The business tactics in 2010-2020 have substantially changed: the search for potential clients is now carried out via the Internet. Advertisement and hiring activities, market research and accounting have all followed suit. The virtual space offers tremendous benefits to the modern entrepreneur with its wide variety of websites and apps dedicated to streamlining his business and making life easier! We will cover some of them in this article.
- Use Trello to engineer great business processes
The vast capabilities of Trello boards have been duly appreciated by a lot of companies. Trello helps streamline workflows, assign and keep track of tasks for each employee or team, manage deadlines and responsibilities, post comments and do a plethora of other things.
The card-based structure of the board lays bare the process of completing tasks from the moment of inception to fruition, optimizing the entire workflow.
2. Networking and raising capital with Foundersuite
A platform that will be useful to startups. The team behind Foundersuite has gathered an entire set of tools that will help entrepreneurs scale and expand their businesses. Raising capital and conducting negotiations with investors can all be done on the website. It also provides great networking opportunities.
3. Javelin Experiment Board to find your niche
This is a great service for entrepreneurs who are just looking for their niche. To test the idea you need to download an Experiment Board. It visualizes the algorithm of testing a business idea: brainstorm on the left side, put down the results on the right side. The service provides step-by-step instructions to answer a simple question: will your clients turn to your product to solve their problems?
4. In aid of the startup crowd — Publicize
Another service that allows to quickly promote your business or idea. Publicize will help you let the world know about your project on social media as well as build a brand that the traditional media won’t miss.
5. SimilarWeb for competitive assessment
The service offers web analytics (including that of your competitors), stats on app downloads and usage, audience geography and much more. SimilarWeb provides more than just web traffic analysis: it helps understand the advertisement strategy the website in question employs and which of its pages get the most views and clicks. You can assess the visitors’ interest profile as well as find out about other websites they often visit, find similar and competing websites. It also shows if there are mobile apps related to the subject of your research. All this information will help you adjust your own marketing strategy and make the right decisions in developing your business.
6. Re:plain — quick support web chat
A unique development that forwards user feedback from your community to your everyday messenger apps, allowing for faster response in communicating with your customers.
Re:plain can be embedded on your website, giving your customers the luxury of getting replies faster. The service is a convenient option for business: your support manager won’t need to install any additional apps or programs — their regular messengers of choice will suffice, like Telegram or WhatsApp.
7. Powerful capabilities with Google docs
The service will be useful in both business and personal life. You have to admit, putting a bunch of work files in a cloud folder and simply sharing the access is way more convenient than having to constantly send files back and forth between your colleagues. You can create and view documents from both desktop and mobile. Google docs is free and lets you work with text, spreadsheets, pictures and other formats. It features customizable access control and a whole lot of other convenient things that will probably end up making you choose this platform over any other option every time.
8. Figma: collaborative design tool
It’s a great service that allows multiple collaborators to work on the same project simultaneously. You don’t need to download or install anything as its web client lets you get down to work immediately. The service is often used for design and graphics, where multiple designers and editors can work together in real time without getting in the way of each other. Putting together a team in Figma takes mere minutes.
9. The Appetize platform for mobile apps in your browser
Appetize is an emulator that allows running mobile apps from a web browser. If you want to see (or give a demo to a potential customer) how an app is going to look and feel like, Appetize is a great option. It was created for testing, developing and demonstrating mobile projects on a wide variety of smartphones that you don’t even need to have on hand.
10. Shutterstock to make your website beautiful, royalty-free
Shutterstock is a photobank where you can find design templates, unique photos and art on any topic. This service helps make your website, print, or social media pleasant to look at — and free from copyright infringement. After all, it’s actually illegal to use copyrighted material. The Shutterstock licence takes care of that.
11. Freepik — yet another service for designers
With Freepik, finding icons, background and vector images for your website is easy. The service features convenient navigation that lets you find whatever you’re looking for quicker. What is more important — it’s all royalty-free!
12. Create a logo in Squarespace
Creating a logo in Squarespace is something pretty much anyone can do. A user-friendly interface helps you harness its toolset in no time and begin building impressive logos. You don’t need to download, update or install anything — its web-based workspace is available anywhere. Thousands of companies around the globe stand out thanks to unique logos they have designed with Squarespace.
13. Prezi presentations
A convenient service that can help you prepare and deliver a presentation of your product or service. Prezi doesn’t require installation. You can upload your files to the website and immediately begin building a presentation within the browser. User ratings suggest its creator tool is much easier to navigate compared with MS Power Point. The resulting presentations are more dynamic and captivating, while taking less time and effort to build.
14. Animated animation with Videoscribe
This service helps create an engaging presentation even if you don’t know what you’re doing. All the tools for a fast start and quality video are there. Videoscribe helps create animation, add sound, text and images. The resulting video is copyright-free. For those short on time there are plenty of ready-made templates to choose from.
15. Focus on productivity without distractions
Even the most disciplined of employees and managers can’t fight the temptation to visit their favourite website or two when they get the chance. Browsing the news and chatting on social media steals your actual work time and you get less done. Luckily, there is an app for that: Focus restricts access to your procrastination engine of choice. Providing it with a list of things to keep you away from will help you tackle more complex tasks and, ultimately, get more work done. Don’t pass up the opportunity to make modern technology actually improve your productivity for once!
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