The most common challenge that many aspiring entrepreneurs face in the early days of their startup is to ensure low expenses and staff costs.
While there may be several unavoidable costs, such as hosting or server space, some online tools can assist entrepreneurs to reduce their operational costs significantly.
Below is a curated list of the top 20 startup tools which will help in amplifying the efficiency of business operations. They have been divided into 8 categories. Read on to learn more….
Web Design Tools
Impressive design connects more with visitors. Eye-catchy designs, visually appealing graphics will help in giving a better conversion rate for start-ups.
Web design tools can help you host an app, design a graphic or develop a website within minutes. You can either design the front end or the workflows of an e-commerce store with ease, without knowing any coding. Such tools also help you to design a site, a Facebook Ad, or a digital poster, with a graphic user interface, thus making your online presence creative.
Top tools:
- Canva
- WordPress
- Shopify
- Magento
- Pixiko
- Woocommerce
- Astra
- Cadence
CRM Tools
Ensuring impeccable customer experience will help in winning new clients and in retaining old ones. Nothing can be more helpful to accomplish this than CRM tools. The Customer Relation Management (CRM) tools help you to keep an accurate record of all customer deals, purchases, and conversation history.
Moreover, with the integration of CRM with social media, startups can efficiently find potential customers who are active on social media and also streamline the customer management process.
Top CRM tools:
- HubSpot
- Zoho Corporation
- Salesforce
- Pipedrive
- Keep
- Insightly
- Agile CRM Inc.
- SugarCRM
Video Editing Tools
Video marketing is the new-age method to successfully reach a larger audience. Video editing tools can help take recorded videos to the next level.
With their help, you can create eye-catching video clips, add appealing sound effects, trim clips, and improvise the videos as per your choice. Be it speed control, audio mixing, wavefront, visualization, live preview, or adding image filters and transition effects- video editing tools will help you do it all on an uncluttered interface.
Top Tools:
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- iMovie
- Filmore
- DaVinci Resolve
- Blender
- Lightworks
- Shotcut
- VideoPad
- Vidmat
AI Blogging Tools
Content writing and blogging is an excellent way to create a solid digital presence. AI blogging tools can suggest trading blog topics around our niche, improve the content tactics, and they use computer algorithms to create automated content for your blog.
AI tools will also help you in creating personalized content that adjusts to the needs of the customer. They also provide data-driven insights and help in creating highly targeted website content with SEO rich content.
Top AI blogging tools:
- HubSpot Blog Topic Generator
- Crayon
- Grammarly
- Uberflip
- Market Brew
- Keywee
- Automated Insights
Website Optimization Tools
These tools help you to check the domain authority of your website including its SEO, AHREFs, domain, web speeds, site audits, web security, backlinks, etc. The tools help you to optimize your website traffic, page load speed, and correct the SEO and keywords online, to help it rank better in Google and other search engines. Some of them are free tools, but some are paid.
Top Tools:
- IONOS Website Checker
- MOZ
- Ahrefs
- Backlinko
- SEMRush
- Ubersuggest
- Buzzsumo
TimeSheet Management Tools
It can be difficult to ensure the productivity of everyone in the office. To overcome this, timesheet tools provide simple solutions to maximize the productivity of the employees.
Managing timesheets for a startup founder can be extremely painful, given the limited resources and time he or she has to manage customers, improve product and handle customer service.
Automated timesheet management tools help startup employees to record the time spent by them on various tasks, projects, or clients. Staff or freelancers can automatically get paid at the end of a week or month, as their timesheets are approved.
Top Tools
- Zoho
- Projects
- Scoro
- Beebole
- Harvest
- Toggl
- Avaza
- Replicon
- Clicktime
E-Commerce Tools
If your start-up has an active online business, e-commerce tools are must-haves. To create an aesthetic website design, to ensure an accurate digital payment processing system, to seamlessly execute email marketing, and to provide precise analytics, automated e-commerce business management tools are highly beneficial.
Some tools will also test valuable data points and will suggest solutions to maximize the efficiency of your shipping, products, and dynamic pricing. E-commerce tools also help startup founders to access their branded products and affiliates under one platform.
Top Tools:
- Constant Contact
- Elfsight
- Google Pay
- Sold Live
- AnnounceKit
- LitExtension
- Bold Commerce
- Tagalys
AI based Chatbot Customer Service
Chatbot tools use AI-powered software that can execute automated conversations with customers and web visitors through a chat interface on a website or a messaging app like Facebook Messenger, Skype, or WhatsApp.
Chatbots help in providing 24×7 customer support, even while you are asleep. They automate interactions with customers and connect a human agent to continue the conversation if they are unable to answer a particular query. Several tools allow you to launch conversational chatbots without any knowledge of coding.
You can engage with customers across multiple communication channels – all with an effective chatbot tool.
Top Chatbot Tools
- Chatfuel
- Answerly
- MobileMonkey
- Aivo
- ItsAlive
- Imperson
- Pandorabots
- Bold360
- Lobster
Conclusion:
With the help of the above tools, you can start your startup journey, increase your web visitors, and make your products or services reach the right customers. The digital tools will help you chart a sustainable growth for your business and enhance your return on investment of time and money.