Have you ever asked yourself: What are the best free online tools for entrepreneurs and small business owners? I did. First, let me explain what qualify a business as “small” — in this case — we’re talking about the type of business that isn’t operating on a massive scale. As any entrepreneur knows, it’s not enough to be good at your craft, but your business (and thus you) cannot live on talent alone.
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 successfully fundraise and survive the process and make smart angel investments.
Website Builder from Wix
If your small business needs a website (and the answer to that for most businesses is a resounding “yes, it does”) and your website building needs are basic, then try using a free website builder such as Wix, which offers a free account. Wix can help you create a full-featured, mobile-friendly website that won’t break your budget. After using the free plan for a while, if you realize that your business would really benefit from all the features a web hosting provider can provide you, then you can opt for a paid web hosting service such as HostGator Web Hosting.
Mailchimp
If you are just starting to build out your email list, then you absolutely want to check out Mailchimp. Not only is this one of the most popular email service providers on the internet, but they give you a free account until you get 2,000 subscribers. Now you won’t have to pay to send emails until you actually have a decent-sized list. Mailchimp has dozens of pre-designed templates that make creating your very first newsletter or prospect email a breeze. Not a huge Mailchimp fan? We put together this list of Mailchimp alternatives for you to consider — many of them with free options as well!
Google Docs
Despite what you’ve been told, you do not need to spend hundreds of dollars on fancy office suite software. Google gives you everything for FREE. I’m talking documents, spreadsheets, slide presentations, and forms. Which means you can run almost every area of your business using just the Google suite. The best part is you can access all your files from anywhere and on any device. So you’ll never be without your important documents.
Trello
It’s time to get organized. Once you start a business, you learn that your head, napkins, and random scraps of notebook paper no longer cut it for keeping track of projects and to-do lists. This is why I love Trello. Trello is a project management tool that allows you to set up all your tasks and to-do lists in one neatly organized website, accessible from any device. With Trello’s free plan, you get unlimited boards, lists, cards, members, checklists, and attachments.
Easily my favorite project management tool, this is also one that I know a number of larger businesses use. It’s my preferred alternative to Basecamp, which for for me is really only good at allowing you to converse with others related to a specific project. Trello also maintains a super creative blog that will show you how you might use their product: to stay organized, to take the stress out of the holiday season, to plan an office party, to search for a job, and to plan a meal.
Skype
Free voice & video calls.
Now owned by Microsoft, Skype is the leader in VOIP calling. It’s a tool I use every day to communicate with team members, contractors, podcast guests, and other entrepreneurs.
Premium features include calling landlines & cell phones — along with screen sharing.
At Palo Alto Software, we use it to manage our editorial calendar and the web development queue. I think it’s a great tool for listing out stock you need to buy, for prioritizing tasks with your team, and for playing around with ideas, thanks to the super easy drag-and-drop functionality built into the app. I don’t know how people function without this tool.
Customer Relationship Management from Apptivo CRM
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools are often complex, expensive, and flooded with features you’ll never need. Apptivo CRM (Visit Site at Apptivo) offers a free Starter plan for up to three users that’s designed to ease you into the complicated world of customer data.
With the Starter plan, you’ll gain access to detailed reporting, 500 MB of data, and project management features such as milestone tracking and project templates. You’ll also be able to connect your free CRM to free helpdesk, finance management, and procurement tools, which is especially helpful if you’re a startup that is just dipping its toe into the world of cloud services.
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.
Zapier
Now that you’ve got Google Docs and Trello set up, let me introduce you to my productivity-boosting friend, Zapier. Zapier is an online tool that allows you to connect two separate apps. For example, you could set up a ‘zap’ that would create a new Trello card each time you created a new Google Doc. Or you could do something more advanced like send an automated response email anytime someone signed up for a webinar on your site. (Psst..if you need more ideas, check out this blog post.)With Zapier’s free plan, you can set up to 5 zaps.
Social Media Listening from HootSuite
Most small businesses don’t need a mega social listening platform. A free, easy-to-use dashboard that lets you stay up-to-date on what your customers are saying should be enough. Fortunately, Hootsuite ($29.00 at Software Advice) offers a free version of its software that’s good enough to do the trick.
With HootSuite Free, you’ll be able to manage multiple social networks, schedule posts, and interact with your followers. You’ll also be able to track how many followers you have on each of your social networks and monitor which posts are generating the most clicks. If your business grows, you can move up to one of three premium plans, which give you access to additional profiles, analytics, and multiple users.
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.
Business Intelligence from Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI (Visit Site at Microsoft Power BI) is available in a paid and free version for self-service business intelligence (BI). The free version limits you to 1 GB per user, which you can pay to increase to 10 GB. With this plan, your data will refresh daily, you’ll be able to scan 10,000 rows of data per hour, and you’ll be able to publish to the web.
To consume live data sources, scan millions of rows of data, or access data on a physical server, you’ll need to upgrade to Power BI Pro, which is still reasonable at $10 per user per month. The Pro version of this software also provides you with ways to collaborate with coworkers on visualizations across environments such as Microsoft Office 365.
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.
Conclusion
A lot of these tools are better when they’re used with specific tactics in mind or if used in conjunction with other tools and applications.
These tools are essential for an entreprenuer and they are available at our disposal.
Now that you’ve seen our favorite free business tools, we’d love to hear which ones you love! Leave us a comment below!