7 necessary tools for startups that are free or low cost

Image credit: j

When you begin your journey as a startup, you probably don’t have enough money to buy the most expensive tools that you think your business needs. To get through with it, you will need to be resourceful and find solutions that don’t cost too much. However, since these tools will help determine whether your startup succeeds or not, paying good attention to the selection process is a must.

As they say, “you get what you pay for”; yet, there are tools and services out there that don’t cost an arm and a leg to use, but are effective and useful. These cheap alternatives will help you jumpstart your business without breaking the bank.

We’ve built a list of 7 tools and services that you can count on for your startup journey:

Hiring Talents

As a startup, you will need to get help from some talents to get your business off the ground. You cannot do everything by yourself as you will likely burn out in the long run, which does more harm than good to your business. With limited funds, you may find that hiring full-time or even part-time employees is not possible. This is where you will be thankful for the person who invented freelancing.

You will find freelancers for just about anything: virtual assistants, data entry operators, graphic designers, even accountants and software developers. Freelancer offers a platform for hiring, paying, sending work over, and even an online timer if you need it. It has a feedback system that allows employers to check previous works, previous employer feedback, and the work completion data of a freelancer.

Other freelancing platforms are UpWork and Elance, which work nearly the same way as Freelancer. These services cost a minimal percentage that is based on how much you pay the freelancer.

Advertising Your Business

Let’s face it: advertisers provide a big help to reach the target audience. But most advertising platforms can suck up a big part of your limited funds. Then there are the cost-effective alternatives like Facebook, where you can advertise your brand, app, product, or services through Facebook for as low as $1.00 per day. But, yes, you get what you pay for in this case. The smaller the budget is, the smaller the reach is. The good thing is that you have full control over the audience and the location of where your ads are placed. Facebook has a great analytics tool to show you where your money went to.

Google and Microsoft also have advertising platforms that cost almost the same as Facebook’s. Then there is Clickbooth — an advertising alternative that charges on a Cost-Per-Action (CPA) model. This means you will only pay when you get a lead or when someone purchases your products, unlike other platforms that charge a flat-rate per day or per month. Click Booth’s model can help you control your marketing budget further.

Collecting Payments

When it comes to collecting payments from clients, there are tons of options out there. PayPal, for one, is an established platform known all over the world for accepting payments online and even in stores. It has a wide user base, has an application programming interface (API) for developers, and has good security too. The downside is its pricing, which is a bit on the high side.

PayFirma offers an alternative to PayPal and works much the same way, but costs a little less. BitCoin and other digital currencies are gaining popularity lately, and people are keen on using them. Square, WePay, and Dwolla are other options worth looking into.

The thing about payments is that the more options you accept aside from Visa, MasterCard, Amex, or cold cash, the more people will buy your products. As a startup, you should check which one provides the most cost-effective way of handling payments.

Managing Projects, Hires, and Time

For any business, time is of the essence — that’s why it is very crucial to manage it well. Hiring talents take time, but the way you manage the hiring and your projects can spell success or disaster for your startup. Having a team of virtual employees makes it harder to manage projects especially when your talents live in different time zones.

Getting your products out into the world within the shortest possible timeframe is worth its weight in gold, which is why you need to get the most out of your employees.

Building a Website

Marketing Contents

Creating a Referral Program

Let’s Wrap This Up