Are you thinking of starting a business but aren’t sure which tools you need? If you’re like most people, you can’t afford to buy every tool that comes out. So, what tools should you get? Which ones will help your business the most? How do we pack them all in without spending too much money on useless items? These questions and more will be answered as we go through some startup tools and list our top picks.
nTask for project management
nTask is a project management tool that will help you keep all your tasks in line. You can manage your tasks, track time you spend on each task, organize online meetings with your team – pretty much everything you need to manage your projects.
nTask will save you time switching between several different tools and keep all your tasks in one place. And what’s most important – since you’re just starting out, nTask has a free basic version that will surely cover all your needs.
Key features
- Projects – track your project schedule
- Tasks – create, assign, and track tasks
- Meetings – organize and manage your meetings efficiently
- Timesheet – make time tracking hassle-free
- Issues – resolve issues quickly by defining issue severity, issue priority, and issue status
- Risks – identify and analyze potential risks your projects are subjected to
Zoom or Uberconference for Video Conferencing
Whenever you need to get closer to your team beyond behind the keyboards, a seamless video conference service provider takes the job. But who are the best today if not Zoom and Uberconference? With Zoom, you can video chat with unlimited attendees, do recordings, screen sharing, and even set up conference calls. Same with Uberconference.
IDEABUDDY
IdeaBuddy is a free idea generator. If you need more ideas (no matter what topic), but nothing comes to your mind, you can use this service. Type in an idea – get 10 in return.
Unfortunately, the service does not always provide ideas thematically related to the text entered. For example, if you want to learn Italian and how to make Neapolitan pizza, you will get this: “A company that sells book covers with beautiful design. You can take the covers off your favorite books and hang them on your office walls.”
Anyway, we found this idea quite entertaining. With IdeaBuddy, you can sketch and develop your business idea, build your business plan, and automate financial projections. So if you critically need a fresh idea or concept, whether for content creation, business or personal needs, try IdeaBuddy – you might find one that catches your eye
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.
PANDA 5
Panda 5 is a newsreader service, which you can use to follow news from many related sites at once. Easily add articles to bookmarks and Pandmarks (the most liked entries). You can also leave comments to them, send them by email, share them on Facebook and Twitter. Panda 5 has a bright attractive design and is used daily by many well-known companies such as Facebook, Google, and Trello.
You can download the service as a Chrome extension or use the web version. The service integrates with Twitter, Pocket, and Instagram.
You can decorate your page originally by adding to-do lists, time, images, and so on. Also, if you’re having trouble focusing, the service helps focus on reading with the “Distraction-free reading” feature.
Note that before using the service, you should add RSS feeds of the news channels that you’re interested in. Reading articles with Panda 5 is very convenient – choose a news channel, articles you like (from the built-in list), choose your reading format – and go ahead!
Chanty – startup tool for instant communication
Chanty is a tool that helps you communicate with your coworkers in a quick and easy way. Yes, most of your business communication should go through emails, but for some parts of the business, it’s quicker to solve issues with your team on the spot. With Chanty you can easily share your ideas, issues and fixes via instant messaging, voice messages and improve overall communication by integrating it with other tools you use.
Key features
- Unlimited message history, conversations and tasks
- Teambook hub with members, tasks, conversations and all the shared content
- Powerful conversation actions
- In-app media content player
- Instant search for messages, files and other content
- Seamless file sharing
AIRTABLE
Airtable is a flexible organizer for different ideas, content, dates, lists, appointments, etc. Add fields for attachments, long text notes, checkboxes, links, and even barcodes!
In fact, it’s the most comprehensive organizer we’ve seen – you can add ideas and notes on totally different topics. Create an art gallery of photos, a product catalog, an organizer for projects, clients, and restaurants, and various establishments. Create a wedding planner, an article release calendar, a travel planner, and even an organizer for farmers (to track profits and livestock).
The service offers 4 plans, with 1 Free plan (includes unlimited bases, 1,200 records per base, 2GB of attachments per base, a grid, a calendar, kanban, forms, and gallery views). Paid plans start at $10. They differ in the number of records, the amount of memory used, and the presence/absence of various features.
Airtable is available as an app and desktop program for Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and Android. It can also be integrated with many platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mailchimp, Evernote, Slack, Twitter, etc.
Manage your Social Media on Autopilot with Hootsuite
If you don’t want managing your social media to be a part of your job so you can spend time on the things that matter most, you need Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a fortune 1000 business most essential tool. It is used for automating social media management, tracking competitors, manage your social media team, engage followers, and create content on autopilot.
SocialBee – a platform for social media management :
SocialBee is a tool that will help you maximize your social media management efforts. Marketing without social media is now simply a no-go, if you don’t have social media, you practically don’t exist. Social media management is important but can take up a lot of your time that can otherwise be spent on developing your business. SocialBee helps you save up to 8 hours a week and get the most out of your social media marketing.
Key features
- Post on all major social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google My Business
- Reshare your evergreen content
- Analyze your audience and spy on your competitors
- Customize each post for each social network
- Advanced content analytics
- Use categories to structure your content
ENGAGEBAY
This free marketing & CRM solution has already been loved by 30,000+ businesses and is something of an emerging favorite in the CRM and marketing automation space.
It can help startups with lead generation, free email marketing, online advertising, free social media tools, and much more.
There are advanced features such as drag-and-drop landing page builder, video marketing, canned and automated responses, SMS broadcasts, and even in-built telephony with international calling.
The wonderful thing about this product is that its free plan comes with no time limit, and can be used by up to 15 different users from one account. That makes it really easy for entrepreneurs to play around with all the sales & marketing tools and then decide to upgrade if they need to.
Conclusion: We all know starting up your own business is the best tool to make your dreams come true. But there are so many things that you have to do, either for yourself or with your team that it can turn into a nightmare. You have to find financing, develop the product, market it, register it, sell it, service it and so on.