Episode A2.010 Tools for Startups

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Introduction
So what are the tools that can be used to market your business?
It does not matter if you are a brick and mortar store or an online business, currently online marketing is what is going to get you the clients. If you haven’t thought of setting a segment online for your products and services it is time to think again. Very few if any of the large retailers are left who are not selling online. 
We will look at some of the tools that are best suited for Startups and also geared towards growth

​Show Objectives

• Marketing Tools & Marketing Research
• Online collaboration Tools
• Productivity Tools
• Customer Relationship & Sales Tools
• Website Tools
• Finance & Accounting Tools
• Best Platforms to create & sell online courses

Key Issues

1. MARKETING TOOLS
   1. Mail Chimp
   2. Active Campaign
   3. Clickfunnels
   4. Ontraport
   5. Postsked: Social media management
   6. GetResponse: Email marketing automation
   7. Google Analytics: Complete website analytics
   8. VWO: A/B testing and conversion optimization
   9. SEMrush: SEO and PPC intelligence suite
   10. Adespresso: Advertisement management
   11. Adroll: Ad retargeting placement

MARKETING RESEARCH

1. 1. Survey Monkey
   2. Survata
   3. Google Forms
2. ONLINE COLLABORATION TOOLS
   1. Slack
   2. Skype
   3. Join.me
   4. Zoom
   5. Google Meet
   6. Microsoft Teams
3. PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS
   1. Calendly.com
   2. Todoist.com
   3. Otter.ai
   4. Canva.com
   5. Emojipedia.com
   6. Bitly.com
   7. Google Drive for Google docs, sheets, calendar, forms and so much more
   8. Evernote
   9. Unsplash.com - royalty free photos
4. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP & SALES TOOLS 
   1. Agorapulse
   2. Hubspot
   3. Pipedrive
   4. Keap
   5. Nimble
   6. Sprout Social
   7. Zoho Social
   8. eClincher
   9. Crystal
   10. Salesforce: CRM focused on sales
   11. Zendesk: Customer support suite
   12. Intercom: Customer messaging platform
   13. Delighted: Surveys and customer feedback
5. BEST WEBSITE TOOLS FOR STARTUPS
   1. Namecheap: Domain registrar and hosting service
   2. GoDaddy.com
   3. Bluehost: Basic hosting service
   4. WP Engine: WordPress hosting service
   5. Liquidweb: Advanced dedicated hosting service
   6. Weebly: Create ecommerce stores
   7. WP Rocket: Caching plugin

BEST WEB HOSTING SERVICES 

1. 1. WPEngine – best for WordPress hosting
   2. Bluehost – best cheap hosting
   3. InMotion – best for speed
   4. Greengeeks – best eco-friendly hosting
   5. LiquidWeb – best for developers
   6. Dreamhost – best for bloggers
   7. Siteground – best alternative to Bluehost
   8. MediaTemple – best alternative to WPEngine
   9. Pagely – best for enterprise WordPress sites
2. BEST FINANCE & ACCOUNTING TOOLS FOR STARTUPS
   1. Quickbooks: Complete accounting and bookkeeping
   2. Xero: Complete accounting and bookkeeping
   3. Expensify: Receipt and expenses management
   4. Gusto: Payroll and benefits management
   5. Stripe: Online payment processing
   6. Recurly: Subscription billing management
   7. Paypal
3. BEST PLATFORMS TO CREATE & SELL ONLINE COURSES
   1. Udemy for launching your first course
   2. Skillshare for teaching creative skills
   3. Teachable for marketing your course
   4. Podia for putting up a digital storefront
   5. Thinkific for building a course from scratch
   6. Kajabi for marketing a course on autopilot
   7. WizIQ for setting up a virtual classroom
   8. Learnworlds for creating an online school

What You Need to Do
For any work flow there are many programs and apps. The idea is to pick ones that you can afford now, which can meet your needs but are also scalable. We have discussed previously about business and marketing planning and that will give you an insight on the level of scalability you need. 

Most of these apps give you a free trial version ranging from 7 to 14 or more days, best is to use that and see your level of comfort and price range. 

Shows
Previous: Episode A2.009 Hiring Talent
Next: Episode A2.011 Culture Creation

Written by Raj Kapur

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