Startups are a team effort. In order to get your business off the ground, you’ll need to recruit talented employees and partners who can help you achieve your goals.
But how do you find these people? And how do you make sure they’re the right fit for your company?
That’s where we come in. We’ve compiled a list of resources that will help you find the right people for your startup, no matter what stage it’s at or what role they’ll be filling.
Startup Resources For Entrepreneurs
1. Global Accelerator Network
Gan.co, or GAN, is an incredible resource for startups comprised of more than 70 accelerators across six continents and 100 cities. GAN offers a way for startups to benefit from short-term, mentorship-based programs that help them launch in a smart, strategic way.
Started in 2010 by two co-founders of TechStars, this network has helped 3,300 companies complete their GAN program as well as raise more than $4 billion across the globe to fuel these companies and create nearly 22,000 new jobs. Startups enjoy access to best practices, industry data, discounts and perks, consulting, investors, peers and mentors.
2. Startup Grind
Billed as one of the largest startup communities in the world, Startup Grind brings together more than 400,000 entrepreneurs in 85 countries and 200 cities. The community offers a network of resources, which include events, partnerships with organizations like Google for Entrepreneurs and media opportunities. There are also local community events that help entrepreneurs meet up with others for face-to-face assistance and connection.
That assistance includes ways to reach out to talent, innovators, investors and educators. Startup Grind started in 2010 in Silicon Valley and has grown, to offer online and offline opportunities for tapping into some very important resources and opportunities for funding.
3. Young Entrepreneur’s Council
Young Entrepreneur Council, created by entrepreneurs is an application-only resource that offers startups considerable support and resources. For marketing, YEC offers a free website, numerous opportunities for media exposure, tools for brand-building and invitations to special events and conferences.
As a resource, YEC has knowledge-sharing, networking and professional development opportunities. Other perks include affordable healthcare options, a travel agency and discounts for co-working spaces all over the country.
4. Coursera
If you’re looking for a convenient, affordable way to expand your own knowledge and skill set as well as that of anyone you hire, Coursera will connect you to the world’s universities and their best online courses. There are numerous specialties available, including machine learning, Python, data science and a wide range of other very relevant topics and courses to assist today’s startup founders.
Prices range from $25 to $99, making this a very affordable way to expand knowledge and skills within a typical startup founder’s budget. Online degrees and certifications are also available, depending on what you are looking to achieve.
5. Strategyzer
Strategyzer offers a tool called Business Model Canvas, which helps users to create, on one page, a business model that helps direct their startup journey. The company also offers other resources, like the Value Proposition Canvas and other tools businesses can use to improve their strategic management processes and overall direction when they’re not sure where they are going or how to get there.
6. Udemy
Similar to Coursera, Udemy is another excellent resource for learning about all types of subjects and acquiring the necessary skills so businesses do not have to invest their lean funding in additional staff to handle those projects. This global marketplace of learning offers more than 42,000 courses and a network of more than 14 million students. Numerous certifications are also available.
7. Userinput
Sometimes it’s difficult to know if your website, app or idea really has enough traction to go the distance and become a full-fledged business. So Userinput.io helps startups get honest feedback from users willling to provide their opinions. The benefits for the businesses are a very affordable way to get reviews and input from selected reviewers. The feedback comes quickly and offers constructive criticism to make the necessary improvements to increase a startup’s chances at success.
8. EdX
While similar to some of the other educational resources on this list, edX offers free courses which are especially attactive for startup founders facing a very limited budget. Those courses’ major benefit: They’re from prestigious universities like Harvard, MIT and the niversity of California — Berkeley. The organization also has business partnerships with universities, professors and industry experts all over the world and features a global community that facilitates connections among entrepreneurs.
9. Growthority
Growthority is a growth-hacking service that helps startups by taking over the early stages of growth for them. It’s akin to an outsourcing service for growth, where startups have a team that can handle online marketing and technical skills as well as provide other knowledge necessary to help build the busines into something larger, with the traction needed to continue the momentum.
10. Clarity
Clarity is an organization geared to providing access to mentors and experts that can help entrepreneurs in specific areas. Users can browse for experts by topics such as business strategy, marketing, social media, strategic planning, SEO and business development, to name a few. Users then select their expert and connect directly with them to get answers and advice. This is a great way to tap directly into an area founders are unfamiliar with, to get the assistance needed, rather than hire someone full time to do the same thing.
In 2017, be sure to leverage these free and low-cost startup resources; most are available on users’ preferred time-zone schedule and platform. In return, users can obtain the necessary advice and support to build up their startups to the point where these businesses have a life of their own, and founders have the knowledge and savvy to operate them.
best software for startups
1 Startup Ideation Tools
It’s a fact that the first step is always the toughest. The ideation phase of any startup is crucial but once you know what industry you wish to work with, and what type of product you’re going to sell, things get clear, and with the assistance of the following startup tools, you will have a clearer direction of how to proceed further.
- Squad Help
Squadhelp Startup tool
Squad Help assists you in finding an ideal name for your business. However, they do not limit their services to just business names. Instead, it also assists in finding the perfect name for your app, book, product or service, etc.
You can start a naming competition and engage thousands of experts as you’re guided through their agency-level naming process. You can also explore their hand-picked compilation of premium names that are available for immediate purchase.
Pricing: For as low as $199 per contest.
- Clarity
Clarity.fm for startup
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a fresh entrepreneur or an experienced businessman. Every entrepreneur needs actionable advice at one point or the other during their entrepreneurial journey. Clarity ensures ambitious entrepreneurs receive valuable pieces of advice from industry experts.
It helps you connect with industry leaders from all across the globe. These Clarity experts can help you overcome any challenge that you might be facing at any stage of your entrepreneurial journey. Whether it’s scaling your business, raising funds, researching market trends, or sharpening your skills, this tool for entrepreneurs has got you covered with the best business advice.
Pricing: For as low as $1 per minute on phone calls.
Get Your Basics Right
Select the Best Hosting Platform for Your Startup
- Germ.io
Germio tool
This tool for startup helps you better manage your business concepts and ideas. You will never lose the big picture of your startup idea with this resource. You can validate your concepts and share your vision by flaunting your big picture.
Germ.io helps you evolve your business idea by providing the ‘next steps’. Consequently, you will be able to shape up your business idea with ease. It lets you create actionable strategies by helping you with your how’s, what’s and why’s.
Pricing: Free version available
- Mindmeister
MindMeister for startups
This web-based mind-mapping tool lets you collaborate and brainstorm with experts in real-time. Besides ideation and project planning, you can use this startup tool for creating presentations. Mindmeister allows you to turn mind-maps into dynamic slideshows.
Moreover, it integrates with MeisterTask – a task management tool – allowing you to turn your ideas into actionable tasks.
Pricing:
Basic: Free
Personal: $4.99
Pro: $8.25
Business: $12.49
- Javelin
Javelin for ideation
To keep it simple, this is a one-stop solution for lean startups when it comes to customer development. A platform for innovators, Javelin can help you identify customer needs and validate new products. You can measure your product’s market fit with the assistance of their pre-designed surveys. It allows you to save time as the speed of workflow increases.
Pricing: Free to Signup
2 Startup MVP Tools
For entrepreneurs who create web or mobile apps, it is significant to understand how their Minimum Value Product (MVP) affects their business. It also helps you experiment with your ideas in your preferred industry or market, before you complete your product. There are three MVP tools for startups worth highlighting. They include:
- Just In Mind
Javelin tools
Here’s one amongst the best startup tools that’s an all-in-one prototyping solution for web and mobile apps. From wireframes to highly interactive prototypes, Just In Mind has it all. You can apply design fully-interactive prototypes from scratch and bring them to life with a click.
It offers a complete range of web interactions and mobile gestures so that you can concentrate on building a delightful user experience. You can create wireframes that adapt to multiple screen resolutions for desktop as well as mobile devices.
Pricing:
Professional $19/month (Billed Annually)
Enterprise $39/month (Billed Annually)
- Balsamiq
balsamiq startup tool
Their mission is to rid the world of bad user interface and help people to build websites and software that are easy to use. Balsamiq is a low-fidelity wireframing software accessible to entrepreneurs, managers, analysts, developers, agencies and anyone who’s into UX.
They provide extensive docs, assist in improving the software with the latest releases and provide support through multiple channels. You can find beginner-to-expert level tutorials and documentation on their support page for your convenience.
Pricing:
2 projects $9 per month or $90 per year
20 projects $49 per month or $490 per year
200 projects $199 per month or $1990 per year
3 Startup Launch Tools
Launching a startup is never easy. From its ideation to execution, there are multiple factors that play a significant role in determining a successful launch. Nonetheless, there are multiple tried and tested startup tools that can help you launch your startup successfully. They include:
- Product Hunt
Product Hunt tools
This is the ideal go-to launch platform for startups. Product Hunt showcases amazing new products every day. It’s a brilliant platform for product-loving enthusiasts. They can share, discuss and geek about all the new products, websites, mobile apps, and tech other creations.
It can conveniently assist you to launch your product or more importantly, your startup successfully. The website operates on a system for user comments as well as a voting system which is similar to Reddit. With its pre-existing community of testers who are willing to try out new products, launching your startup had never been easier.
Pricing: Sign up for Free
- Beta List
BetaList tool for startup
Beta List is a pre-launch system that helps your startup gain the traction it needs for a successful launch. The best advantage of this platform is that you can put your startup idea in front of an exceptional community of savvy business enthusiasts, and garner valuable feedback from them.
Beta List has helped over 3,000 startup founders to better understand their customers with the help of qualitative and quantitative research to ensure they are creating the right product for their right audience.
Pricing:
Hobby Free
Startup $129
Funded $299
- Press Kite
Press Kite
The story of your startup lives here! Press Kite allows you to create a press kit for your startup. It’s so convenient that now you don’t have any excuse to not have a press kit ready to send a journalist whenever need be. Your startup can now enjoy the press coverage it needs so that even the masses can see you. A tool worth checking out!
Pricing:
3 Plans (Free, Founder for $9, Startup)
- Cloudways
Cloudways startup
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that offers sustainable growth and lets you focus on growing your business while it takes care of your website hosting. Cloudways provides excellent feature set helping you scale your startup with ease.
Exclusively for Startups: Cloudways offers mentorship, growth tools, and discount on Cloudways platform through the Cloudways Startup Program.
Pricing: For as low as $10 per month
Give Your Startup the Cloudways Edge
With super fast and reliable managed hosting platform you can grow your startup the way you want
4 Startup Marketing Tools
A solid marketing strategy demands a flawless implementation of processes so that startups can get the best bang for their buck. Proper implementation of a startup marketing strategy requires tools to monitor, analyze, and evaluate any marketing campaign. Hence, the following marketing tools for startups are a must-have in order to ensure effective implementation of processes.
- Hootsuite
HootSuite startup tool
Hootsuite is one of the best social media marketing tools for startups which is used across the globe by well-known startups, mainly due to its easy UI and affordable pricing plans.
You can schedule up to 30 posts across any social media platform with its free plan. It will help you to measure the ROI (Return On Investment) of your social media campaign, and keep track of the impact that is being created, all under one umbrella. Moreover, you can also link two RSS feeds and different apps such as MailChimp, YouTube, Dropbox, and other startup tools.
Pricing:
Individual (1 user 3 social media profiles) Free
Professional (1 user 10 social media profiles) $19 per month
Team (3 users 20 social media profiles) $99 per month
Business (5-10 users 35 social media profiles) $599 per month
- MailChimp
Mailchimp logo
Email marketing is a time-tested strategy that has done wonders for many startups. In order to run a successful email marketing campaign, you need an email marketing tool for your startup that is nothing but exemplary. This is where MailChimp comes in – a tool for startups that requires no introduction.
Approximately 205 billion emails were sent in a day during 2015 which means 2.4 million emails in a second. Isn’t this number just mind-boggling? This email marketing tool for startups allows digital marketers to utilize a reliable emailing service to deliver emails directly to any user’s inbox. It’s one of the many highly recommended tools for startups.
Pricing:
Free Plan
Essentials $9.99 per month
Standard $14.99 per month
Premium $299 per month
- Mangools
Mangools
Mangools is a set of five Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools for startups like KWFinder, SerpChecker, SerpWatcher, LinkMiner, and SiteProfiler. It helps startups to create effective SEO workflows.
With Mangools, you can find all the right keywords, analyze the search results in any location, compare yourself with competitors, track your keyword positions and boost them all with powerful backlinks.
Pricing:
Basic $29.90
Premium $39.90
Agency $79.90
- Google Analytics
Google Analytics
Google Analytics helps you to track the traffic coming on to your website. It allows you to identify what’s working and what’s not. When you know what isn’t working, you can fix it to enhance your customer engagement and user experience.
Moreover, it helps you create much better digital marketing campaigns and ultimately, increase your conversion rate. You must use Google Analytics in order to achieve greater results for your startup with continuous evaluation of data and monitoring online marketing strategies.
Pricing: Free as long as you do not exceed 5 million impressions per month.
- Hunter.io
Hunter.io tool for entrepreneurs
Hunter.io assists you in finding business emails within seconds. By simply searching any domain, it will provide you with all the email addresses that are connected to it. With 200+ million email addresses indexed, it’s one of the most powerful tools for finding email addresses in order to connect with the relevant experts for your business.
Pricing:
Free
Starter $49 per month
Growth $99 per month
Pro $199 per month
Enterprise $399 per month
- CallHippo
CallHippo
A powerful Voice-over-Internet-Protocol(VoIP) service provider, CallHippo is a market leader in providing business phone numbers. A great tool for start-ups and mid-sized businesses, CallHippo has a wide array of innovative features that improve sales capabilities and agent performance. It enables managers to monitor calls, track key performance indicators, and provide real-time feedback to increase bottom-line results. With third-party integrations, a user-friendly interface, and high-level customization.
Pricing:
Bronze : $20 Per Month – (For Startups)
Silver : $35 Per Month – (Ideal For Small Team)
Platinum : $55 Per Month – (Preferred For SMB Sales, Support & Marketing Teams)
- SendPulse
Sendpulse
Staying in touch with your customers is probably the most important objective for a startup for it to stay afloat and be successful. Some customers like good old email, others might prefer chatbots or an SMS with a discount coupon. SendPulse is all about multichannel marketing. Offering various lead generation tools and promotional channels like email, SMS, or social media and messenger chatbots, SendPulse has every base covered. There is even a free CRM tool within the platform. The platform is constantly evolving, adding new features. The latest addition is an Instagram chatbot that apart from usual things can react to subscribers’ stories that mention your brand.
Pricing:
There is a free plan for almost all major features on the platform, with certain limitations in the functionality.
Paid plans can be either monthly or with annual payment, usually with a 20% discount.
Paid plans start at around $7 per month depending on the feature.
- WiseStamp
WiseStamp
WiseStamp is a popular email signature management tool that lets businesses run email-based employee advocacy campaigns on autopilot. With WiseStamp, businesses can centrally create one email signature that is automatically synced to the email addresses of all employees in the organization.
WiseStamp works seamlessly across all the popular email clients, including G Suite, Outlook, Mac Mail, and more. The service offers an easy drag-and-drop interface to create beautiful email signatures in minutes.
Pricing:
WiseStamp Pro: $5.80/month billed annually
WiseStamp Teams: $2/user/month billed annually
5 Finance & Fundraising Tools
Focusing on financial balances is crucial for startups. It is important to understand and record where the revenue is coming from, where it is going, and how will the startup perform in the upcoming months.
Investors admire entrepreneurs who incorporate calculated numbers in their pitch deck. However, you cannot do everything with just a pen and paper. You will require one of the following financial startup tools in order to accomplish your goals.
- Foundersuite
Foundersuite
Foundersuite is an amazing tool to raise capital for your startup. It brings structure, speed, and efficiency in fundraising and investor relationships. It offers CRM tool for managing your investor funnel, a searchable venture capitalist database, and an Investor Updater tool that helps in creating monthly progress reports.
It also includes Startup Docs – a comprehensive set of templates and spreadsheets like pitch decks, founders’ agreements; as well as FoundersMarket which is a set of curated deals on popular products.
Pricing:
Basic Free
Silver $44 per month
Gold $62 per month
Agent $150 per month
- Crunchbase
Crunchbase
A leading startup platform for entrepreneurs to explore innovative organizations. It lets you connect with experts and pursue new opportunities together. More than 50 million entrepreneurs, investors, market researchers, and sales professionals trust this tool for startup to make their business decisions. Many startups from all across the world rely on Crunchbase to power their applications.
Crunchbase Pro lets you access any startup, investor, or funding data through their web interface. It offers features like advanced searching, customized lists, personalized alerts, and CSV (Comma-Separated Values) exports. Some big names amongst their customers are Samsung, Honda, Nvidia, Shell, MixPanel and Harvard. It is truly a great tool for entrepreneurs.
Pricing:
Essential Free
Pro $29 per month
Enterprise Custom
- Gust
Gust
If you want to try out startup tools and resources, Gust is an excellent platform to start, grow, or fund your startup. They help entrepreneurs build investable startups with the assistance of mission-critical business tools, powerful performance benchmarks, and trusted fundraising recommendations.
It provides support during every stage of your startup evolution. When it’s time to raise funds for startup, Gust provides you with the best shot at investment. With over 650,000+ startup owners and 80,000+ investing professionals, they’ll connect you to a startup ecosystem unlike any other.
Pricing:
Start $175 per year*
Accelerate $875 per year*
Raise $4,775 per year*
- inDinero
inDinero
It lets you gear up for growth with scalable accounting software and on-demand CFOs (Chief Financial Officers). Their cloud-based solution allows you to scale your startup with the right accounting, tax management, and CFO support whenever you need it.
inDinero combines accounting, taxes, and CFO consultation so that you can enjoy proactive assistance along with real-time visibility of your startup’s performance. You can talk to your on-demand CFO any time you want, access financial data on the cloud, enjoy real-time accounting insights, and maximize your tax savings with ease.
Pricing:
The Basics $310 per month
The Essentials $525 per month
The Next Steps $1300 per month
- Fresh Books
Fresh Books
It is an all-In-one startup invoicing and accounting software solution. Fresh Books makes your startup bookkeeping fast, convenient, and secure. It automates your financial tasks such as organizing expenses, invoicing, tracking payments and following up with the clientele in just a few clicks.
You can view your financial statuses via Profit and Loss Statements (PLS), taxation summaries and expenditure reports. It can categorize the fees of your credit card transactions and provide a summary against all deposits on its dashboard. You can also integrate it with MailChimp, Paypal, Basecamp, and Zenpayroll.
Pricing:
Lite $15 per month
Plus $25 per month
Premium $50 per month
Custom pricing for 500+ billable clients
Conclusion
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