5 Must Have Tools For Startups
“Startups are not a small version of big companies… They are searching for a business model… Not executing it” — Steve Blank
The difference between start-ups and big companies is not the scale. So, scaling down the things doesn’t create a solution for start-ups.
Tools define the way of doing your business. Most of the standard tools would not be a real fit for startups that are fighting for innovation and productivity. Luckily, we have entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Thanks those entrepreneurs we have great products to develop our owns.
General Characteristics of Startup Tools
A start-up tool should comply with startup culture and the business model.
1- Agile: Just as defined in the dictionary. A month is a crucial timeframe for a new startup but it is not necessarily different than the previous one for IBM. Every tool that is being used by startup owners should support agility.
2- No Big Burden: Startup tools should be free of any big burden or overhead. They should avoid complex dependencies, heavy input validations, mandatory but useless inputs and 3rd party integrations.
3- Dedication: To be able to bring agility and avoid the overhead, startup tools should be dedicated to startups. It doesn’t need to be everyone’s tool by addressing everything in the problem space. It should primarily be for entrepreneurs and its workflow should fit without any customization.
4- Good For Small: It should work best at its highest efficiency for smaller teams of less than 10 members. Tools for big companies lose their point for the small as they are designed for larger scales.
Tools Every Entrepreneur Must Have
Formation Phase
In the formation phase, entrepreneur ideates her venture. She defines the problem and her solution, looks for the product/market fit and validates her idea with limited samples. She ends up with the final concept by evolving her idea based on those feedback. She starts creating her first pitch, tunes it with her co-founders and works out a well-defined venture idea. Throughout the formation an entrepreneur has numerous meetings, sends lots of emails and shares documents, keeps on chatting with her friends, potential customers, fellows and so…
prodact.io
To run a healthy formation, you have to use lots of different tools such as brainstorming, Google docs, e-mails, presentations, collaboration tools, polls etc.. You do also have physical activities such as meetings, phone calls. Prodact.io provides a single platform for entrepreneurs that is dedicated to entrepreneurs. You can perform all of those activities on prodact.io while evolving your startup idea together with your team.
Prodact.io is the platform you need throughout the entrepreneurial journey from idea to a product. It does not just help you to shape your startup idea with your cofounders, but also with inviting other contributors such as domain experts, fellows, mentors, potential customers, etc.. to get their input. It has the basic founder tools such as elevator pitch, persona and offers various templates as the guideline for product management.
Prodact.io provides a ready-to-use Trello integration as it’s the tool we recommend for the next stage. While prodact.io is the deck of co-founders to evolve their business idea, Trello is the tool for developers to realize that. By one simple click, you can transfer all of your output from prodact.io as an input to Trello. This provides a smooth transition from the business side to engineering.
Product Development Phase
Since the startups have limited financial power they should spend their money carefully with a validation at every step. To achieve that modern start-ups are using Lean Startup method and they develop minimum viable product with just enough features.
Trello
There are many popular project management tools around. But only Trello has the 4 characteristics above at the same time. This makes Trello unique for entrepreneurs.
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 the in-process items are.
With Trello, you can manage your agile development process. It is the Kanban style that provides easiness and is suitable for Scrum project management. Get your MVP definition from prodact.io, drill down the details of development and have your first MVP!
Growth Phase
In that stage, entrepreneurs’ main job is sales or marketing depending on the business model.
Mailchimp
MailChimp is an easy-to-use marketing automation tool. After onboarding your users you need to encourage them to actively use your product and train to become familiar with it.
MailChimp easily integrates with a good number of other platforms like HubSpot and WordPress. So, you can capture the information on your website and push it to your MailChimp Lists to send future emails.
Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics
Google Analytics is by far the most popular free marketing tool for startups. You will be able to measure the success of your marketing activities.
Pipedrive
You may need sales activities more than marketing based on your business model. There are a lot of CRM tools around. But as said above, startups have different DNAs and behaviors when compared with big companies. Pipedrive is a CRM tool to manage your startup’s sales activities and pipeline. Effortless, affordable, simple to use.
Good Luck with Your Journey!
