I get it. You’re an entrepreneur and you’re trying to save money. Technology costs money and you need to spend your dollars wisely. But sometimes, the best tools for the job simply cost too much for your startup budget. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the best software tools for entrepreneurs that won’t break your bank!
One of the most difficult things about being an entrepreneur is that there are just so many tasks you could possibly be doing and it’s all too easy to get drawn in every direction. There’s so much going on around you and it can be tough to know what software tool is best for the job. It doesn’t help you can have so many questions either around which software tool would be best depending on your needs.
You can go broke fast as a new entrepreneur. Here are 15 free tools to help you get started and even grow a sizable business, while preserving your funding for what really matters.
One of the great tools in Google’s suite. It’s the free way to create PowerPoints and pitch decks, and to seamlessly collaborate on them with your team and consultants. Easy to create, update, and present as you go through your first funding rounds. Effortlessly integrates with Microsoft, and can be used to create videos of your presentations. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered.
Canva offers a free suite of design tools for creating social media ads, PPC ads, infographics, beautiful slides, magazines and a lot more. Comes with plenty of free stock photography built in. You can even use it to create custom and consistent filters for all your brand images. Great starting tool if you need design and you are trying to DIY it.
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This free project management tool is used by an enormous number of freelancers. So, you should have no problem finding a team who already has experience with it. Easy to use to do lists, delegation tools and collaboration for remote teams.
A great first step to figuring out what’s hot and in demand out there. This is a very simple tool to find out what people are talking about and searching for online, whether interest in something is increasing or decreasing, and if there is enough web traffic to begin building an SEO campaign around.
There are so many email tools out there today. From Getresponse to AWeber to Infusionsoft, most do exactly the same things. Mailchimp will get you started with list building and automated follow up, for free. It even has web forms, popups, and a basic landing page builder. One of the best things is that it integrates with virtually everything else for free. You can always export your contact list to a new service if you want to upgrade to something more complicated later.https://buy.tinypass.com/checkout/template/cacheableShow?aid=Yj2fRrCPpu&templateId=OTMNB56G6EFU&templateVariantId=OTVOUG74XV25B&offerId=fakeOfferId&experienceId=EXC9N6W4G9FP&iframeId=offer_408a0d3a235f97bff035-0&displayMode=inline&pianoIdUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fauth.forbes.com%2Fid%2F&widget=template&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com
It’s crazy how few entrepreneurs and businesses use this powerful, free tool. It doesn’t matter how much of a genius you are and how creative you are, you need data to make sound business and financial decisions. Google Analytics will give you a quick overview or deep dive into who your customers really are, what they love about you, what is turning them off, and how to optimize for more conversions and spend your marketing money more wisely.
Boomerang for Gmail enables you to schedule emails for later. This is perfect for giving yourself time to think before your response goes out, to time landing pitch emails to investors, and to target marketing messages to land at just the right time for your prospects. The Respondable feature aims to help you write better emails too. It does this by ranking your message on a variety of factors, including reading level, length, positivity level and staying on subject.
LinkedIn is a goldmine for startup entrepreneurs. It is a powerful platform for building an audience, targeted recruiting, networking and gaining direct access to angel investors. Make sure you’ve polished up your profile and publish to your feed regularly. Even though is free I find very useful the premium experience which gives you access to message people that are outside of your network.
In an age where banks fee you to death and are still catching up on technology for swiftly sending transfers, PayPal is powerful. It’s like a no cost bank account, merchant account and credit card processor, allows you to instantly and quickly take payments and give refunds. PayPal also now offers a variety of POS tools as well as small business loans and lines of credit.
There are a lot of DIY website builders and blogging tools out there today. WordPress still runs most of the web. It’s free to setup your own website or blog, still one of the easiest to use and comes with an enormous amount of plugins. A great starting point for testing your business idea and beginning to get traction.
Medium is essentially a free blogging platform. You don’t need to mess with any design. Just start publishing clean content, getting the word out about your startup, updating investors on your progress, and attracting more customers.
If you’re a highly mobile entrepreneur and are allergic to wild cell service roaming fees and ‘unlimited’ plans that really aren’t – then Skype is probably for you. Use it to make free calls, record podcasts, host meetings, and conduct video sessions. There are plenty of plugins to check out too.
Use AngelList to find a startup job, post a job, network with investors, see who is investing in what, and to invest in startups as well.
Post job openings for free on the world’s largest freelancing platform, and screen from the best experts for your needs in the world. Get just the work you need on-demand without taking on hefty overhead or salaries.
Use Calendly to schedule appointments, calls and investor meetings with ease. Integrates with Wix and Google Calendar.
You can also listen into the DealMakers Podcast for free insights into startup life, how to successf
16 Pexels
Whether you are writing an email, creating Facebook ads, or brochures for your business, you’re going to need stock photos. Just in case you didn’t know this already, you cannot take an image you found on Google search and use it for your business. Yea, apparently it’s “illegal” and called “copyright infringement.” Because we don’t want you to end up behind bars, we are going to share our favorite free stock photo resource: Pexels. Pexels has thousands of beautiful, royalty-free images that you can use for all aspects of your business.
17. Canva
Once you have the images, you’re going to want to make edits to them. There are a ton of graphic design tools available, but you may want to check out Canva, a free online photo editing tool that let you create branded and personalized graphics for your newsletters, brochures, and social media posts. Edit your own images or choose from Canva’s library of images (some of which you have to pay for, but a good portion are free). Quickly download all your masterpieces to your computer and use them for your print and digital marketing campaigns. For a complete list of Canva alternatives, check out this post.
18. Buffer
Seeing that you now have some sweet looking social media graphics, you’ll want to use a tool like Buffer to schedule them across your various accounts. When running a business, you don’t have time to actually sit down and post to your social media accounts (or to sit down at all), which is why it’s a good idea to automate those tasks with Buffer.
On the free plan, Buffer will allow you to schedule up to 10 posts to 3 different social media accounts. You’ll be able to schedule all your social media posts for the week in just a few minutes! Some notable Buffer alternatives with free plans include Hootsuite, Later, and Publer.
19. Bit.ly
Not to length shame, but long URLs are ugly. Yeah, I said it. Increase clickability by using personalized, shortened links from Bit.ly. These conversion-inducing links will also give you stats on your link, like, the number of clicks. It takes the guesswork out of marketing.
20. Wave
Ready to send out your first invoice and want to look like a true professional? Then head on over to Wave, an online invoicing software program. Wave lets you create and send professional-looking invoices to your clients’ inbox. You can even keep track of who’s paid and who hasn’t so you can send “reminders” if you need to.
21. UberConference
If you run an online business, you’re going to need to set up virtual meetings with your clients (unless you have the cash to fly around the country for coffee dates). UberConference allows you to set up online meetings anytime. Their free plan allows you to set up 45-minute calls with up to 10 people at a time. During that meeting, you can share your screen and record with HD quality sound and video.
Conclusion
There are some great software tools for entrepreneurs that can help your productivity, business growth and build trust in your product. Having tested many of them myself and seen how they work, I recommend the following 10 tools to any entrepreneur.