While our clients needs in the digital and e-commerce department are often very specific (a custom digital platform is necessary 99% of the time), we know many startup founders are bootstrapping in the early days and using off-the-shelf e-commerce products like Shopify to get started.
If this describes you, Personizely is something you'll want to check out.
Personizely helps you easily collect shoppers' contact info (even if they don't purchase), promote limited time offers, and decrease cart abandonment rate using exit intent popups, recommended item cross-selling, upselling, plus remarketing opportunities galore. Also, there's many deep integrations available with MailChimp, WordPress, Shopify, Shopify Plus, Sendgrid, and beyond that can help you build customer traction + loyalty at every step of your funnel.
And with easy-to-install widgets, you don't have to be a coding wizard to put it to work for you.
Learn more by checking out Personizely right here.
Social proof baby! ProveSource is an amazing (and very affordable) tool for letting users know how much buzz and activity your website generates (which is often tough to see, especially for e-commerce sites).
Got $50k/month in sales, or $500k/month? AWESOME, let people know via these beautiful notifications that will show during your users' website experience, without getting in the way of their customer experience. Just getting started on building up your web traffic and working towards your first sale? Fear not, this tool is great for your new business/startup too.
Why this tool is amazing and what value it can provide to your online community and e-commerce strategy:
And THAT's a win(!)
It is super easy to setup and can start working for your brand right away.
Click here to give their free trial a run and put this to work for you (yes, even while you're sleeping).
File Under: Stock Photography for Startups
File Under: Facebook Messenger + SMS Marketing
So you want to get your thoughts on [digital] paper for starting a Business Plan, gather costs vs. potential net profits, and also need some references + samples on how this is all put together from the start? LivePlan is an absolutely great and easy to use tool for developing a business plan.
After all, building a startup (read: a new company) requires much more than just a great idea, capital, solid timing with the market, and a basic website hacked together on WordPress or Shopify (hint: we never build WordPress or Shopify sites, but it's an ok place to start if it fits your business model).
As you’ll first want to really capture your vision for your brand AND your business FIRST, plus crunch lots of numbers in one place (no, not in 15 different spreadsheets!), LivePlan is a great place to take you through the ropes in the earliest stages (minus the hair-splitting of those 15 different spreadsheets).
If you need some guidance, LivePlan also offers over 500 sample business plans using their tool, video tutorials, and will even help drive you towards a one-page Business Pitch, which is great if you want to try your hand at pitching early to investors, if for nothing more than gathering feedback and learning more about what they look for in a new investment opportunity (that’s you!) when you're really ready, your brand is live to the world, and you're starting to see some customer traction.
Regardless of your industry, LivePlan is a great tool to help you get started in the first, and most important part of building any new business: Planning.
And hey, the stats don't lie: It's proven, companies that plan and track against their plan grow 30% faster than those that don't.
Start here and give LivePlan a try…it’s free to get started, and they offer a 60-day money back guarantee.
Remember: Ideas are a dime a dozen, but planning coupled with execution is Everything.
File Under: Business Plan Tools
Marketing your startup to investors? Look no further than Slidebean when it comes to designing your initial Pitch Deck for your Startup.
Slidebean is a super easy-to-use tool for creating Web and Mobile-Friendly Startup PItch Decks. Their website also includes great examples and samples of early decks from the likes of WeWork, Uber, Snapchat and more (plus SllideBean's YouTube channel has tons of great resources as well for startups).
Check it out today and give it a spin!
File Under: Pitch Deck Creation Tools
The Short Version: AppSumo has tons of great tools for all aspects of early stage startup marketing and companies bootstrapping their way along.
Looking for some of the easiest to use -- and best free resources for startups -- in order to start marketing your new business or startup? Need some initial ideas on branding your startup? Need a chat tool for your website that won't cost you an arm-and-a-leg on monthly fees? AppSumo more than likely has what you need, along with excellent white papers and training courses.
AppSumo is filled with many startup resources, and while many are in their early stages too just like you, there's plenty of opportunities here to try them out while getting lifetime memberships for being a flagship subscriber at a fraction of the normal cost.
Learn more about some great tools — from analytics to forecasting to automations and beyond — at Appsumo.com.
Crowdfire is a social media management platform used by brands, businesses, startups, and individuals all over the world to help drive social media engagement and growth.
They've packed in tons of features, ranging from content publishing, rss feed pulls, content curation functions, andy beyond, all in one place at a competitive price, with scalable options for your growing social media marketing arsenal.
Crowdfire is fairly intuitive to understand, can help you save a lot of time, and has a host of features in a single place. It is a great tool to grow and manage your social accounts, even if you're starting from ground zero.
Try it out today right here.
Early on in the life of any business startup, you'll find yourself with the need for Professional Small Business Insurance of some kind, and/or Errors & Omissions coverage (also known as E&O).
Hiscox caters to businesses of all shapes and sizes, even those startups just launching into the world without any revenue to speak of, and we highly recommend them to anyone (even our own clients).
You can get your options, quotes, and register for startup insurance coverage online at their website with ease.
Check out Hiscox for your startup's insurance needs and learn more right here.
Since no one wants to answer a number they don't know—many of our clients' customers simply won't—there's the super slick Text Marketing service, SlickText.
With SlickText, you can easily put your brand's marketing message in the hands of the people you want to target. In fact, customers respond quicker to SMS messaging than any other form of marketing communication.
After all, your marketing message can't be effective if no one sees it. We trust SlickText to deliver every single word because they use the highest quality North American messaging routes to ensure delivery.
For us—and for our clients—quality matters. And SlickText is one of the highest quality text marketing services out there.
Find out for yourself and get 15% OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH with promo code HYPELIFE.
File Under: Text/SMS Marketing Tools
File Under: Communications for Startups, Phone Systems for Startups
File Under: Website Security, Digital Marketing for Startups
Drop us a note in the chat box in the bottom right if there's something you're looking for that's not listed here in our list of the best free resources for startups.
Check back often as more of the best free resources for startups, startup marketing tools, and more are being added regularly!