Article Note: This article “18 Smart Tools to Help You Solve Your Startup Problems” was first published on 11th December 2019. We last updated this article on 3rd October 2022 with fresh information.
There is a little difference between an obstacle and an opportunity, those who understand the difference can turn both to their advantage. It’s an all-to-familiar for a business, especially a startup. Every startup founder knows from the start that there will be obstacles, both anticipated and unanticipated. Sadly, many may not even know how to respond.
According to startup stats, on average, there are over 50 million new startups launching every year — but barely half of them survive the challenges that have changed the very nature of today’s business world.
This is where technology comes in. Yes, startups struggle. And there are no exceptions. But there is a myriad of tools and apps that can be used to overcome the challenges that any startup face today. All businesses, in general as well as startup businesses, have to do is find the tools that will enable them to be more efficient and match their specified budget and skillsets.
In this particular post, we are going to talk about some of the smartest startup tools that really fit well with the world of startups. These are basically the tools that startup businesses could use to anticipate, overcome problems and attain the degree of success they have hoped for.
Small startup businesses can record positive growth in terms of revenue and size if they leverage affordable online tools that increase productivity. The following tools and resources are a stepping stone to startup success, and for those aspiring to join the highest valued unicorns category in the near future.
MailChimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that specifically focuses on getting the word out with email, social ads, landing pages, and effective CRM. With the MailChimp tool, startups can create branded emails with their easy-to-use email builder and engage better with their audience.
“The main benefit is that we can make our emails look a lot better than the technical expertise that we have.” – Nick Sapia, the chief digital officer of Alps & Meters.
MailChimp lets you get started for $0. Furthermore, it offers a range of flexible pricing plans, including a Standard plan that starts at $14.99 per month and an Essential plan that starts at $9.99 per month.
Moz is a SaaS-based SEO and marketing analytics software. Startups can use this tool to get key SEO insights, improve search engine ranking, convert more traffic, and drive measurable results.
“Moz Pro gives us the data we need to justify our projects and strategies. It helps us track the ROI of our efforts and brings significant transparency to our industry.” – Jason Nurmi, the Marketing Manager of Zillow.
Moz Pro comes with a 30-day free trial. For more pricing details, get a quote from the vendor.
Zoho CRM is an award-winning CRM solution designed to help businesses grow your business faster and close more deals in less time. The software provides multichannel support that enables businesses to connect and communicate with target customers via phone, email, live chat, social media, and other channels. With the Zoho CRM tool, a startup gets a 360-degree view of their business and boosts their lead-to-deal conversation ratio.
“From using spreadsheets to Zoho CRM, we have managed to capture data in a more versatile way and has also minimized our sales cycle.” – Sreeparna Roy, the Business Marketing & Strategy Manager.
Zoho CRM comes with a 15-day free trial. Additionally, Zoho CRM offers 5 paid plans. The most popular plans are the Enterprise plan starting at $35/user/month and Ultimate Edition starting at $100/user/month. (billed annually).
Amberscript offers automatic transcription of audio and videos through the speech recognition feature that saves time. The fast, accurate, and secure app accommodates 35 International languages.
“Amberscript offers their service cheaper than the competitors, thanks to a largely automated process. Besides, the customer service is great. Usually, everything runs so smoothly that I don’t even notice anything during the whole process.” – Jochen Hummel, Executive at the Grundi Institute
A ten minutes free trial is available for their Pre-paid, Subscription, or Manual transcription options. Their Pre-paid deal goes for $8 for 1 hour of uploaded audio or video.
Zendesk is a customer support ticket system and support platform that makes engaging with customers easy and efficient. Startups can use the tool Zendesk chat, formerly known as Zopim, to reach out to customers and provide faster, efficient support via the web, mobile, and messaging. With Zendesk, your customers are 3X more likely to make a purchase and 5X more satisfied.
“Live chat lets agents handle multiple chats at once, so the wait time is reduced and customers have a better experience.” – Jorge Vernetta, the Global Operations Manager of Foodpanda.
Zendesk comes with an initial free trial. The Zendesk Suite is available for $89 per agent per month. And Zendesk Chat is available for $59 per agent per month (billed annually).
QuickBooks is a cloud accounting software designed to help professionals and small businesses manage their sales and keep track of their daily transactions. With the QuickBooks tool, a startup can keep all its accounting data organized in the cloud. You can track every sales and expense, create GST reports, and manage invoices without the need for creating excel or google sheets.
“QuickBooks is the perfect online accounting solution, in terms of features and cost, that every growing startup needs.” – Sharat Khurana, the Hiring & Recruitment Solutions of Belong.co.
QuickBooks comes with a 30-day free trial. Additionally, QuickBooks Subscription starts at $25 per month.
Evernote allows startup teams to organize their notes and access them from their devices anywhere they go. It makes project planning easy and keeps materials like emails, and PDFs in a single place.
“Evernote is a powerful tool that can help executives, entrepreneurs, and creative people capture and arrange their ideas. All you have to do is use it.” – Forbes.
Evernote has three plans for individuals and teams that include, free, personal, and professional. The personal plan goes for $7.99 per month.
Calendly is a game-changer tool that allows startups to schedule meetings and appointments promptly with their customers. The tool facilitates meeting scheduling depending on the availability of parties involved. By doing this, startups can increase sales and retain clients.
“Calendly has increased meetings with customers by 216% for our Vonage team.” – Chris Williams, Head of Customer Success UK/EMEA.
Calendly has a free plan that startups can always upgrade to enjoy more features. The paid plans can be billed monthly or annually.
ProofHub is an all-in-one project planning software designed to help teams easily plan, collaborate, organize and deliver projects of all sizes. With the ProofHub tool, startup owners and project managers can have ultimate control over how work is being done. And for the teams, ProofHub makes meeting deadlines and being productive super easy.
“ProofHub has unified all our communications, brought our internal teams together, and made everyone accountable for their time in order to work smarter.” – Matt Cooper.
ProofHub comes with an initial 30-day free trial. Plus, it offers two simple pricing plans (no contracts, no per-user fee), including the Essential plan available for $45 per month (billed annually for unlimited users and the Ultimate Control plan available for $89 per month (billed annually) for unlimited projects and unlimited users.
Woopra is a real-time customer analytics solution that helps organizations to boost leads and sales by optimizing the customer life cycle. With the tool Woopra, startups can connect with customers like never before. They can make smarter, data-driven decisions about their customer journey.
“The biggest problem was that we didn’t know what our customers were doing. Woopra made information immediately available for us to find answers to specific questions, map out the customer journey, and act as the baseline for our customer data.” – Scott Smith, VP Sales, CloudApp.
Woopra offers a Core plan that starts at $0 per month (it’s a perfect plan to get started). Additionally, Woopra offers a Pro plan that starts at $999 per month and an Enterprise plan that can be customized as per your needs.
Meetings by Dialpad is a modern cloud communications platform that lets you have better meetings and conversations via voice, video, and messaging. With the Dialpad Meetings tool, startups can reap the benefit of AI-powered video/voice conferencing. Furthermore, they can integrate seamlessly with the apps they use every day and stay productive.
“We’re excited to work with innovative companies like Dialpad Meetings to drive businesses’ productivity and make the conference calling experience more collaborative.” – Chris Yeh, VP of Box.
Dialpad Meetings is available for $0 per user per month (up to 10 participants). Additionally, it offers a business plan that starts at $15 per user per month (up to 100 participants).
Social Champ is a to-go-to social media management software for startups looking to organize their social profiles under one tab. It comes with automation features and integrations that make it easy to schedule and share content in multiple accounts simultaneously.
“Hands down the number one thing I like the most about Social Champ is their integration with GMB, I can easily add and schedule Google My Business posts. Not many software companies are offering this type of feature.” – Josh Bernthold, Agency Owner, The Hotshot Group.
Social Champ has a free plan for startups who cannot enroll in their premium plans immediately, although it is limited to only three social media platforms. Their paid Champion and Business plans have a 7-day free trial. Champion subscription starts at $26 per month, covering 12 social media accounts.
Zuant tool has made the lead generation process for most startups effortless by allowing them to capture information about qualified leads. The tool is resourceful for event teams, marketing and sales managers, and CRM teams. Startups can easily upload data and generate reports on request.
“It’s fabulous to upload information really quickly and then allows me to generate any type of sample requests…It’s easy to access, instead of taking a bunch of information down it automatically loads.” – Mike Freeman, SR. Regional Director of Sales, Ergodyne.
Zuant has a base plan that starts at $380 per month for 20 users.
Tech startups can rely on With Content for help in delivering quality, optimized, and relatable content that wins and retains customers. Their strategy involves generating editorial and visual content that tech companies can use to thrive in the market. Through their team, With Content has helped many startups achieve their content marketing goals.
“Thanks to With Content, the depth and breadth of our thought leadership have thrilled members, partners, and everyone across our alliance. If you work with them, you get not only a well-rounded team that is intelligent, patient, and flexible but also a true partner who you can bounce off ideas and seek guidance on what they do best in delivering great B2B content.” – Ellyne Phneah, Brand & Communications Manager, Bridge Alliance.
Content offers 3 flexible pricing options which are Starter, Pro, and Enterprise.
Startups can comfortably observe their competitor’s activities using Competitor’s App. By doing this, startups can stay ahead of the competition by making significant changes based on their counterpart’s data.
“I spend 5 minutes weekly reading the reports about my competition, and I get updated with all the websites, social media, and keyword changes by them. What a solution! I’d recommend everyone to get it. This app is the best in the market.” – Aazar Ali Shad, CEO of Ecomply.io.
Competitors App pricing is affordable for small businesses and has an option of a free trial that doesn’t require a credit card. Their monthly paid plan of $9.90 has several features.
Gusto platform allows startups to manage payrolls, benefits, insurance, calculate and file taxes, including onboarding and managing talent. The software automates the time and attendance of employees and provides insights that simplify decision-making.
“Gusto has literally changed how I do business. Onboarding and self-management for staff are super easy now. Running payroll is a snap, too.” – Brian Briskman, CEO, B2 Creative Studios, Inc.
Gusto has Simple, Plus, and Premium plans with listed features. Simple is the most affordable plan at a monthly rate of $40 plus $6/month per person. The Plus plan comes at $80/month plus $12/month per person.
Hippo Video is a powerful tool used by startups to communicate through videos hence converting leads and increasing revenue. Video engagement works all the time in building customer trust and Hippo Video allows users to customize visual messages and share them with prospects on social media and other channels.
“Hippo Video is the best video platform for sales. Ease of use and distribution to social media.” – Rob K, CEO, Kurz Solutions.
Hippo Video has four different affordable plans for their users that include Sales, Marketing, Support, and Team Communication. All the plans have 7-day free trials that do not require a credit card.
Crash Plan is a cloud-based backup software helping startups to restore lost data following hard drive failure, theft, fire, or malware attacks. The easy-to-navigate tool also accommodates large amounts of data.
“I’m happy with CrashPlan for Small Business because it always works, I’m notified if it does not backup on schedule, recovery works as advertised, and the support staff is very helpful.” – Bill Kormoski, Owner Kormoski & Associates LLC Mount Juliet, Tennessee.
CrashPlan for small businesses bills $9.99 monthly for every device.
So, there you go; this is the list of tools and apps that every startup should consider using in 2022 (and beyond) to get successful.
The above tools can help small enterprises to accomplish financial goals and grow exponentially. There is no limit to the number of tools a startup business can use to meet its everyday goals. Besides some tools being entirely free, startup businesses can use free trials from paid tools to decide whether to proceed with a subscription.
What do you think? What else do you think contributes to the success of a startup? Also, if you believe we have missed some tools that would have helped to make a startup successful, tell us about them in the comments below. We’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!
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Web Developer & SEO Specialist with 15+ years of experience in Open Source Web Development specialized in Joomla & WordPress development. He is also the moderator of this blog “RS Web Solutions”.
Great tools create great results, indeed! Thanks for the insights, we love this kind of article in our team.
Thank you! 🙂
HERO
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