In the tech world, many people strive to stay on the cutting edge by taking advantage of the newest, most innovative technologies. That is not what this post is about. This post is about the top 10 most helpful business apps for startups. These are established, refined products that your business really should - at the very least - be researching and exploring. If you see an app in this post and you have never heard of it before, it may be a good idea to investigate that app and see if it can be useful for you.
For more information about business tools for startups, check out 50 Bootstrapping Hacks for Every Stage of Your Startup, The Bootstrapper’s Guide to Startup PR or The Best Tools for Managing Effective Virtual Teams.
MailChimp
MailChimp is a service that helps users design and send emails, often in large quantities. The service provides analytics of these emails and facilitates automation, allowing you to spend less time sending emails. The subscription-based service has over 10 million users and sends over 600 million emails daily.
GitHub
Github helps developers manage projects, code, and cooperate. The platform is designed to facilitate the creation of software and aims to be an absolute necessity in any software-related company and anyone interested in open-source technology. Like MailChimp it requires a subscription, and it is currently home to millions of individual projects.
Insightly
Insightly is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and Project Management platform that allows users to track projects, manage leads & contacts, and easily analyze business reports. It integrates with a large array of other business apps and it includes the option for a basic Free package.
HipChat
Hipchat, a private group chat platform designed for business, enables file sharing and integrates with many other business apps. It eliminates the challenges of email communication among larger teams and allows for unlimited chat rooms for task-oriented chatting. It is difficult to talk about Hipchat without mentioning its rival Slack, which also provides chat services for businesses. The rivalry is so heated that the some torn customers went so far as to create the website SlackVsHipChat.
Buffer
Buffer makes life easier for marketing teams and agencies by allowing users to post to multiple social mediums simultaneously and arrange pre-scheduled posts. The app already has over 3 million users and has recently expanded its features, enabling users to create auto-sized images perfectly for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Trello
Trello is a free-to-use project management application that emphasizes visualization and intuitive user interface. It aims to provide its users a comprehensive view of all relevant elements of a project at a single glance. It features a sleek drag/drop feature along with many useful integrations.
Producteev
Producteev is a free task management application oriented around maximizing productivity and increasing team cooperation on managing projects and products. The app allows users to easily share projects with eachother and plan those projects efficiently.
Sailthru
Sailthru, a customer retention app, aims to help companies increase revenue and engagement by helping companies manage their emailing process. It enables companies to optimize their use of notifications in order to keep customers more involved and aware of the companies' actions.
Rapportive
Rapptorive helps users manage their contacts, showing everything a user needs to know about all of their company's contacts in a centralized location. It focuses on integration between Gmail and LinkedIn, among other services.
Zendesk
Zendesk is another customer service management application that provides companies with services like embeddable customer contact widgets, easy cloud-based phone support, and shared email management. The app largely focuses on customer well-being and in-the-moment support, providing companies with the ability to offer their customers a pathway of contact at any given time.
Honorable Mention:
Asana - project management app
Slack - Team chat app
For more information about business tools for startup, check out 50 Bootstrapping Hacks for Every Stage of Your Startup, The Bootstrapper’s Guide to Startup PR or The Best Tools for Managing Effective Virtual Teams.
