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Stop everything now, and try one of these apps

For a startup founder, handling all kinds of odd tasks, finding solutions and accepting challenges are all in a day’s work. When the balancing act gets tough, productivity suffers. Which is why, they should be aware of certain tools that will enhance their productivity and help them overcome the challenges.

Here is a comprehensive list of tools that will ensure deadlines are met even on the toughest days:

1. Buffer

Buffer is a great tool that helps in product branding on social media. Social Media marketing is a must for businesses of all sizes, hence Buffer comes handy. It helps with analytics too!

2. Trello

Trello is great for teams, as it is easy to delegate tasks and add lists, labels, and deadlines. The interface is simple and user-friendly. The tool is free to use but an upgrade means more features.

3. HootSuite

Hootsuite is another tool to handle social media accounts and works like Buffer. However, it also lets you listen and engage with your customers, unlike other social media tools.

4. Asana

Working with a team and assigning work for each of them with deadlines can be easy with Asana. Teammates can even communicate here. It is a free project management tool.

5. Productfolio 

Productfolio provides you with great end-to-end workflow tools that reflect the best product management practices. to empower your team. This tool enables you to prioritize opportunities, create a strategy, and helps your team to plan around it.
You can simply drag and drop the visual roadmaps for teams, easily export for presentations, and create different versions to share with customers. With a simple workflow, you can keep all your ideas, priorities, and requirements for your teams in one place. You can collaborate with your remote teams, share documents, and give your feedback as or when required. Besides, the tool is customizable to fit your needs.

6. GetStacker

Another social media tool, GetStacker earns this place because of its easy to use interface. It also allows users to publish content on social media and even add comments as well.

Also Read: How this Vietnamese startup aims to be the Slack of Southeast Asia

7. Slack

Whether your team members work remotely or from one office, Slack ensures that they are all well-connected. Communication is crucial when it comes to work and Slack has various channels where all kinds of queries can be handled. It also integrates with several other tools like Trello.

8. Aha!

This is a tool that can manage an entire product portfolio. It is very useful for project managers and even startup founders. The tool lets the user generate ideas, build strategies around it and set deadlines. All these can be tracked easily as well.

9. Contriber

Their tag line describes it as “A more human experience…” which is not untrue. Contriber offers fun interfaces that makes work look less stressful. This is another teamwork tool, that allows group chats, tasks, files, and decision making.

10. Knowlium

Knowlium is a project management tool like Aha! and Trello, but with a difference. Knowlium does planning and management in depth. Founders without a degree in business management will find this tool especially helpful.

10. Mailchimp

Mass email writing was never this easy before Mailchimp. Not only it has cool designs, but the Forever Free Plan is a blessing for new startups with budget constraint. Users can send up to 12,000 emails every month with this plan.

11. Thrive Day Planner

Time planners are essential in a checklist for startup founders. With a plethora of tasks to attend to, they often feel 24 hours is not enough. Thrive Day Planner can help by planning strategies, setting growth goal and even organise operations.

12. Sane Box

Sane Box helps to organise your inbox. It sends the less important ones to an archive from where it can be retrieved and read when required.

13. Toggl

Finally a tool to tell you whether you have been utilising your time properly or not. Toggl will break down and show you exactly what you have been doing all the while. It can be used with teams too.

14. Unroll.me

Just like Sane Box, Unroll.me removes newsletters and other promotional mails from your inbox and keeps them bundled up elsewhere. You can read them as well when you have more time.

15. Rescue Time

It works exactly as it is named.Rescue Time sends weekly report on how the time has been used.This helps in managing time in a better way.

16. Evernote

This is one of the best productivity tool available. It helps users to record their ideas and they can be done not just by typing but by recording audio messages, too. These can be later synced across various devices. It is a great tool that can be used on the go, anywhere!

17. Google Hangouts

Several startup these days have remote teams. When they want to have a meeting, Google Hangouts is the easiest way to have video conferencing. It also helps in times when you need to have a virtual meeting with a client or an applicant.

18. Upwork/eLance

Outsourcing helps a lot when there is a huge amount of work. This website has lot of freelancers working on specific fields. It is a lot less expensive than hiring someone for real, yet the work gets done in time.

19. WebEx

With WebEx, a virtual meeting can be easily organised either with other team mates or client. Screen sharing is available too.

20.Hemingway

Hemingway reviews a write up and suggests better wordings and also corrects any error. Great to have this tool especially if your website has a blog where you post about what your startup has been doing so far.

Also Read: Want to bring in more business? These 7 tools will help you write the perfect email

21. FreeConferenceCall

Free high quality video conferencing is not too unreal now. FreeConferenceCall can accommodate up to 1,000 participants across the globe.

22. Freshbooks

With all other tasks accumulating, founders of startups don’t want to deal with accounting. Freshbooks is a cloud-based accounting tool that can be used to make invoices, log receipts and track time.

23. Google Analytics

This is one of the must-have tools as it provides insights about the performance of your website’s performance, traffic, referrals, performance, and conversion. This tool helps to make your website rank high in google searches increasing traffic.

24. LiveChat

As the name suggests, LiveChat provides instant  connection with customers and resolve issues much faster. It is also a lot cheaper than phone calls and saves time unlike email communication.

25. LessAccounting

However small the size of your company might be, it is essential to maintain accounts, and LessAccounting makes it a lot less painful. The tool is very startup friendly and have features that is beneficial to founders.

26. Mint

Just like Google Analytics, Mint is also a self hosted analytics platform that shares news about visits, searches, popular pages all at a glance in its dashboard.

27. Insightly

Insightly happens to be one of the best CRM tools for startups. What makes it stand out is its unique email marketing system. This is much better in the paid version, though.

28. Brightbook

For startup founders without any accounting experience, Brightbook is a simple, easy to use tool for all the company’s accounting needs.

29. G2 Crowd

This is an unique tool that reviews a software on your behalf before you buy it. It not just saves money but also the time that is spent to research the desired software.

30. Bornevia

This tool is a platform that integrates SMS, email, live chat, and even social media accounts. The best part is the price, which makes it very popular among bootstrapping companies.

31. Dropbox

Dropbox is a great way to share bigger files, and sync files across devices. It doesn’t even require to send emails for sharing files. It is a very useful tool for entrepreneurs.

32. EventBrite

EventBrite is the perfect tool to find what is going on around the town that might be useful for your business. Not just that — if you plan to have your own event, you can use the tool to create and organise it.

33. Meetup

This tool is similar to EventBrite, but for bigger events. With Meetup one can find influencers, networking groups, and local events, too.

34. AWeber

AWeber is another email marketing tool that has multiple features. Emails can be scheduled for certain days or times, follow up emails can be created from before,  welcome emails can be sent to new subscribers etc.

35. Grammarly

When there is a time crunch, it is hard to revise a write up either for sales or for company blog. Grammarly is a tool that is used by thousands to check grammar, plagiarism, etc.

36. WordPress CMS

WordPress is not just a blogging platform — it lets you do much more. It can double up as your own personal website too. If using it for blogging purposes, posts can be scheduled beforehand. It is a versatile tool that can be highly productive if used properly.

37. Tumblr

Tumblr doesn’t need much introduction. It is a great platform to engage with customers. It is a micro blogging website wherein startup owners can blog, share posts, pictures, and videos with potential customers.

Also Read: 3 steps to producing content that converts

38. Feedly

Startup founders have to be updated with all recent news. This wastes a lot of time, however, especially if you have to Google for a title that you had read earlier and then go to the website again and read it. Feedly has a solution. Now you can add your RSS feeds all in one place and read them at your leisure. Having both desktop and mobile applications users can use it on the go.

39. Pocket

Want to read something but do not have time? Save it to Pocket. It is integrated efficiently with several platforms and works remarkably when there is a need to curate content.

40. Mention

As the name suggests, Mention keeps track of twitter followers when they mention your startup’s name. It is easy to track this way and saves a lot of time and effort.

41. Sidekick

Created by Hubspot, Sidekick can very well be dubbed as your personal assistant. It tracks emails when they are sent,opened or read. It also locates the location of the receiver/sender. It can also be used to schedule sending emails at specific times.

42. Canva

Canva helps to create beautiful pictures with nice effects and fonts. It is a nice tool when there is a need to design something for your website or create a flyer for email.slack

43. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo provides a detailed report of what is trending on the internet. When a keyword is searched, buzzsumo not only comes up with relevant articles having it on net, but also provides a report and its ranking.

44. Any. Do

Any.Do manages projects right from your smartphone. It can send you reminder of the tasks that needs to be done in a day on a time scheduled by you. Reminders can be snoozed and dates can be changed too.

45. Fiverr

Just like eLance/ Upwork Fiverr is a marketplace where entrepreneurs can hire freelancers for specific jobs. Gigs start at low as US$5, hence great for companies on shoestring budget.

46. Clear

This is a great organizing tool for all your tasks. The only drawback is that it is available only on iOS. The tool makes sure tasks are completed in time. New tasks, reminders, task completion can be added too.

47. Talkwalker

This is an important tool, as it locates all mentions of your company online. This enables a founder to engage in meaningful conversation with customers or prospective clients.

48. IFTTT

A tool that is aimed completely on increasing productivity is how IFTTT should be described. It means “If this, then that”. It integrates several other apps like Pocket or Evernote and it automatically triggers an action that saves a lot of time.

49. Quill Engage

Quill engage works like other analytics tools but the difference is it will send the results in a report form which is easy to read and saves time.

50.Strikingly

Need a new website? Strikingly can create one for you. This is one great tool for those who doesn’t have much coding knowledge. It saves plenty of time and money for young startup owners who want a website of their own.

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