‘Work smart, not hard.’ There are plenty of websites and software tools that will make your life as a founder easier. To help with team and task management with the aim of making your business more efficient.
Depending on your startup, here are some of the available tools that will help your business strive, from task management, team communication, tools to help create your brand, and social media management software.
Administrative Software
First and foremost, when setting up a company you need basic administrative software to conduct your business, from using email to communicate with clients or excel to track business finances.
The most popular administration softwares are Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, which provide a suite of apps and tools to help your startup achieve higher productivity. Both suites have the same or similar tools inclusive of email, Word, PowerPoint, or Excel.
Administrative software is mostly cloud-based, meaning you can access it anywhere, without the need to download it to a compatible device. This allows for greater collaboration across team members especially if colleagues work remotely. For a startup, there are also different license levels that can be purchased so the software can scale with your business needs.
Cloud-Based Storage
As a startup, even if it means you’re the only member of the business, you still don’t want to waste precious time finding documents and re-downloading files. Setting up good cloud-based storage or a server is an essential task to apply to your startup. It ensures that all files are saved correctly and as your team grows all documents and files are already available to use, so your team can access them on the go. Overall, it saves so much time and ensures a fully collaborative approach across teams.
Cloud-based storage includes Google Drive, Amazon web servers (AWS), Dropbox for Business, and Microsoft OneDrive.
Communication Softwares
Internal communication is an important way to collaborate with teams without clogging up your inbox, especially now with the work-from-home culture.
Communication software, such as Slack, allows users to chat, send voice notes, and send files without losing quality, in addition to video and audio calls. Other communication software includes Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, and Twilio.
Project Management
A project management tool is a great way to keep on top of tasks and projects. There are plenty of adaptive software tools available too, such as Monday, Basecamp, Trello, or Asana.
Using these types of software allows you to create and manage project to-do lists and support task management between team members. With one click, you can assign tasks with deadlines to colleagues, and everyone on the project can update their progress and status of tasks easily.
Graphic Design
If you’re starting a business, there’s sometimes a need for creating design collateral, whether it’s designing a business logo or developing social media assets to promote your product or service.
A favorite platform on the market is Canva, which has become a game-changer for startups. Canva is a website and app that allows you to design anything you need without having a design background. You can design social media posts, logos, business cards, videos, and custom prints, all from ready-made templates, making it easy to use.
There’s also a free option available, meaning you can save money on design resources, as you won’t have to outsource your creative project to designers.
Social Media
Social media has become a central element to most businesses, whether it's to promote products or engage with potential customers. So, finding software and tools to help you with this could prove invaluable.
Social media management tools such as Sprout, Sprinklr, or Hootsuite can help you easily schedule your social media posts at the right time to the right audience to maximize reach. They can also show you the best hashtags to use to reach a wider audience, but bear in mind that there are costs to using these tools.
A free equivalent is Meta’s Creator Studio, although this only deals with Instagram & Facebook. But, it is a great way to schedule across platforms, and also allows you to track audience insights to optimize your content.
ECRM
Creating an eCRM program is a great way to convert consumers from your database and showcase your products or offered services. Mailchimp is one of the go-to platforms to send newsletters as it has ready-made templates to create newsletters and allows you to schedule and send them at your preferred time. After sending the newsletter, you can keep track of the insights and the numbers to know which newsletters performed well.
Ecommerce
If you have a product you want to sell online, then getting the most suitable eCommerce platform is key to success.
Zid is a Saudi-based start-up that helps expand e-commerce platforms, and If you want to sell something online, Zid can help you do it easily and professionally. You can also make use of other eCommerce platforms, such as Shopify, Kinsta, and Zoho.
Financial Software
Financial tracking is fundamental to any business, and utilizing the right financial software can help you manage your accounts, support payroll, bill clients, or invoice customers.
There are a lot of financial software tools on the market, some providing full service, while others just look at a particular element of the commercial chain.
A Saudi-based startup, Penny, is a cloud-based Procure-To-Pay system, which “helps you digitize and manage your full procurement cycle from request to approval. Manage RFQs to vendors, compare quotations, send POs, and even payments. penny was designed to make things easy and consolidate all of your organization’s spending needs into one intelligent system.”
Other accounting software commonly used are Quickbooks, Sage Cloud, and Zoho.
Every business has different needs, therefore requires different software. Here we’ve identified some software tools that can help you save money, time, and effort, and help you become more efficient, increasing your productivity as an individual and as a team. So, for your startup, it’s time to put these tools in place and start building your business for success.
