20 Resources to Make You Better at The Startup Company

Mukul Patwa

You have probably dreamt of owning your own company one day. Many people have. Think about it; you get to be your boss, have the freedom and flexibility to work whenever and how much you want to, and can make a lot of money in the process. But finding a startup company is challenging.

Did you know that 80 percent of businesses fail within the first five years? If you are most normal owners of a startup company, you are probably desperate for free or low-cost resources you can use to make sure your company is not part of the 80% of businesses that fail. This article points to 20 such resources.

Google free tools

Advertising is where it’s at in marketing and promoting your startup company. After all, your startup company will not succeed if it doesn’t bring in sales and revenue, and sales and marketing campaigns are the only way to do this. Google allows you to set up a profile that will connect with your customers intimately and personally. This will establish a new level of trust in them and get you to repeat business and referrals.

Yellow Pages

The Yellow Pages, available both online and as an app is a great and free way to connect with your audience. It helps advertise to those in your target market, and interactively connect with your customers with the ability to respond to customer reviews about your products and services.

Yelp

The free and open nature of the Internet has given customers plenty of places and opportunities to say what they want about your products and services. You should check Yelp out to know what customers say about your startup company regarding the good, the bad, and the ugly reviews. This is one way of improving every aspect of your startup company.

Foursquare for business

You can claim your business profile on this free online tool and start conversing with your customers immediately. Doing this will show your customers that you honestly care about them. They will like and trust you more and will repeat customers who give referrals.

Google Analytics

If you know anything about business, you must analyze essential information about your startup company’s performance, like total revenue and profit margins. Google Analytics is an excellent way to do this and to know how and from where your customers and website traffic originates.

Hubspot’s Marketing Grader

This is the analytical tool to turn to if you want to know the results of your extensive marketing efforts regarding plans and campaigns. For one thing, it’s free, and this is good news to you if you are the owner of a startup company because chances are you have a limited budget and need more money to spend oodles of money on marketing and advertising. Hubspot’s Marketing Grader is also great in terms of letting you know about the effectiveness of your social media marketing campaigns.

Unbounce

Unbounce allows you to create optimized landing pages to generate more traffic and conversions. You need this if your Google Analytics numbers suck!

WordPress.org

You won’t stay in business for long if you don’t do digital marketing in today’s age of digital technology and interactiveness. It would help if you created a lot of blogs to do this well because this is the only way you can talk to your customers and offer them enticing things (like free advice). The best part about WordPress is that it is free and is loaded with attractive themes and plugins.

CoSchedule

This tool is excellent if you advertise your startup company by doing a lot of blogging. It is free and allows you and your marketing team to pre-plan content, notify readers and writers of upcoming posts, and collaborate seamlessly in the entire writing, proofreading, and editing process.

SBA.gov

This free business center offers you all the information you need to know to launch a successful startup company. This includes advice on writing a great business plan and tips for entrepreneurs.

Local Small Business development center

These business centers are funded and supported by the SBA. The best part about them is that they offer free business education, consulting advice, and mentoring services you need to launch your startup company and ensure it is successful five years from now.

SCORE

This organization is 50 years old and offers free education and mentoring services to ensure that your startup company’s launch is a great success and that it is successful five years from now!

Bplans.com

This free online resource offers hundreds of sample business plans in every industry. You can use these plans as a template and guide for writing your startup company’s business plan.

Enloop

Because writing a great business plan is not easy, this free tool exists to help you create a business plan, complete with financial reports for three years, that will amaze your investors.

Angel list

This free tool allows you to seek out the quality investors and talented employees you need to make your startup company successful during the launch period and afterward.

Fundera

If you want to take out a small business loan to finance your startup company, Fundera is lovely because it connects you with the ideal lenders who will offer you the best interest rates.

Kickstarter 

You can use this fantastic platform to raise funds by crowdsourcing. The best part about it is that you don’t have to give away your startup company’s equity to investors. You sign up for mini-donors and entice them to donate by offering them free or discounted products, services, or gifts they value.

Street shares

This free online marketplace lets you obtain the loans you need to fund your startup company. Street shares connect you with peer-to-peer lenders to support your financing needs.

Canva

This free online tool will help you create the images and graphics for your website and blog that will blow your visitors away. They will be enticed by what they see and stick around long enough to learn about your company and its products or services. They will then be motivated to buy from you!

Pablo

Pablo is a free online tool that allows you to create amazing professional graphics within seconds. The best part of this tool is that it will enable you to use these graphics for your online needs, whether it’s your website, social media platform(s), or blog.

As is evident, launching a startup company is difficult but not impossible. With a great idea backed by a strong business plan and strategy, you can use many free resources (many more not mentioned in this article) to start the startup company of your dreams!

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