Starting an online business isn’t considered cheap as some parts of it might require a financial investment as well as your expensive time. On top of that, depending on the type of the business, you might have to acquire certain resources to succeed. For example, if you’re thinking of establishing an online clothing store, while it’s relatively cheap, it will still cost you money to handle payment gateways.
When I was starting my own business, I didn’t have a lot in my bank account. To be precise, I had saved up $87.50 as my first investment towards my own business. You don’t have to have hundreds of dollars to begin with if you spend the money wisely. Automating some tasks can increase productivity and eventually, you will have more time to do more important jobs.
Here are ten tools I used to start my own business, and recommend you start with them too:
1. Combin
In the beginning, I didn’t know much about social media platforms for businesses. All I knew was that it was important even for a company to have a wealthy follower circle, post frequently, and engage with their followers. Combin helped me get real Instagram followers, manage multiple accounts, and reach accurately targeted audiences. You can get started for free, and once your business blooms, then move to a paid plan with even more benefits.
2. Pcloud
I remember having to handle a lot of presentations, files, photos, and other documents with no space on my laptop. All of them needed to be shared and worked on collaboratively, so I needed a solution to manage all of that while maintaining my laptop clutter-free. I came across pcloud.com. It’s a free file storage in the cloud, with 20GB of space, multiple layers of security and manageable on any device at any time. It is perfect if you have the same problem – lot’s of files and no space on your computer.
3. Integromat
As it says on their main page, it’s “the glue of the internet.” And it really is. It’s a tool dedicated to cloud workflow automation, and it helps you perform multiple tasks, across multiple apps and platforms, 24/7. All you need to do is set the scenarios for you task automation and watch it happen. It also quickly transforms and transfers data across all of the platforms.
4. Maxtraffic
When I started my business, I didn’t know much about marketing. Web push notifications helped me to automate part of my past visitor outreach routine, gain more traffic to my website, and retain customers. The tool sends notifications to the visitors of the website even when they are not on it, gently asks them to sign up to the newsletter by popping up a window before they leave, and lets you choose the audience you want to target. It’s perfect for beginners and advanced marketers.
5. InvoiceNinja
Invoicing and payment handling is a huge part of any business. This invoice tool helps you automate these processes. You can generate customized invoices with your brand’s logo, create tasks and projects, track time spent on a job and transfer data onto the invoice with only a few clicks. Also, if you’re in the hospitality business, for example, you can accept partial payments and deposits with this tool.
6. Focused collection
I’m not sure if there’s a better website for sourcing pictures than focused. It’s better than any other stock photo website that I know, as it provides tons of exceptional images by real artists. The aim of this platforms is to pair businesses with the artists. You can browse the pictures by keyword or by the artist. Photos can be used in various presentations, blog posts, and even on your website.
7. Word Counter
Word counter is a tool to help you keep track of your word count, length of the meta descriptions of your website, and even your social media posts. It helped me a lot when I was writing blog posts on my website. The dashboard on the right provides real-time statistics of your text so that you can focus on the writing.
8. Magic Password
Having many different WordPress accounts, logins and passwords can be really frustrating as you can never remember which password is for which account. This WordPress Security Plugin was my savior. Now, I don’t even know half of my passwords, as the plugin generates them automatically for each new account I create. It’s synced with my phone so that I can use it anytime, anywhere.
9. Omnisend
This ecommerce marketing automation tool assisted me since the very beginning. With it, I have successfully built relationships and retained my customers. It helped me to create engaging and converting landing pages, automate order confirmation emails, and follow-up with every order made on my shop. It’s straightforward to use and integrate on many of ecommerce platforms.
10. Salesmate
Once the business gets going, you don’t want to stop. To help you focus more on customer acquisition, you will need to automate certain processes and get accurate insights on the performance of the sales pipeline. Salesmate enabled me to do just that. I used it to manage my client list, automate most of the sales tasks, and improve my email productivity. You can also integrate it with other apps or software you use.
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