Starting a business can be tricky. There are so many resources out there that you might not know where to start. The best way to get ahead of the game is to use all the tools available to you. Here, we’ll talk about some of the most popular and free business tools for new businesses.
Want to find new customers? Use Google Adwords and Facebook Ads, which can help you reach people who might be interested in your business and product before they know it exists. Need customer feedback? Check out Survey Monkey or Typeform, which will help you collect feedback from your customers on your products or services.
There are 10 great tools that every start-up needs to know about in order to get started on the right foot. Read on for an overview of these ten business tools and how they can help your business succeed.
Section 1: 10 Free Business Tools Every Start-Up Needs to Know About
The main concern of any aspiring entrepreneur is to keep their start-up costs as low as possible. Although there are some unavoidable costs that an online business has to bear. You can minimize some operating costs with the help of the best tools.
There are a number of startup tools and resources that not only help minimize startup costs but also save valuable time for savvy business owners.
Imagine if you could increase your efficiency with just a few business tools. Read More.
What if you could get your hands on the 10 best tools for startups? Fortunately, that’s exactly what I am going to share with you today. Let us take a look at it!
- Categories of the Best Startup Tools
- Idea Generation Tools
- MVP Tools
- Launch Tools
- Marketing Tools
- Finance and Fundraising Tools
- CRM Tools
- Design and Development tools
I have grouped these startup tools into seven different categories. Each of them has a powerful impact on the overall performance of your business and allows you to run your business more efficiently.
#1 Startup Ideation Tools.
It’s a fact that the first step is always the hardest. The ideation phase of any startup is crucial. But once you know what industry you want to be in and what kind of product you want to sell, things become clearer and with the help of the following startup tools. Then, you will have a clearer direction on how to proceed.
1. Squad help
Squad Help helps you find an ideal name for your business. However, the services are not just limited to business names. Instead, it also helps you find the perfect name for your app, book, product or service, etc. Among so many business tools, Squad Help has the best results.
You can start a naming contest and connect with thousands of experts as you are guided through the agency-level naming process. You can also discover a hand-picked set of premium names that you can purchase immediately.
Pricing: Starting as low as $199 per contest.
2. Clarity
It does not matter if you are a fresh entrepreneur or an experienced business person. Every entrepreneur needs actionable advice at one point or another in their entrepreneurial journey. Clarity ensures that ambitious entrepreneurs get valuable advice from industry experts. Among the numerous business tools available, Clarity delivers the best results.
It helps you connect with industry leaders from around the world. These Clarity experts can help you overcome any challenge you might face at any stage of your entrepreneurial journey. Whether it’s scaling your business, raising funds, researching market trends, or improving your skills, this tool for entrepreneurs offers the best advice for your business.
The price: for only $1 per minute on phone calls.
#2 Startup MVP Tools.
For entrepreneurs developing web or mobile apps. It’s important to understand how their Minimum Value Product (MVP) impacts their business. It also helps you experiment with your ideas in your preferred industry or market before finalizing your product. There are three MVP tools for startups that are worth highlighting. They include:
3. Bubble
Bubble is one of the most powerful, “no-code” web application builders that empowers people to build startups and digital MVPs without code. With its easy-to-use point-and-click web editor and cloud hosting platform, Bubble users are building the next generation of Airbnb, Twitter, and Facebook several times faster and cheaper than with traditional programming.
Because the platform is completely open-ended, you can create almost any interactive, multi-user web app, ranging from simple prototypes to complex marketplaces, SaaS products, and more. Plus, hundreds of pre-built integrations make it possible for users to connect their apps to practically any external service on the internet, such as Google Analytics, Mailchimp, or Stripe.
Join over 1 million users who are building and launching businesses on Bubble, many of who have gone on to participate in top accelerator programs and raise millions in venture funding.
Pricing:
Get started with a free plan to learn how to use the platform and start building. Paid plans starting at $25/month offer additional features. Learn more here.
#3 Startup Launch Tools.
Launching a startup is never easy. From idea to execution, there are numerous factors that play an important role in a successful launch. That said, there are a number of proven startup business tools that can help you launch your startup successfully. These include:
4. Product Hunting
This is the ideal platform for startups to launch. Product Hunt introduces amazing new products every day. It is a brilliant platform for product lovers. You can share, discuss and interact with all the new products, websites, mobile apps, and other tech creations.
It can help you successfully launch your product or, more importantly, your startup. The site works with a user comment system and a voting system similar to Reddit. With the pre-existing community of testers ready to try out new products, launching your startup has never been easier. Read More.
Pricing: Sign up for free
#4 Startup Marketing Tools.
A solid marketing strategy requires flawless implementation of processes to help startups get the most bang for their buck. Proper implementation of a marketing strategy for startups requires tools to monitor, analyze, and evaluate each marketing campaign. Therefore, the following marketing tools are a must for startups to ensure the effective implementation of processes.
5. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is one of the best social media marketing tools for startups used by renowned startups worldwide. Mainly because of its easy UI and affordable pricing.
With the free plan, you can schedule up to 30 posts on all social media platforms. It helps you measure the ROI (Return On Investment) of your social media campaign and track the impact it is making, all under one roof. You can also link two RSS feeds and various apps like MailChimp, YouTube, Dropbox, and other startup tools.
Pricing:
- Individual (1 user 3 social media profiles) Free.
- Professional (1 user 10 social media profiles) $19 per month.
- Team (3 users 20 social media profiles) $99 per month.
- Corporate (5-10 users 35 social media profiles) $599 per month.
#5 Tools for Finance & Fundraising
Focusing on financial balances is critical for startups. It’s important to understand and record where revenue is coming from, where it’s going. And how the startup will perform in the coming months. Read More.
Investors admire entrepreneurs who include calculated numbers in their pitch deck. However, you cannot do it all with a pen and paper. You’ll need one of the following financial startup tools to help you reach your goals.
6. Foundersuite
Foundersuite is a great tool for raising capital for your startup. It provides structure, speed, and efficiency in fundraising and investor relations. It features a CRM tool to manage your investor funnel, a searchable venture capitalist database, and an Investor Updater tool to help create monthly progress reports.
Foundersuite also includes Startup Docs a comprehensive set of templates and spreadsheets like pitch decks, founder agreements, and FoundersMarket, a set of curated listings for popular products.
Pricing:
- Basic Free
- Silver $44 per month
- Gold $62 per month
- Agent $150 per month
#6 CRM Tools for Startups
Once you have your first loyal customers. It is the perfect time for your startup to invest in the best CRM tools for a startup. A CRM tool can prove to be of great help to your startup as it frees up so much time that you can spend productively on converting new leads. Some of the best CRM tools for startups are:
7. CRM by Hubspot for Startups
Hubspot CRM is a great choice for startup owners. Honestly, you do not need all the bells and whistles, but you could use some help with your business data entry. HubSpot centralizes your contact list. It helps you by automatically logging customer interactions and extracting data from the web to generate information about your potential customers.
Some salient features include:
- Customize Views
- Deal and task board
- Hubspot marketing synchronization
- Drag and Drop Communicator
- Social Media
- Company database
- Email Connections
- Sidekick Integration
- CRM details
- Templates, tracking, and scheduling
You can start with the free version, which is simple but powerful. However, if your startup needs additional features, you can always opt for the paid versions. It is one of the best startup tools available online for entrepreneurs who care about their customers. Read More.
Pricing:
- FREE
- STARTER $50 per month
- BASIC $200 per month
- PROFESSIONAL $800 per month
- ENTERPRISE $2,400 per month
#7 Startup Design & Development Tools
For someone who is about to launch a startup, things get tricky when it comes to design and development. If you take the wrong first step, things can get complicated in the future and it is difficult to turn around. To avoid putting yourself in such a situation, we have compiled a list of the best design and development tools for startups.
8. Mockplus
Mockplus is a web-based collaborative design tool. With Mockplus, you can collaborate with your team to create responsive wireframes and prototypes in real-time using drag and drop.
The application comes with hundreds of ready-to-use components and icons. With pencil and pen tools for vector drawings, you can easily create and customize your own components.
Mockplus unifies the entire product design workflow. This application not only covers design but also includes team collaboration, handover, and management within an organized system. All you need to use Mockplus is an internet browser.
Pricing:
- Basic: FREE, up to 10 users and 10 projects.
- Pro: $7.95/month, up to 30 users, and unlimited projects.
- Ultimate: $17.95/month, unlimited users and projects.
9. Logo Design
Logodesign is an online logo creation tool that allows you to give your new startup a compelling visual identity. The program offers an extensive gallery of unique logo templates for a variety of industries. The designs are visually appealing, fit a variety of styles, and are easily customizable.
You do not have to be a graphic designer to work with this tool. By simply clicking on the various design features, you can change the logo icon, edit the colors, choose a different font, or make a variety of other changes available in the customization window. Read More.
Besides the company name, you can also add your slogan to the logo.
Although each template in this tool is designed by a team of professional graphic designers, you can also choose custom/premium designs. You can contact the design team and ask for an exclusive logo design.
The website also offers business card design and printing services to showcase your brand in the best possible way.
Pricing: Currently, the website offers discounted pricing for all logo design packages, so for your convenience, we are quoting both prices.
Logo Design Templates:
- Basic: Offers logo design only: $78, currently $39.
- Standard: Logo design plus business card design: $114, currently $57
- Pro: Logo design + business card design + stationery + envelope + t-shirt: $195, currently $97
Custom Logo Design:
- Professional: $97
- Startup: $167
- Enterprise: $297
- Small Business: $697
10. Unsplash
Unsplash is one of the startup tools that offer high-resolution stock images. So, you can create visually appealing promotions and campaigns for your startup. The most generous community of photographers in the world actively contributes to this platform.
With a huge library of over 1 million images from HD and hundreds of new images added daily. You are sure to find the perfect images. Get inspired by the new images. Those are selected every day or use the search function to download exactly what you are looking for.
Pricing: Free to use
Section 2: Google Adwords and Facebook Ads
Google AdWords: Paid Search
Google AdWords is the largest and most popular PPC advertising platform in the world. AdWords is so widely used that it has become synonymous with the term “paid search”. The two terms are used interchangeably, even though other platforms like Bing Ads work in a similar way.
Google AdWords User Interface
The paid search focuses on targeting keywords and using text-based ads. Advertisers using AdWords bid on keywords-specific words and phrases included in search queries entered by Google users. In the hopes that their ads will appear alongside search results for those queries. Each time a user clicks on an ad, the advertiser is charged a certain amount of money, hence the name “pay-per-click advertising.”
PPC bidding and bid optimization is a complex topic that is beyond the scope of this guide. But essentially users are paying for the potential to find new customers based on the keywords and search terms they type into Google. Read More.
Facebook Ads: Paid Social Media
Facebook Ads is a prime example of what is known as “paid social,” the practice of advertising on social networks. With the highest number of monthly active users (or MAUs) of any social network in the world.
Facebook has become a highly competitive and potentially lucrative element of many companies’ digital advertising strategies.
Although advertising on Facebook is comparable to AdWords. In that advertisers using both platforms are essentially promoting their business across the web. That’s where the similarities end. Read More.
Unlike paid search, which helps businesses find new customers through keywords, paid social networks help users find businesses based on their interests and online behavior.
When it comes to the main difference between Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, you can think of it this way: AdWords helps you find new customers, while Facebook helps new customers find you.
Section 3: Survey Monkey and Typeform
Typeform:
Typeform is a great online survey tool to use if you are looking to build fun surveys. It is one of the popular SurveyMonkey alternatives and is considered as the online survey tool with one of the best user experiences.
Its minimal design is what most users rave about. And the fact that it is easy to set up just adds to its charm. Typeform also has a plethora of fantastic features which makes it a great choice for your surveys. Additionally, Typeform pricing starts at $25/month.
SurveyMonkey:
SurveyMonkey is easily one of the most popular names in the online survey industry. There is hardly any other tool that enjoys the same kind of face value. But thanks to a lot of new entrants, SurveyMonkey is not the most ‘cool’ tool anymore.
Using SurveyMonkey, you will easily be able to gather feedback and arrive at insights from it. Its advanced reporting and analysis feature allows you to view responses in real-time. Which makes SurveyMonkey one of the most sought-after Typeform alternatives in the market. SurveyMonkey pricing for businesses starts at $25/month. Read More.
Section 4: Wufoo and Contact Form 7
Wufoo:
Wufoo makes it easy to create custom online forms that let you capture data, RSVPs, payments, and more without writing a single line of code. Trusted by more than 3 million users, including companies like Amazon and Disney.
Wufoo’s award-winning interface is easy to customize and offers over 400 templates and reports! Whether you are embedding your forms on your website or sharing a direct link, Wufoo has you covered. Read More.
Best For Wufoo is great for anyone who wants to create great online forms quickly.
Wufoo Pricing Overview: Prices for Wufoo start at $19.00 per month. There is a free version. Wufoo offers a free trial. More details on pricing can be found below.
Contact Form 7:
Contact Form 7 can handle your multiple contact forms and help you customize the form and mail contents. It also supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering.
Section 5: Conclusion
Business tools play an important role in the growth and success of businesses. The benefits of business tools are innumerable. Identification of operational process loopholes. Ability to tighten the company budget based on insights. Ability to keep customers loyal and engaged.
It goes without saying that turning to business tools is no longer an option. Today’s businesses cannot function without business tools. Business intelligence ultimately helps to improve business tools is a surefire way to stay competitive, and increase your company’s revenue.
