart), your services (portfolio), ideas, and more.
11. QuestionUp
Creativity apps are awesome: the human mind is programmed to work through problems in similar ways over time, sticking to comfortable patterns of thought. Sometimes, an insightful question is all we need to get our brains going in a different direction.
With QuestionUp, entrepreneurs can browse through a list of questions and brainstorm the answers. The idea behind the app is to get people thinking through difficult questions, and hopefully help them solve sticky problems! (Disclosure: I designed and developed this iOS app.)
12. Reeder
I use Reeder to keep up with my favorite blogs and magazines: it syncs up with Google Reader, so I can view my favorite content in a more zen-like interface. What I love about Reeder is that it has both a desktop and mobile app, so I can view articles on the go, too.
13. IFTTT
Pro tip: Set IFTTT to send your starred Google Reader items to Twitter. That way, you’re sharing your favorite content with your followers, positioning yourself as knowledgeable in the industry with just one click of the mouse.
14. DayOne
Reflecting on the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is key to growth. With DayOne, entrepreneurs can record what’s going on each day and make plans to iterate on noticeable slumps or achievements.
Protip: Set a password for DayOne to keep your thoughts and insights extra private.
As an entrepreneur, what other apps would you like to receive as gifts this year?
Conclusion
There are so many awesome apps available these days that can help you as an entrepreneur. They can boost productivity, save time, and even find you a job.