Tools

Here I have compiled a comprehensive list of tools and resources for startups to take advantage of when taking their concept from idea to fruition.

  • Expensify can easily track your expenses.
  • LivePlan can help develop a solid business plan.
  • WordPress is a free platform to build a customized website.
  • 99Designs is a great site to find designers for your logo or website.
  • Fiverr and UpWork are excellent locations to find talented freelancers.
  • Aweber and MailChimp can be used to generate leads and run an email marketing campaign.
  • Hootsuite and Buffer automates your social media efforts, like scheduling posts in advance and engaging with followers.
  • Due or QuickBooks can make your accounting as painless as possible.
  • TurboTax lets you do your business and personal taxes yourself.
  • Trello is a project management system that lets you assign and mentor tasks.
  • G Suite is the foundation of your business and it comes with Gmail and Drive.
  • HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing platform that comes with CRM and marketing and sales suites.
  • Google Adwords and Facebook Ads can market your business online.
  • Google Analytics provides demographic and behavioral information about your audience, along with which marketing efforts are working.
  • With Calendar, you can share your calendar with others, as well as use machine learning to receive smart scheduling suggestions.
  • G2 helps with all your company reviews.
  • Intercom helps you to chat and market strategically to your potential customers.
  • For customer service, use Survey Monkey and FreshDesk.
  • LastPass remembers and stores all of your passwords.
  • Keeps in touch with clients and virtual workers via Zoom, Lifesize, Slack and Skype..
  • Gusto handles your HR and payroll needs.

Here are some more tools and resources: from taking payments to building websites to talking to customers to team collaboration and finding investors and much more.

Talking to Customers

  • Intercom–tasteful chat and help widgets for your site, plus good automated email triggers
  • Drip–email courses and signup widgets for your site
  • Mailchimp–newsletters and decent signup widgets
  • Buffer–easier way to run your twitter and facebook accounts

Team collaboration

  • Slack–chat and messaging to reduce internal email load, with one room per major project
  • Github–repository for your source code plus task lists and collaboration with your developers
  • Dropbox–all company files should be here, not on email attachments or personal folders
  • Streak–simple CRM plugin for Gmail to manage and share your sales leads
  • Trello–digital kanban board for project management
  • Basecamp–I use it for project management with external teams who don’t know our Trello workflow
  • Stormboard–digital sticky notes for remote brainstorming and workshops
  • Meldium–team password sharing and management

Domains

Payments

  • Square (US) or iZettle (elsewhere)–accept credit card payments with your phone, e.g. for market stalls and contractors
  • Stripe–best payment processing online
  • GoCardless (UK)–accept direct debit payments
  • Gumroad–easily sell digital files like PDFs, videos, and links

Analytics

  • Google Analytics–free and good enough for all your analytics needs
  • Google Keyword Planner–see how many people are searching relevant terms
  • Facebook Ads–use the targeting options to compare the approximate size and location of various interests and demographics

Physical Products and Print-on-Demand

  • Createspace–upload a PDF, sell a printed book via Amazon
  • Newspaper Club–ever wanted your own newspaper?
  • The Game Crafter–prototype and sell your board and card games
  • Shapeways–high quality 3d printing in a wide range of materials including gold and silver (for jewelry) and ceramics (for household goods); great for prototyping and market-testing physical products
  • Alibaba–cut out the middle man and buy anything you want directly from the manufacturer; if you’ve ever wanted a 40′ shipping container full of go karts, this is the place for you

Building Websites

  • Squarespace–visual site builder with good themes and integrations with stores, payments, newsletters, etc
  • Strikingly–easy site builder for nice single-page sites like manifestos, personal/company pages, or landing pages
  • Shopify–for ecommerce and online stores
  • Themeforest–if you need something custom, start by buying a $30 theme and editing it

Art

People

  • Fiverr–pay $5 (or a bit more) for tasks ranging from logo design to copywriting
  • 99designs–crowdsource design tasks (especially logos) for a few hundred dollars
  • elance–various freelancers (assume you’ll hire several for trial projects before finding good ones)
  • Clarity.fm–pay-by-the-minute advice from various startup specialists
  • Dribbble–browse designer portfolios, many of whom also freelance

Phones

  • TextIt–create SMS applications without programming (e.g. for the developing world)
  • Twilio–makes phone calls and SMS as easy to program as websites

Legals

  • Docracy–open source legal documents
  • Companies Made Simple (UK)–set up and manage a UK corporation for 19
  • Duedil (UK)–nice interface over companies house interface to research industry and competitors

Learning

News

Investors

  • f6s–listing of all accelerator programs (and lots of other info) and a social network for startups and angels
  • AngelList–social network and funding platform for startups and angels
  • Capitallist–like Angellist, but focused on London and the UK
  • The Funded–reviews and testimonials of investors from the founders’ perspective; do your investor due diligence here

Crowdfunding

  • Crowdcube (UK)–equity crowd funding
  • Seedrs (UK)–equity crowd funding
  • Kickstarter–crowd-fund via pre-selling your products
  • Indiegogo–crowd-fund via donations with a focus on arts and creative projects, including some which aren’t allowed on KickStarter