16 Tools for Esports Organizations
Every organization needs tools and services to help manage different things. Social media, projects, team communication and everything in-between. These tools will be both free and paid. Many of them have free trials at the least.
Many startup organizations and startups require a level of bootstrapping (doing things very cheap if not free). I wanted to share just a handful of the tools I’ve used to get me where I am and that I would love to use more later on.
Printful
Organizations, personalities, and communities need some sort of merchandise. Managing the manufacturing and fulfillment of merchandise can be difficult and expensive. This on-demand printing company can print on over 150 different products from tshirts to leggings.
Printful integrates into shopfiy, amazon, Woo-commerce and several other ecommerce solutions. For startup organizations, I highly recommend this merchandise solution. Printful fulfills orders so all you have to do is manage the web-store and get people to buy your merchandise.
Printful will charge you the cost of manufacturing and shipping(which you can charge the customer), so when a customer orders, you will be required to pay Printful to send the order (its all automatic once setup) and then you keep the profit. Profit will vary depending on your end price. Typically expect $5 to $10 an item, however if you sell more, they offer bulk discounts on a monthly basis.
Asana
Asana changes how teams works by providing project management and team communication. This is one of my favorite project management softwares. Asana gives you the ability to assign tasks to your team members. In addition, asana gives the ability to view the teams calendar and conversations. You can view the calendar on different levels and see how far along projects are.
Trello
Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process. Trello utilizes the ancient kanban project management system
Freedcamp
A cross of asana and trello which allows you to use either kanban or list board to complete tasks. Very similar functionality to the above softwares.
Slack
If you are in the Esports Professionals Network, then you are acquainted with slack. Slack was designed to cut the time of internal emails and improve how fast teams communicate. The free version is great, but the paid version is better. With the paid version, you can break your team into groups (marketing, sponsors, etc.) and actually invite guests into channels. Slack also has a huge range of integrations that allow you to add a bit more of communication to your team. Most of the tools on this list integrate into slack.
Ryver
A competitor of slack, offers a similar set of functionality to its users. It lets you do almost everything slack does for free. Its a great tool as well. Ryver is limited on the integrations that slack offers but is 100% free.
Buffer
Your savior when it comes to managing social media accounts. Link your Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google plus to post together or not. Buffer allows you to queue up to 10 posts (for the free version) that will go out on a your schedule. They also have an RSS feed so you can simply click add to queue or post from your favorite websites.
Tweetdeck
TweetDeck is a social media dashboard application for management of Twitter accounts. Like other Twitter applications it interfaces with the Twitter API to allow users to send and receive tweets and view profiles. With twitter being a forefront of the esports industry, its great to have buffer and tweetdeck ready to go.
Canva
Canva is a bloggers best friend, but also helpful to growing companies that can’t afford a graphic designer. Canva has predetermined sizes so your graphics look the best on all platforms. In addition, their sizes also have amazing templates that can be edited for your use. I’ve been using Canva exclusively with Esports Entrepreneur Since December 2015
I recommend getting the paid version for your brand. The ability to add your brand colors, templates, and specific logos speeds up the process of creating images.
Shopify
An easy solution for getting your first store up and running. Shopify is a low cost solution to building a webstore. Their user friendly dashboard and printful integrations makes them a must use.
Esportsify
Esportsify came into the industry to help build better websites for esports organizations. They have custom and standard templates for you to setup your first website. This is a must for any organization that is looking to create website on a small budget.
WPengine
For those that utilize wordpress to build their websites, then WPengine is a great resources when hosting your wordpress site. You could settle for a cheap server like Bluehost or Godaddy, but WPengine supplies fast loading speeds and security at an affordable monthly cost.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce offers an easy ecommerce solution that integrates with printful. They are able to offer almost everything you need to run a slick looking webstore. If you are going towards wordpress, this is a cheap and easy solution. Consider exploring themeforest.net for woocommerce supported themes
Google Apps
Communication between members and documents is always a struggle. Since most startup esports organizations are setup as virtual companies, its hard to have a localized server. By utilizing cloud based solutions like google apps, you keep your documents in one place for your team to use.
Hemingway
I put Hemingway on here as I struggle with having solid grammar. This tool helps you write easy to read and grammatically correct sentences. Its super easy to use, be sure to check it out.
Mailchimp
Not many organizations utilize email addresses, however, if your a company that is looking to start sending out emails, this is your go to app. Mailchimp provides an easy to use dashboard and integrates into several types of websites to allow easy signups.
All of these tools I’ve used or experimented with at one time or another. If you are looking for more tools, check out growth.supply/free for 400+ free tools for starting businesses.
Updated: 11/20/2019 fixed broken links and fixed formating issues.
I’m affiliated with some of the links in this article and may receive compensation if you sign up for a service.
