Whenever aspiring entrepreneurs plan to start a business, one of the first things that come to mind is how to keep these costs at a minimum. After all, it is likely that you have a limited budget that you can use to create a startup.
This also explains why one of the first things you can do to start a business is to launch a website. That’s because it is a cost-effective way to promote your products and services.
But whether you want to create your own e-commerce site or a company website, launching a website comes with a cost.
From buying a domain name, installing an SSL certificate, and having a reliable web host, everything comes with a price. Fortunately, there are plenty of startup tools that you can use to minimize your initial expenses.
You can surely find a suitable tool for your startup, from content production and promotion to lead generation and management.
In this post, we will explore 24 of the best tools and resources that startups can use:
Cloudways
This managed cloud hosting provider is tailored for online businesses. That’s because Cloudways is all about simplicity and freedom. It has free SSL certificates, a high-paying affiliate program, unlimited staging sites, IP whitelisting, and more.
This ensures that visitors won’t face slow loading sites and any security issues.
WordPress
Known as one of the best platforms for building websites, WordPress is a popular content management system. In fact, WordPress makes up at least 40% of sites that you find online.
WordPress is also made up of a vast community that contributes to the foundation and strength of the platform. It’s almost used by everyone, from individuals to big businesses.
Squarespace
Are you planning to build a website with e-commerce capabilities? Then Squarespace is probably the suitable choice for you.
This popular e-commerce tool has integrated capabilities for creating online stores. Its design templates are ideal for beauty and fashion brands, influencers, and photographers.
If you plan to showcase your work, this has one of the best website themes. You can also use its e-commerce tools to place subscriptions and digital content on your site.
Canva
This graphic design tool is used to create social media posts, blog graphics, Facebook ads, and a lot more. It features a library of around a million fonts, photos, and icons.
Users can choose a design template or make one from scratch by using its drag and drop features. You’d find that adding, uploading, and creating images is quite an easy task using this tool. A basic account is free.
You can also use additional graphics and photos that freelance designers upload for as low as $1 each.
Shoptimizer
Do you know that every one-second delay in your site can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions? Shoptimizer is a quick WooCommerce theme that’s built upon two main objectives- speed and conversions.
It also features theme options that automatically minify its stylesheet and load the critical SSS. This feature can significantly impact page loading times.
As a result, critical pages in your site loads almost instantly, with a highly responsive theme. It also comes with many features, including the following:
- Distraction-free check-out option
- Trust badges right beside key to action buttons
- “Call me back” option.
If you’re designing your pages, the light Elementor page builder allows you to create beautiful layouts easily. It also comes with several customizable theme options, allowing you to make a branded website.
Bootstrap
Are you searching for an open-source tool kit for your front-end development?
Bootstrap allows you to quickly prototype ideas and create an entire app with HTML, CSS, and JS. You can also access CSS and Javascript design templates, jQuery plugins, and a whole lot more.
Github
This is often the go-to platform of developers who want to keep track of their web development projects. This can also come in handy when building products, as well as managing and reviewing our codes.
Github also allows you to collaborate with your team of coders, allowing us to store various versions of our project. That way, you can work with your team to create better products.
Jenkins
This has an integration platform that allows automated quality assurance tests, software builds, and a lot more. This is what makes Jenkins an excellent startup tool.
It also allows you to automate your tasks, giving you or your engineers and developers the capability to focus on other aspects of your startups.
This tool helps save engineers hours every day by automating builds and QA tests. Moreover, it’s easy to configure and is hosted and managed internally at no cost.
Google Analytics
After you’ve built a website for your startup, the next thing that you should do is to set up Google Analytics. Doing so can help you track and report your site traffic.
Monitoring this information is crucial to know how well your site is doing and whether or not you’re achieving your goals.
Since Google receives almost 3.5 billion search queries daily, it’s vital to know people are finding your site on search results.
Firebase
This excellent app development platform is created on Google’s infrastructure. It also has the essential tools that allow you to build apps to collaborate with your team members.
Also included are apps for authentication, cloud storage, hosting, and real-time database. It enhances the quality of your app with its analytics tools, performance monitoring, and test lab.
Leadpages
Leadpages is an excellent tool for non-developers in creating landing pages, pop-ups, doing alert bars, and so much more.
It also comes with many templates that you can use to reach out to your target audience and collect leads. You can filter the design templates based on their conversion rates and then pick the ones you feel can generate the most conversions.
MailChimp
For you to run a successful email campaign, you need to send emails regularly. However, sending your newsletter one by one can be time-consuming.
This is where email marketing tools such as MailChimp come in.
This tool doesn’t need a lot of introduction in the tech world. MailChimp also comes with a free startup package with all the essential features. Paid services then start at $10 monthly.
Zapier
Zapier gives you access to up to 2,000 different kinds of app integrations. Most of this is on this list.
When you integrate more startup tools, you can decrease duplicate tasks, get new insights, and get more work done in a short period.
Brand Crowd
Your business logo is vital. Logos give that unique brand that your customers will come to recognize. That’s why your logo design should be taking the stage in the startup planning phase.
However, a lot of logos get very little thought and even less budget.
That’s precisely why you should use a logo maker tool such as BrandCrowd. With minimal investment and little time and effort on your end, you can create the perfect logo that will fit your brand. You can easily customize fonts, layouts, and a lot more.
This tool also provides you with thousands of social media design templates that are customizable. If you’re a starting out, then you need to post on social media regularly.
BrandCrowd also has designs that you can easily tweak to fit your brand messaging. It also comes with cool templates that you can easily customize from the colors of your logo. This allows you to have more consistent brand messaging across all platforms.
Semrush
From big e-commerce brands like Amazon to entertainment conglomerates such as Disney, many prominent names trust Semrush, and for a good reason.
This all-in-one marketing tool allows startup owners to do web analytics, keyword research, and competitor research. That way, you can check how your website is performing against your competitors and find marketing opportunities for your startup.
Asana
This excellent project management tool was created to improve workflow on Facebook. Eventually, this tool’s efficiency made it a prominent name among all startup owners worldwide.
This project management software lets users assign tasks, set status and priorities, create log reports, and more. Another great project management system that you can use is Trello.
Wave
Wave is an online accounting tool great for startups and small businesses.
It helps track all your incomes and expenses and helps you with your taxes when the time comes. As a result, this enables you to save a lot of time and effort in these procedures.
You can even create a separate personal account, allowing you to track different passive income sources.
Invoice Berry
This tool lets you create and send invoices with ease. This online invoicing software is specifically designed with small businesses in mind. It enables you to build professional, customized invoices, and help you track your finances, and create reports.
You can also use it to automate and streamline your invoicing workflows, helping you save time to focus on your growing business.
AngelList
This is a platform that every startup should know about. It helps you connect with prospective clients and find freelance professionals who can help build your startup.
Unlike other job portals out there, you don’t need a mediator to connect. It’s also a fantastic platform for investors to look for prospective startups that they’ll be interested in backing financially.
Google Suite
This set of office tools offered by Google is a free alternative to MS Office Suite. It allows startup owners to make and share files, including documents, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.
In addition, you can also do collaborative work with your team as the files are saved online. Hence, you can update a document whenever and wherever you are.
It also features accessibility options that ensure that only selected people can view the files. It also allows one to see what changes are made to the file and the whole edit history.
Hemingway
This online word editor allows you to analyze your content’s readability. It also tells you the changes you need to make to make your content more readable and what sentences need to be fixed.
Another great alternative is Grammarly. It is a web app and browser extension that lets you monitor the grammar and spelling of all the things you write on your browser.
You can also upgrade to Grammarly’s paid version so that it lets you verify whether or not the content is original with its plagiarism checker.
StockSnap.io
Be it on your online store or company website; it is essential to incorporate high-quality images in your content. However, not everyone has the budget to do a production shoot.
This is where stock photo websites, such as StockSnap.io, come in.
This site has all these images, which you can source for free. But if you’re looking for more options, and you don’t mind paying a little bit more, then another great option is Shutterstock.
Xtensio
Xtensio is a fantastic collaboration tool that startups can use to make stunning presentations, reports, and case studies.
It has a drag-and-drop function that allows you to add images and videos without a hitch. You can even resize these, change the backgrounds, and a lot more. Any changes made are saved automatically and synced on all devices for all users.
Furthermore, it also promotes brand consistency since users need to work under a customized dashboard.
Buffer
Once you’ve set up your site to get traffic from ads and PR, one of the following steps that you need to take is to establish a solid social media presence.
Buffer is one of the best social media management tools there. It allows you to schedule and publish to all your social media accounts in one dashboard.
It also helps you discover the right kind of content that you can use to engage your target audience on social media best.
The tools listed above can help you get your startup business off the ground without having to shell out a significant amount. When used wisely, you can automate some of your tasks and streamline your operations until you are ready to scale.
