9 Must-Have Free Tools for Start-Ups

In today’s era, where more and more youngsters are getting inclined towards start-ups, it becomes important for business owners to gain an edge over others.

Scanty resources and limited funds only make the situation even more competitive.

However, a smart business mind always figures out away.

Ecommerce marketing is the need of the hour. And our Page Potato team helps you set up a web store from scratch.

This blog highlights how you can use certain tools to up your stance in the market.

Why should Start-Ups use Tools?

Any entrepreneur would know that juggling between reviews, presentations, travel plans, checking mails, and devising strategies for the smooth running of the business is not a cakewalk.

Start-Ups require a lot of thought processes to go behind how they will work operationally. Thus, young minds are always on the lookout for tools that could make their lives easier.

Successfully running a start-up is a herculean task and there exist ways to simplify it.

Certain tools help you reduce the complexities associated with processes and procedures related to day-to-day work at start-ups.

Right from finding a suitable name to hosting your business online, handling manpower, to rolling out incentives, these tools prove to be of immense help.

They prevent you from getting caught up in the otherwise time-consuming traditional methods by providing shortcuts that almost always ensure enhanced results.

Manual tasks can be completed with greater productivity and efficiency with just the click of a button.

Tools also provide entrepreneurs with critical insight into the competitors’ statistical data, thus enabling better strategies.

9 Must Have Free Online Tools Infographic Page Potato

List of Must-have Tools

JotForm: Lead Generation

Online businesses consider lead generation and customer feedback as the most crucial activities.

JotForm helps you obtain a survey, contact, and event registration forms with great ease.
You could keep it as a standalone tool or could even embed it on your website.

Feedback can also be received through these forms. Integrate JotForm with your CRM Software for process automation.

We can help you set up Active Campaigns for your business to set up business emails, and automating your marketing process.

Jotform

Source: Screenshot Jotform

Boomerang: Follow up

When you send an email to anyone, Boomerang helps you schedule a time when the same mail must pop up on the top of your inbox to remind you to take a follow-up on that thread, so you don’t miss out on anything important.

You could also use Boomerang for Gmail to schedule your emails such that potential customers receive them at an optimum time.

Source: screenshot boomeranggmail

BuzzSumo: Content Ideation

BuzzSumo is a powerful content ideation tool that helps its users find out popular content by topic or even on any website. It is crucial for a marketer to know what content people are looking for.

It could take you several days to collect customer feedback on what their needs are.

BuzzSumo provides you with all the information that you need here and tells you what content is most popular in your domain, thus giving you a direction.

We can help you find out your competitor’s top-performing content on Facebook and other social media platforms.

Source: Screenshot Buzzsumo

Dashlane: Password Protection

Most entrepreneurs have more passwords than they can possibly remember. This is where Dashlane plays a gigantic role by taking the full onus of organization as well as protection of passwords.
Its software offers military standard protection, making it the hot choice of many.

You can check out our blog on WordPress security hacks for more insights on how to keep your website safe from online threats.

Source: Dashlane

AHREFS: Competitor Analysis

AHREFS  is by far my favourite tool for keyword research and competition analysis!

With this tool, you get an insight into which competitors are faring well and why. Using these insights you strategize on how you could improve your content.

It has its own index of giving ranks to companies that are updated on a very regular basis. The ranks are obtained on the basis of data.

AHREFS can prove to be instrumental in garnering more search traffic for your website.

In fact, our SEO experts swear by AHREFs when it comes to effective keyword research, content analysis and finding outreach prospects.

Source: Screenshot Ahref

Slack: Business Communication

Slack is a widely-used communication app for Startups.

Both, mobile and desktop versions of the app, are readily available.

It can be easily integrated with Dropbox, Google Docs, and other third-party tools that make it a more user-friendly platform to stimulate business communication.

Source: Screenshot Slack

Zoho: CRM

Zoho is the most preferred choice of start-ups looking to manage their CRM software.

Some of its core functionalities include, but are not limited to, workflow automation, lead generation, and social collaboration.

It also helps start-ups convert potential opportunities into sales.

Its free version has been extensively used by small businesses to attain growth in various aspects.

Our team is dedicated to helping growing startups generate and nurture leads and convert them to successful sales.

Source: Screenshot Zoho

Trello: Project Management

Trello comes with great collaboration features. Here, you can collaborate with different teams, allocate tasks and track the progress of different team members involved within a single project.

A dashboard on the current status of the project is maintained on Trello which helps keep track of progress.

The free version of this application is limited to usage up to 10MB.

With project management systems like Trello, managers can keep a tab of the team’s tasks for the day. This helps maintain harmony within the organization and also reduces the toxic work culture and employee politics.

Source: Screenshot Trello

Wave: Finance Tool

Wave is a type of finance software that helps you cope with activities related to invoicing and compensation.

You may connect your bank account with this tool to track expenses and also create insightful reports.

It helps small businesses manage accounts and ensure the appropriate transactions of funds.

Source: Screenshot Wave

Final Word

While tools may prove to be a blessing to entrepreneurs, they may even backfire if not used appropriately.

It is important that you do your own background research before blindly depending on them.

Choose a suitable tool for your start-up and sit back and relax while it does all the work for you.

After all, some great minds have worked hard to invent these tools for smart workers like you, let their hard work pay!