There is no greater satisfaction than launching your own startup and seeing it grow through those first few weeks and months. Setting your own hours and the thrill of managing your own business are just some of the many perks that come with starting your own business.
However, it's usually not rosy all the way. Many startups struggle just to break even during those early stages, with as many as 80% failing within their first five years of existence. There are many reasons why these startups fail, but the major ones revolve around poor management, insufficient finances, and poor budgeting skills.
Thankfully, with so many tools available for startups and small businesses, the chances of survival are that much higher. Learn how these free tools can help your startup stay productive.
1. Project Management
Keeping track of the different stages of product design and development is a critical determinant of whether your startup will be successful or not. This is especially true if your startup employs several people to handle different stages of the product development cycle.
Project management tools like Trello and Kanban Tool are good places to start for startups. Trello offers one of the best work-life integrations for startup managers and is awesome for organizing ideas within teams, collaboration, and enhancing productivity. Kanban Tool is good for bigger teams and startups that need flexibility when managing multiple projects.
2. Finance and Accounting
One of the reasons why many startups fail is poor financial management and budgeting skills. Basic excel sheets will often work for some businesses, but for those with intricate financial processes, managing financials with excel sheets will be nothing short of messy.
The best finance and accounting tools will let you create and send invoices, manage payroll, track billable time, manage cash flows, and make bookkeeping easier. Tools like Wave and Freshbooks offer many of these features for free, which is great if you are looking to save cash.
3. Digital Marketing
Once your business is set up and ready to be presented to the world, you will need to identify the right advertising channels for your business. If you plan on using email marketing for your business (and you should), Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign will work perfectly for your startup. They'll let you manage your email marketing campaigns, design professional emails, and send emails automatically – all for free.
If your startup deals with app development, a tool like Mobusi will come in handy when marketing your final product. This tool will also help you manage all your performance-based marketing needs, including Cost per Click (CPC), Cost per Lead (CPL), and Cost per Sales (CPS).
4. Note-taking
Modern entrepreneurs no longer need to depend on memory, pen, and paper to store important information and random ideas. With tools like Evernote, you can capture your ideas that very instant they come to you. This app will let you create notes and reminders, contacts, memos, and other important information on your smartphone. You can then sync the app across multiple devices, including your tablet and desktop PC for easy access.
5. Team Communication and Collaboration
Good communication is one of the cornerstones of a successful startup, especially one that works with multiple teams. Slack is easily the most popular communication tool for startups, with millions of users using the app on a daily basis.
Slack enables teams to communicate and collaborate via in-app chat rooms, share documents, and distribute tasks to different team members. It also integrates seamlessly with Dropbox, Evernote, Trello, and Google Hangouts for hassle-free communication and collaboration.
Other worthy mentions in this category include Basecamp and Wrike, which are both very useful for startups working with multiple teams.
6. Cloud Storage
Data is a valuable asset for any business. Losing it may have dire consequences for startups, which is why you should invest in a cloud storage service that will help you store your data. Good options here include Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, and Dropbox, with many of these offering some amount of free storage space. For instance, Google Drive offers 15 GB of free space for new accounts, so be sure to check it out.