Easy to use tools that could benefit your start-up

As a budding entrepreneur you are most likely brimming with confidence about the potential of your idea. However, the impact that it will have once you get your start-up off the ground can come down to how you manage the day-to-day activities of running a commercial outfit. Thankfully even for a complete novice things are much easier than they have ever been before. This is down to the fact that there are so many services, software suites and apps specifically aimed at doing the heavy lifting for you.

Easy-to-use tools

Any start-up company must have a keen eye on budgets at all times and part of the financial planning has to include spending money on the essentials needed to actually run the business. There are plenty of easy-to-use tools and services that come at competitive prices and some are even free. These enable you to have a fully hands-on approach, meaning you can take on tasks you might be unfamiliar with whilst avoiding costly third-party outsourcing outlays.

Good start(up)

It is important for a start-up to have everything in place right from the beginning because you don’t want to make rookie mistakes need to be fixed further down the line. Bad habits can be hard to break, so if you take the time to make sure you are set up to do everything properly right away you can relax in the knowledge that things will run smoothly.

Online marketing

Even if you think your idea is so unique that you are in a field of one you’ll soon find that running a business can be very competitive, so having the right tools at your disposal has a big part to play. Marketing is how you let potential clients and customers know about your start-up, even if initially this only means by word of mouth. Nowadays that really means ‘word of Internet’, so having an online marketing strategy is now a basic requirement and you have to know how it’s working. Using a tool such as Google Analytics can make a real difference as the free software helps you understand how your consumers interact with your online presence.

Social media

Hootsuite is an easy to use tool that can help you use social media effectively. Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms offer fantastic opportunities to connect with potential customers and that’s why they are fast becoming one of the most valuable marketing tools for companies of all sizes. Managing a presence over several networks can become confusing but Hootsuite gives you an easy to understand overview and helps with content and scheduling too.

Client databases

Once you’ve connected with people initially you then want to turn interest into sales. Although social media is such an immediate way to stay in touch it can have limitations and that’s why building up a detailed database of contacts is at the heart of marketing. Email plays such an important role in maintaining relationships and so to manage a big database effectively you need a tool like MailChimp, which is probably the most famous email management system of them all. The “freemium” pricing model is ideal for start-ups as it means that working a mailing list of less than 2,000 names is free.

Day to day basics

Of course almost all start-ups will need to cover the same day-to-day basics that any other business needs to look after. One such example is accounting, which can be particularly daunting to those who might not be comfortable dealing with figures and money. A big part of this area revolves around making sure that your business is paid promptly and this means knowing all about invoicing. Although in the past this might have meant employing an in-house bookkeeper or third party accountant, this is no longer the case with many more options being available. Services like those at Invoice Home offer the perfect online solution. They have a variety of invoice templates, and their easy to use interface with 24/7 access gives you the power to issue professional invoices that can take into account variable tax rates and more than 150 different currency symbols.

Best time for start-ups

The abundance of easy to use tools that are available for start-ups these days means that it is the best time ever to get your business idea off the ground. By taking advantage of the new tech and dedicated services that are on offer you can not only save time and money but you can also keep thing under your own control in the early days and make sure everything gets done just the way you want it to be.