Starting a business is complicated to say the least. With everything on your calendar and everything on your mind, you probably barely have time to read this article (we appreciate it).
Luckily, lots of people know the complications of a new business, and we’ve gotten lots of great tools because of it. In this article we will look at five softwares to simplify your startup.
For Staying Organized – Asana
One of the most complicated things for any business is simply trying to keep track of everything going on. From meetings in your calendar to sticky note reminders on your computer, wouldn’t it be nice to keep everything in one place?
Asana has you covered.
Asana is an all-in-one tracking software that lets you organize your tasks by project and even by team. Create portfolios for every side of your business and share with the right people. Tasks can be assigned to team members and the rest of your team can see when they are completed and even sign off on them. Asana provides you with updates and reminders, as well as weekly reviews. You can even link tasks to your company goals, and watch as you progress towards them.
Asana
For Easy Communication – Slack
Communication is key. Everybody knows that. It’s also key to find an efficient medium to communicate through. That medium should facilitate every kind of communication your team needs. Slack is that medium.
Slack is a super simple messaging platform you can use on your computer or phone. Team members can communicate openly with their organization, send private messages, and create group channels for projects or departments. As well as text messaging, Slack also has a virtual meeting feature called “huddle”, which is similar to platforms like Zoom.
On top of communication, slack makes sharing and organizing files easy, with a team file folder and canvases for planning and idea building.
Slack
For Valuable Data – Google Analytics
If you have your own website, you are likely familiar with Google Analytics, or at least its name. You may not be aware of how powerful it is though, or how well it can help you optimize your site.
In order to improve your website and increase your visitors, you need to know what is working already. Google Analytics makes it easy to measure how visitors move around your website, what pages they spend time on, and how they find your site in the first place. If you have an online store, you can even link the two and track which content leads to sales.
Google Analytics is easy to navigate, and can be simplified even further by creating custom dashboards that only include the stats that matter to you.
Google Analytics
For Your Money – QuickBooks by Intuit
Finances. The most boring, annoying, and yet crucial part of running a business. Invoices, payroll, operating expenses, party funds – there’s just too much to keep track of.
Many businesses look into accounting firms to handle this for them, but these services can be pricey. QuickBooks is an affordable alternative right on your computer. The accounting software helps you easily keep track of basic financial information like expenses and invoices. It also allows organizations to transfer and receive funds, with payment receiving and employee payroll features.
On top of day-to-day tracking, Quickbooks provides valuable reports to visualize your company’s finances, and easy organization when tax season rolls around.
Project-Management.com
For Your Marketing – HubSpot
Marketing is the force that drives the success of any business. Once upon a time, marketing practices consisted solely of ads in magazines and commercials on TV, but these days most marketing is done over the internet. Startups rely on social media promotions, email and sms communications, and customer profiles to market their ideas. This is a handful to organize.
Enter HubSpot!
HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM tool that lets organizations manage their online marketing through communication management and customer databases. Users can save time by creating automated email chains and scheduling social media posts weeks in advance. HubSpot can be integrated with landing pages on your website to gather contact information and create customer profiles which can be sorted by leads, conversions, etc.
HubSpot
For All Your Needs – A Startup Incubator
For the things that software just can’t do, startup incubators are there. Startup incubators offer resources, connections, and mentoring to startups and small businesses to help them take their ideas to the next level.
For more info on how a startup incubator can help your business, check out residency at IGNITE.
