The 18 Must-Have Tools for Startups and Entrepreneurs

The life of a startup or entrepreneur can have you feeling uncertain about the impending journey. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create an amazing product, raise capital, implement a winning strategy, gain traction, and generate revenue. It seems simple enough right? Wrong! It can be scary but it also can be very rewarding and self-fulling.

Your success will be found in the decisions you make, both good and bad. To become an elite company requires a little bit of luck and the right tools. Likewise, building a great team is very important but utilizing the right tools is equally important and will help you achieve your strategic goals. Finding the right tools to help optimize growth, increase team collaboration, boost customer acquisition & retention, and strengthen customer support will increase the likelihood of your success.

The good news is all startups and founders were once in your shoes. Here’s a list of tools to help you achieve your business goals and objectives.

The 17 Must-Have Tools for Startups and Entrepreneurs

clerky

Clerky
clerky.com

Incorporating a startup company can be expensive. Clerky has a large assortment of affordable legal forms to take care of your business needs. Their library of comprehensive templates, created by attorneys and paralegals, consists of corporate structure plans, stock option plans, offer letters, consulting agreements, advisor agreements, standard stock option plans, non-disclosure agreements, and more. Clerky’s legal forms are sound and highly accredited.

Paid Service


strategyzer

Strategyzer
strategyzer.com

A business plan is your roadmap to success but the traditional business plan concept is outdated as soon as you start your company. Instead, you need a business model that flexes with the market. The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management template for developing new or documenting existing business models. It is a visual chart with elements describing a company’s value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances. What’s great about the Business Model Canvas is you can quickly create prototypes, process assumptions, implement strategies, analyze the results of your successes or failures, and reiterate the process until you find the business model that produces results that align with your company’s overall goals and objectives.

14-Day free trial & Premium packages for additional services


slidebean

Slidebean
slidebean.com

Do you need a stunning pitch deck for would be investors? What about a dynamic company intro presentation? If you answered yes, you need Slidebean. Slidebean is an affordable web-based presentation tool that lets you create powerful presentations with just a few clicks. They put the design element first. The software is a collection of design templates, premium fonts, and sophisticated color palettes that help make your presentations stand out. The software is easy to use, allows online collaboration between teams, and allows you to share presentations with anyone on any electronic device. Slidebean is a great alternative to PowerPoint and Keynote.

Paid Service


asana

Asana
asana.com

Managing projects and team collaboration is a must for achieving great results. Asana is a simple to use project management tool for teams needing to work more closely together. With Asana, you can track work across your entire company while engaging the conversation from start to finish. The software is ideal for project management, workflow management, campaign management, event management & planning, new hire onboarding, and more. Asana integrates with Dropbox, Slack, Chrome, Github, and Google Drive.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


slack

Slack
slack.com

Teams that communicate are more likely to finish projects quicker, share ideas, and work better as a collective unit. Slack is an instant messaging system that makes communication easier between coworkers and teams. In Slack, you can create open and private channels to organize conversations among your team. Some examples would be a channel for projects, topics, ideas – pretty much anything. You can direct message team members or co-workers for a more focused conversation and drag, drop, and share your files within Slack conversations. Slack integrates with Trello, Google Drive & Hangouts, HubSpot, Tettra, and more.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


switchit

Switchit
switchitapp.com

Every small business, startup, and entrepreneur needs business cards but if you want to make a lasting impression, you want to use Switchit. Switchit is an all-in-one digital business card application to create and share digital business cards on the fly, embed dynamic video or branded graphics and easily follow up with people. You can conveniently store all your contact information and social media accounts inside the app. Even better, Switchit automatically saves the contact information of the people you share your card with such as their name, phone number, email address, and photo. Sync your Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar or iCloud Calendar accounts and conveniently schedule meetings or reminder alerts from the app. Integrations include Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, and iCloud.

Start using Switchit today for Free > Click here

Free & Premium packages for additional features


google forms

Google Forms
google.com/forms/about

Do you need to conduct an online survey? If so, Google Forms is an ideal choice. Google’s suite of online forms is great for collecting and organizing information. With Google Forms, you can create online surveys, conduct quick polls, manage event registrations, collect email addresses for newsletters, and more. All forms are customizable, support images and videos, and enable administrators to track response info and charts in real-time. One of the differentiating factors of Google Forms as opposed to similar providers such as SurveyMonkey, Survey Legend, Survey Gizmo, and others is the fact you can create unlimited forms for free.

Free


mailchimp

MailChimp
mailchimp.com

Newsletters are an extremely valuable marketing tool to attract new customers and retain existing ones. MailChimp makes it easy to create stunning email campaigns that best suit your message. Whether you are looking to sell your products, share news, or tell a story about your brand, their campaign builder streamlines the entire process. MailChimp provides rich analytics, allowing you to see the number of times subscribers opened your email, clicked links, and a comparison of your campaign compared to the industry average. MailChimp integrates with a large assortment of CRM and online merchant platforms.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


nat_app hero

Nat
nat.app

Nat is a personal CRM app that analyses your email interactions, provides insights and helps you stay in touch with your key contacts. Inside the app, you can write notes, log interactions about your contacts and watch your network evolve with the analytics feature. Nat syncs with G Suite and requires zero manual data entry. Nat is a fun, powerful tool to keep in touch with contacts and move relationships forward.

30-Day Free Trial


qwilr

Qwilr
qwilr.com

Do you need a kickass proposal? If so, Qwilr offers the perfect solution. Create proposals your clients will love with an easy to use interface comprised of a large assortment of templates. Add interactive content such as video, text, splash screens, quotes, and more. What makes Qwilr special is instead of outputting your document as a file, the software outputs it as a beautiful web page. Share your web page as a simple link and your clients can view it on their desktop or mobile device. You’ll receive a notification the moment they review it and see detailed analytics about what content they viewed, how long they viewed it for, and more.

14-Day Free Trial


hubspot

HubSpot
hubspot.com

HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close deals. Their CRM platform aligns sales and marketing, so you can manage your pipeline of prospective leads and nurture existing customers. The system is great for creating lead capture forms, automated email follow-ups, lead grading, and more. These powerful insights provide a comprehensive overview of every customer’s journey as they pass through your sales funnel. HubSpot integrates with a large assortment of 3rd party software.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


placeit

Placeit
placeit.net

Placeit is super simple to use and lets you create amazing assets in seconds. With hundreds of new designs every day, from mockups and video templates to logos you can surely make unique designs for your brand’s campaign. Placeit even has free tools like it´s image cropper, video to gif converter and video cropper that make your design process easier. Find some inspiration for your brand by choosing the right template for you!

Free & Premium packages for additional features


olark

Olark
olark.com

Answering the questions your customers have is very important. When browsing online, most people would rather chat with a real person when they have a question as opposed to filling out a contact form. Olark provides live chat software that integrates with your website. The technology allows you to chat with customers, in real-time, while they are on your site’s page. You are notified when people visit your website and you are able to see the pages they’re on. When you’re not available, visitors can leave a message which is delivered to the email address associated with your account. Installing Olark on your website is quick and simple, not to mention they have outstanding customer support. Olark integrates with most CRM and analytic software.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


canva

Canva
canva.com

Design is key to building awareness around your brand. Canva makes design simple. With Canva’s easy-to-use features, you can create designs for web or print such as blog graphics, presentations, social media covers, flyers, posters, invitations, and more. The platform has an extensive library of layouts, stock photographs, vectors, illustrations, icons, and shapes. You can even upload your own images. Canva is a great option for people needing a simple platform to drag, drop, and create amazing graphics.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


design wizard hero image

Design Wizard
designwizard.com

Design Wizard is a great, simple-to-use graphic design software that allows you to personalize an image in seconds. It has over one million images in its library and thousands of templates, all created by a talented in-house team of graphic designers. It also features excellent integrations with Hubspot, Marketo, Intercom, and Buffer. But it is perhaps best known for its magic resize button, which allows you to transform the size of an image quickly for free.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


hootsuite

Hootsuite
hootsuite.com

Social media plays an integral role in building awareness around your brand and communicating directly with your customers. Plain and simple, it is a must. To better manage your multiple social media accounts, theirs Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a Social Media Management tool to help you track and manage your social media channels. What makes Hootsuite great is the ability to monitor what people are saying about your brand, schedule post for multiple social media accounts, and monitor how people interact with your social media channels. Managing multiple social media accounts is a simple task with Hootsuite.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


zapier

Zapier
zapier.com

Who doesn’t want to do more with less time? Zapier lets you create connections to push data from one app to another. Using triggers, actions, and just a few clicks, information is passed between your apps through workflows called Zaps. Zapier helps you be more productive by automating basic tasks such as sending a post via RSS to your social media sites or building and maintaining your email lists. The possibilities are endless. What’s great about Zapier is creating Zaps doesn’t require any code, so anyone can do it. Zapier is a great tool for sales and marketing teams looking to curate content and better manage their unstructured data. You can integrate your Zaps with over 750+ web apps.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


google analytics

Google Analytics
analytics.google.com/analytics/web

Tracking the success of your online campaigns, online presence, and web traffic is critical to the success of any startup company or small business. Google Analytics provides a comprehensive assortment of metrics and analytics to closely monitor conversion rates, web traffic, user experience, terms searched, page performance, and more. These assessments are key to measuring your advertising return on investment (ROI) and identifying how people interact with your website, social media pages, and online campaigns.

Free


localytics

Localytics
localytics.com

User insights around your mobile app are very important. Knowing how users interact with your mobile app is the key to developing a great product. Localytics helps you discover what makes your users tick. Optimize your marketing efforts by engaging users with personalized messages. The software’s targeting engine is perfect for push notifications and in-app messages – helping you improve the mobile app experience for users. Their analytic tools show you exactly how customers use your app and how they engage with your marketing campaigns. Localytics software is easy to use and integrates seamlessly with your app’s API.

Free & Premium packages for additional features


Bonus: Startup Advice
Everyone needs advice from time to time.

The tools recommended are some of the tools we use daily at Switchit. There are thousands of free products and software tools to help your startup company or small business thrive. I also suggest researching and creating a Marketing Stack, if you don’t already have one in place, to help you execute, analyze, and improve your marketing activities. If you have any recommendations of technologies you use, Tweet them to us at @Switchitapp or add your favorites in the comments section below.

2 comments

  1. Chris on

    Great article! I am big fan of remail.io – the best software I’ve found for automating your outbound sales activities. There are more services that provide more or less the same but for me personally, this is the best.

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