The tech world is constantly changing and evolving, and as a result, the way that entrepreneurs manage their businesses and projects changes as well. It’s hard to keep up with all of the best practices and latest tools. But that’s why we’re here: to do the research for you!
We’ve compiled a list of the top tech tools for entrepreneurs so that you can just go straight to business.
Table of Contents
Best Tech Tools For Entrepreneurs
Productivity and efficiency are at a premium in the life of a busy entrepreneur. Most juggle many things at once, making it easy to overlook a few tasks. In some cases, entrepreneurs are also forced to deal with repetitive tasks that can zap productivity. Sound familiar?
However, the advent of modern business technologies offers various solutions to entrepreneurs wanting to boost organizational skills. These tools make it easier to tick off certain things from your to-do list and focus on growing your business.
These are some of the must-have business tech tools that every go-getting professional needs:
1. Evernote
Evernote streamlines note taking to help busy entrepreneurs stay sane. When you’re a startup or a small team, there are always lots of tasks to handle and information coming in constantly. As such, note taking is an absolute must, and taking better notes can really boost productivity. Evernote claims to “capture and prioritize ideas, projects, and to-do lists, so nothing falls through the cracks.” It syncs across all of your devices, so you can access your notes and to-do lists everywhere, always. The app stores information on your behalf and makes it easy to retrieve that information. You can use it for storing personal or business items, helping you juggle all your commitments and manage that work-life balance (hopefully, you still have a semblance of one). There are paid and free versions to give you more flexibility.
2. Expensify
Preparing expense reports is one of the most challenging tasks that entrepreneurs have to deal with. This is especially true during tax season. Expensify is, therefore, a lifesaver for busy entrepreneurs, especially those who cannot afford to hire a tax accountant. It makes it easy to track down your expenses and income. Expensify offers a free trial period, so this quarter may be an excellent opportunity to test out how Expensify can benefit you.
3. Dropbox
Dropbox is one of the most popular tools used by entrepreneurs and all types of digital professionals. It is cloud storage and file synchronization, meaning you can use it to store all of your data and easily access your files using any of your devices. DropBox also helps you to share files with others and even work collaboratively on the documents stored in your DropBox cloud drive. It makes managing your files convenient and safe. You can use it to store your files and other important documents without the need for expensive and easy-to-lose memory storage devices, such as external hard drives and USB sticks. A free account can give you up to 2GB of storage space.
4. Hootsuite
This is an online social media management and scheduling tool relied on by bloggers and entrepreneurs. This platform enables you to keep track of all your social media accounts in one place. You can schedule posts for up to three social media platforms on free accounts. As social media mavens will tell you, there are optimal times for posting online in order to engage your users, making this application a game changer. Especially if you’re a nationwide or worldwide business, manually posting at the right times, across all of your social media platforms, can be a nuisance at best or, at worst, nearly impossible. Hootsuite is a great business technology tool for achieving better social media engagement and saving time.
5. MailChimp
The email marketing approach continues to be one of the most formidable ways to promote online businesses. If you are an entrepreneur, you need an email and marketing management system, and MailChimp is one of the most trusted. This tech tool offers robust reporting so you can get statistics and analytics on your email campaigns. You can also use it to test user engagement and make tweaks where necessary to boost conversions.
6. Sortd
This is a G Suite extension that is another must-have for busy entrepreneurs. It boasts an extensive array of features that help with time management. You can organize tasks in the form of check boxes that you can tick whenever you complete them. You can also use this extension to organize your emails, adding notes to emails reminding you to follow-up or create ancillary tasks.
7. Pomodoro Timer
The Pomodoro technique is recognized as one of the most successful ways to increase productivity. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Pomodoro timers are business tech tools that you can find as smart phone applications or websites that set your Pomodoro schedule – timing your intervals and reminding you to take breaks. By using a timer, you can accomplish a large number of tasks over a short period. It also helps to combat burnout.
8. Control4
Control4 is an automation system that is designed to manage daily work and save time. It enables you to handle the little maintenance issues involved in managing an office space. For example, you can use it to control the settings on your office lighting, security system, and thermostat. You can do all of these through the app for added convenience.
9. Trello
If you manage a team of professionals who work for your business, Trello is a handy tech tool to use. You can create numerous Trello boards to categorize project tasks and ideas. You can even use it to brainstorm ideas among the members of a team. It is a great tool for cataloging new ideas, prioritizing team tasks, and giving companywide visibility into the projects each team is working on.
10. Asana
Another excellent organizational business tech tool is Asana. You can use it to track, manage, and organize the workflow within your company. This is especially beneficial when you run a remote company, as you can check in on what each team member is working on. Each project can be designated with a due date to keep everyone apprised.
11. Buffer
Another excellent tech tool (that can be an alternative to Hootsuite) is Buffer. It is a must for entrepreneurs who want to maintain an active social media presence. As an entrepreneur, you don’t have the luxury to update your social media on a daily basis since it is too time-consuming. Buffer solves this problem by allowing you to schedule your social media posts in one place.
best tools for startups
Communication tools that startups often use include instant messaging and video conferencing tools. Instant chat tools are great for quick updates and small questions but for more complex issues, jumping on a video call is often a more effective way. Video conferencing tools are also very useful in conducting client meetings when the use base of your startup is global.
Slack
Slack is our favorite tool for instant messaging. Using Slack, you can create channels to group discussions on different topics. Slack offers an extensive Slack App Directory where you can easily connect Slack with tools that your startup already use in your daily workflow or add extra functions to help you use Slack in a more productivity way. The free plan pretty much covers all the things a startup needs, just that the free plan only has limited history and can install up to 10 apps max.
Need more tips on using Slack? Check out our blog posts on Slack tips and tricks.
Pricing: Freemium with plans starting from $6.67/month per user
Zoom
Zoom is one of the most popular web conferencing tools on the market. Using Zoom, you can easily start an online meeting or webinar with good video/audio quality and screen sharing function. One handy feature of Zoom is that you cna create recurring meetings with the same URL, which is very useful for hosting internal team meetings for your startup.
The free plan covers the basic needs that you need to do a video call. But group calls are limited to 40 minutes for the free plan.
Need more tips on using Zoom? Check out our blog post How to use Zoom: 15+ Zoom tips and tricks.
Pricing: Freemium with plans starting from $14.99/month per host
Google Meet
If you are looking for a completely free option for video call, Google Meet is a great choice as well. Using Google Meet, you can safely create and join high-quality video meetings for groups of up to 250 people. You can also view and present in live-streamed events that include up to 100,000 in-domain viewers
Pricing: Free
#2 Best project management startup tools
Using a project management tool to organize and track progresses of projects and tasks is very helpful to enhance the productivity of your startup because at the early stages, when you are still trying to find product market fit, it’s likely that there can be numerous changes to your priorities and task arrangements. Without a right tool, things can get very messy and your teammates may find it hard to keep track of what needs to be done and the progress.
Trello
Trello is a Kanban-style list making tools that are helpful in project or task management. You can create boards, lists, and cards with labels, checklists and due dates to organize your team’s projects and tasks and simply drag and drop them to track progresses. There are also a lot of Power-ups (essentially apps for Trello) that you can add to Trello to supercharge its already amazing functions.
The free plan is adequate for most small startup needs but is limited to 10 team boards and 1 Power-Up per board.
Pricing: Freemium with plans starting from $9.99 per user per month
Asana
Asana is another very popular project management tools among startups. Using Asana, you can organize your projects and tasks in one shared space and switch between list, kanban board and calendar views easily.
Its free plan covers most small startups’ needs and can have up to 15 teammates.
Pricing: Freemium with plans starting from $10.99 per user per month
Conclusion
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