One of the most frequent questions we get asked is about what tools or apps someone should use to launch their startup. In addition to Ecwid, ecommerce entrepreneurs need a variety of tools to make launching their business as
Our list of the best tools for startups includes these main categories:
- Project management
- Sales tools
- Marketing management
Project Management
There are a lot of project management tools out there, but the ones that qualify as the best startup tools have a few things in common. First, the management tool you choose should come with a free trial and/or be
For this reason, we think the best option for most startups is the collection of business management tools from Google. There are too many options from Google to cover in a single article, and you may not know that they even have a Google Startups portal, but there’s no denying that the king of most things online has thought of everything for a growing business.
For our purposes of identifying the best tools to help you launch a startup, let’s discuss Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Data Studio, and Google Keep.
Google Drive has become many people home to safely store all of their documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in the cloud. This means you don’t have to worry about losing anything if a computer crashes, as everything is backed up as you work in
Google Sheets is a lifesaver for people who want to create
Google Sheets is also a place to record data like offline sales that can then easily sync with your web analytics using Google Data Studio. This tool gives you
Google Keep is one of those tools that a lot of people don’t know about. It’s an easy
Sales Tools
Our choice for the best sales tools is likewise a
For free, you will get a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to keep track of your client communications. You can even create custom sales pipeline stages to track up to 1,000,000 contacts with no time limit or expiration.
What can you do with these contacts? Automatically look up their companies and populate their records with what Hubspot knows about them. Track their emails to get notified when they open important communications. Create groups and do email marketing through personalized bulk email or newsletters. Schedule meetings with a custom calendar link that connects to Google Calendar, provide customer support, host documents you often send, create landing pages, and even track your contacts as they interact with almost anything you do.
Hubspot truly lives up to its reputation as one of the best tools for startups, and if we haven’t mentioned it enough, gives you tons of capabilities for free!
Marketing Management
A lot of what might be considered marketing management tasks were covered in our Hootsuite summary. But startups are unique in their needs to get out ahead of the market in social media as they launch. So even though Hubspot could be considered a marketing tool in addition to its many sales uses, there is one tool you’ve likely heard of that we think no startup should live without: Hootsuite.
Hootsuite is a social media management tool that integrates all of your social media accounts and provides you a single dashboard to post, measure and schedule from.
Many other tools do an okay job at providing centralized social media management, but none do so quite so well or have done so for as long, as Hootsuite. The interface is
But team collaboration goes beyond that — you can assign tasks and even chat with your team members about the best social strategies right inside the tool. And like many of the best tools out there, Hootsuite provides a free trial for thirty days without obligation, and no tricky way to get more money from you, or hard upsells.
The Best Startup Tools
We will mention again that the best tools to help you launch your startup are going to be the ones that are easiest for you to use. The best tools are those that match your style and the amount of communication you need to do with your partners, customers, and team. For this reason, always look for those tools that offer a free plan or free trial and check them out until you find what’s right for you.
