Are you thinking of starting your own business? Nearly a third of new small businesses begin their journey on less than $5,000 with 77 percent of financing coming from personal funds. Considering that 29 percent of these new startups run out of cash, new entrepreneurs must wisely leverage the right tools while building their customer base. Fortunately, we live in an era where technology enables us to test proof of concept at record speed on minimal costs to streamline business progress. Here are 8 different tools that are essential to bootstrapping a new business in 2020.
1. Website Builder
A web presence is the basic element for Internet advertising. If someone wants to buy a product, they look it up on the web. For this reason, the growth of a company depends largely on its presence here. The essence of your business is exposed through an updated webpage, functional and with a good design. Connecting it with your social networks will stablish a better, more fluid communication with your customers. Consequently, this growth will generate traffic into your site and increase the visibility of your brand.
The best thing about website developers is that they have templates for different areas (in pages such as Wix or WordPress) and there is no need to program complex codes from zero. You just have to choose the one you like the most and add your own text and images.
2. Email Marketing Software
Just like a webpage, Email marketing is a very important way to keep in touch with people interested in your business, with your daily visitors and even with potential customers.
There are plenty of options out there. For instance, Convertkit is an online email marketing platform dedicated to achieve an email presence with clients through massive content sharing (newsletters, products, discounts, etc).
Other alternatives for Convertkit are Mailchimp, MailerLite and Mailify.
3. Resources for Market Research
To guarantee the viability of a company or product it is necessary to carry out a market research. Thanks to digitization, companies have access to a multitude of tools, which optimize work and streamline work processes.
Google Trends is used to monitor the most popular content spoken on the web at any time. It also compares the popularity of two or more terms to determine keywords and appreciate how this data varies by geographic region.
Another example is Statista, a web tool that offers Internet statistics of all kinds. It works through a simple search engine, where you can put the term you are interested in investigating.
4. Cloud Storage
The cloud concept is a relatively modern term. Data storage is one of the most successful cloud services, quickly generating demand in the last 5 years. The possibility of storing files and data virtually means an increase in employee productivity. It also has a low cost for an emerging company.
When choosing a cloud storage service to save, exchange, work or share digital files, companies must take into account elements such as security, management and the ability of users to access and edit these documents.
Dropbox for Business is one of the main Cloud Storage services that delivers a practical modality on its online platform, becoming a friendly program for both small and large companies, who want a more didactic way of saving their private information.
Besides Dropbox, there are other popular platforms worthy to be tested such as Google Drive, Sugar Sync or Egnyte.
5. Social Media Manager
A Social Media presence is necessary these days for any kind of business. If you are in charge of managing your company’s social media pages and you have found that it is starting to take longer than it should, Hootsuite can help you optimize your time. You can program and manage social networks such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter without having to enter on each one of them.
Here is a tip. A good idea to optimize your time is to spend a few hours on a single day of the week to schedule the content that you are going to publish on social networks throughout the week. It will make your life easier!
6. Funnel Builders
The funnel is a metaphor used in marketing that explains the process of converting a simple lead (user potentially interested in the products or services that your business offers) into a customer who, effectively, buys those products or services.
ClickFunnels is a lead generation marketing tool that attempts to provide everything a company needs to market, sell and deliver what they offer. Potential clients enter through the widest side of the funnel, which narrows its neck to its final hole, were only true clients will pass through.
7. Accounting Software
Accounting is basic for companies. Keeping an effective and chronological record of identifiable and quantifiable economic events is essential to know the state of a business. Luckily, there is FreshBooks, a tool that will allow you to keep all kinds of finances in order in an easy and safe way. This software has options to add reminders, spreadsheets, reports and other useful resources for every type of company, regardless of its approach.
8. Information Organizing Software
Organization is crucial for these digital times, especially if you own a company. With Evernote, you will be able to organize your work using the notes file and almost any type of information. It is a notepad that stores personal notes, emails, images or videos. With it, you will be able to manage what is necessary for the organization of your work. In short, you can carry the office on your smartphone.
This list will allow you to solve the current problems that new entrepreneurs face every day. Hopefully, both you and your business will be adapted thanks to the new tools that can be found on the web.
