Small business startup tools can be essential to your business growth. If you want to make your small business grow and prosper based on your own terms, then such tools will help you achieve your goal. There are so many applications available today that it is difficult to choose the best one for your small business. You would do well if you choose an application or a tool which is compatible with the devices you already have, for ease of use.
Small business startup tools are a comprehensive collection of tools that can help you to take your business from concept and design to successfully running and operating your company. The small business resources included in this toolkit will provide you with the resources and materials you need to develop your small business startup tools.
Build and Engineer Your Site with WordPress or Squarespace
Here’s the kickoff. If you’re looking to build a small business online, Squarespace may be the best CMS (content management software) for you. Reason being that it’s incredibly easy to create a site with especially with the drag and drop feature. And moreover, there are just more than enough award-winning themes, templates, and plugins that are SEO-wise available at your disposal. WordPress, on the other hand, has more features than Squarespace and gives your site the superpowers Squarespace can’t. Therefore WordPress is best for your big business creation.
Keep a Never-closing Eye on Your Visitors with Hotjar
I know you’re bringing in all the SEO and CRO knowledge you’ve garnered and used over and over again. And chances are you’re turning back to the likes of Google analytics to predict what actions visitors are taking on your site. But what if you could actually watch the videos of how visitors navigate your site? The precision of your CRO and SEO would increase and sales would be through the roof. Well, this no more dream as you can create heat-map, analyze visitors’ activities and create polls with Hotjar. And did I mention you get to watch your visitors’ movements in video? It’s more or less a CCTV camera to your online store.
Basecamp for Project Management
Want a one-solution-fits-all software that is of high adaptability to your site? Basecamp brings the team and yourself closer together for discussions, chatting, tasks management, files transfer and editing, and more. Basecamp beats Slack to the dust with its exclusive features except you may go for slack instead of Basecamp because the latter costs you $99/month while the former is absolutely free.
Create Charming Marketing Videos with Animoto or Promo
Videos are powerful marketing content and you should pay attention to them to get the best out of your marketing investment. And isn’t it even more fascinating how horribly easy it is to create an intuitive marketing video that coverts today? Either you use Promo or Animoto, the two software allows you to create marketing videos from scratch or turn an existing video into a marketing video easy and fast. They come with a drag and drop editor, a massive score of templates and compelling music to add sizzling effect to your ads.
Sell Physical and virtual products with Shopify and Teachable
Want to create an outlet for your store online and sell your physical products? Shopify is the one-stop e-commerce platform to sell your goods in one-person. Furthermore, since Shopify integrates with Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Facebook, and Pinterest, you automatically have greater exposure than on your local site. On the other hand, you may have some virtual products in form of eBooks and courses, Teachable provides all the facilities and solutions you need right from start of publishing to the end of receiving payments.
Squad Help
Squad Help assists you in finding an ideal name for your business. However, they do not limit their services to just business names. Instead, it also assists in finding the perfect name for your app, book, product or service, etc.
You can start a naming competition and engage thousands of experts as you’re guided through their agency-level naming process. You can also explore their hand-picked compilation of premium names that are available for immediate purchase.
Pricing: For as low as $199 per contest.
Germ.io
This tool for startup helps you better manage your business concepts and ideas. You will never lose the big picture of your startup idea with this resource. You can validate your concepts and share your vision by flaunting your big picture.
Germ.io helps you evolve your business idea by providing the ‘next steps’. Consequently, you will be able to shape up your business idea with ease. It lets you create actionable strategies by helping you with your how’s, what’s and why’s.
Pricing: Free version available
Javelin
To keep it simple, this is a one-stop solution for lean startups when it comes to customer development. A platform for innovators, Javelin can help you identify customer needs and validate new products. You can measure your product’s market fit with the assistance of their pre-designed surveys. It allows you to save time as the speed of workflow increases.
Pricing: Free to Signup
Balsamiq
Their mission is to rid the world of bad user interface and help people to build websites and software that are easy to use. Balsamiq is a low-fidelity wireframing software accessible to entrepreneurs, managers, analysts, developers, agencies and anyone who’s into UX.
They provide extensive docs, assist in improving the software with the latest releases and provide support through multiple channels. You can find beginner-to-expert level tutorials and documentation on their support page for your convenience.
Pricing:
2 projects $9 per month or $90 per year
20 projects $49 per month or $490 per year
200 projects $199 per month or $1990 per year
Beta List
Beta List is a pre-launch system that helps your startup gain the traction it needs for a successful launch. The best advantage of this platform is that you can put your startup idea in front of an exceptional community of savvy business enthusiasts, and garner valuable feedback from them.
Beta List has helped over 3,000 startup founders to better understand their customers with the help of qualitative and quantitative research to ensure they are creating the right product for their right audience.
Pricing:
Hobby Free
Startup $129
Funded $299
Google Analytics
With a new business, it’s all about the numbers. How much traffic does your website generate? Where does the majority of that traffic come from? What are some key demographics of your target audience? All of these questions play a major role in the success of a startup, and tracking them is no easy feat. That’s where Google Analytics comes to play. Playing off their reputation for innovative and easy to use services, Google’s statistics tool is no exception. Users can view the countries their site has been seen in, the percentage differences in traffic drivers, and their key numbers, broken out by the day, week, month, or year. Best of all, Google Analytics uses clearly marked charts and graphs so that even the least tech savvy individual can feel confident with understanding their information.
DropBox
Who can relate to toting around a bag full of gadgets, because each one contains different documents? Dropbox is the multitasker’s savior, creating a virtual link between all of your Internet connected devices. Utilizing the cloud saving capability, users can save all of their images, documents, and video clips onto their Dropbox account, which can then be accessed from anywhere. Don’t worry about losing a document, or sending files that are too large. With Dropbox, you can easily share files to other users. Finally, one of the more unnoticed benefits to this file storage, Dropbox allows you to maintain organization for all of your files. Create personalized folders and save your documents accordingly; they’ll all be there when you land the next morning.
Odesk
Starting a business often involves utilizing the skills of others. Without the means to hire fulltime staff, but with project deadlines looming, hiring a per-project contractor can be extremely beneficial. With no time to waste looking for that perfect candidate, Odesk streamlines the process for you. Take advantage of their huge database of contractors looking for work, and follow their step-by-step process to find the best fit for your company. Odesk profiles provide previous work experience, sample portfolio, and client reviews so that you can make an informed decision, and meet with only those candidates that would be a great asset to your team. You can then set up a virtual interview without even leaving your workspace, and easily assign your chosen candidate the project at hand. Odesk continues to aid you in the process with their tracking tool, allowing you to constantly watch your project’s performance, and make notes or additions along the way. Finally, don’t worry about the hassle of payment issues and dealing with bank paperwork. Odesk handles all of the transactions so that you can pay your contractor with ease, and enjoy your completed project, stress free.
Conclusion
Whether you’re just getting the business started, or looking for small business tools to furnish your offices, “Small Business Startup Tools” will help you find it all. Packed with tips to help turn your idea into a profitable reality, it’s everything you need in one place.