In a start-up, absolutely nothing happens till you make it happen.
– Marc Andreessen
If you are a start-up or nursing the idea of starting one for a long time, you know this to be the absolute truth. But no matter how much you multitask or run around, the feeling of dissatisfaction catches on as you realize that you have so much more to achieve. That’s where productivity tools come in. Tools which take care of the nitty-gritty, giving you more time to chase your dream.
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There is a whole repository of start-up tools for you to choose from depending on which stage of entrepreneurship you are in. The list below is just a drop from the ocean of start-up toolkit available out there.
Top startup tools to make your startup smarter:
This is the early entrepreneur stage when you are planning to launch your start-up.
- WordPress/GoDaddy:
WordPress is the world’s most popular platform and GoDaddy is the world’s largest web host and domain provider. Together, they help you to create a beautiful website which will go on to become the face of your company when you are pitching for new businesses.
- CoFoundersLab:
If you have a great start-up idea and are looking for like-minded co-founders to partner with, this online matchmaking service is the place to go. It helps you to find the right people online and in-person events.
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In this stage, when you have launched your company officially and are pitching for your first set of clients, these startup tools can help you understand your customers better –
- BetaList:
This tool gives you your first hundred users and helps you to understand your start-up’s place in the market, enabling you to improvise on the product-market fit.
- Intercom:
This application lets you interact with your customers/prospective customers on a one to one basis through live chats, targeted emails, specialised in-app messages which are triggered by behaviour and time to build your business.
- Doorbell:
As a start-up, if there is one thing that you eagerly look forward to is genuine customer feedback. Doorbell helps you to gather them all and monitor them closely.
The stage when your company has taken off and you are looking at building a team and getting the best out of them on a tight budget, these tools for startup might come in handy –
- Recruiterbox/Homerun:
These productivity apps help you to create authentic job openings, receive genuine applications and review the candidates effectively.
- Termsfeed:
This unique tool lets you create extensive legal documents within minutes and customize them as per your products and services.
- Slack/ Hipchat:
These tools enable you to say to communicate with your team, manage them by allocating tasks and deadlines, follow their progress by sharing files and links and grouping your communications according to projects/teams.
- Asana/Trello:
These are two of the most popular project management tools used by many start-ups. They help you to effectively manage your tasks and projects on one common platform with the whole team on the same page.
- io:
Specially built for idea-led projects, this project management tool lets you record, manage and monitor every step of your journey from an idea to execution.
While the tools on this list are some of the most used out there, there are however a lot more where these come from. If you have used any other productivity tools that have transformed your life as an entrepreneur, tell us about it. We would love to hear about them.
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