Here are some awesome tools that will indefinitely help your business. This list of the Top 15 Tools for Entrepreneurs will help anyone looking to start an E-commerce store, blog, website, or more efficient online business. Some of the tools are completely free, while others do cost money. However, you'll find that the money spent on these tools is well worth it!
1. WordPress – Popular platform for creating a blog or website – Free
If you are looking to start a blog or website for your business or personal reasons, I'd highly recommend using WordPress. This powerful platform is open-source software (meaning it is free and continuously updated by the WordPress community). WordPress allows anyone with basic computer skills to add pictures, photos, and content to a website. Creating a website is much like writing a document in a Word Processor program. Think Entrepreneurship.com and most blogs created these days are built using WordPress.
2. WooThemes – Awesome pre-made WordPress themes – Paid
Making a website or blog look good can sometimes be a headache. You'll search through Themes for hours to try and find the perfect look for your site. I've used many free themes but ended up finding WooThemes, which was a recommendation from a friend. For $25 to $75 you get a professionally made theme that you can customize and make your own. The best part is that it looks great from the start. Our page is built using a WooThemes template and we couldn't be happier.
3. Bluehost – Hosting Service and Domain Registration – Paid
Bluehost is my company of choice to use for hosting and domain purchases. Primarily because of their one click WordPress Integration, but also because they are affordable and the service has been great. For between $4 to $6 per month your site will be live for the rest of the world to see. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
4. Big Commerce – Powerful Shopping Cart Platform – Paid
There are hundreds of great shopping carts to choose from, but I ended up finding Big Commerce about two years ago and have been thrilled with the results. If you are looking to start an E-commerce store quickly and easily I'd highly recommend using Big Commerce. I use Big Commerce to run my E-commerce store named: www.signsofthemountains.com. I simply used a default theme included with the software to create the website. It only costs $24.99 per month to get started and can be cancelled at any time. It makes it easy to sell anything you desire. If you have a hobby and want to turn it into a business I'd give Big Commerce a shot.
5. GMAIL, Google Docs, and Rapportive – Free
a) Gmail is the most powerful and easy to use email platform I've ever used. I have all the email addresses from my different businesses forwarded to it and automatically organized into labels. Whenever you send an email you have the ability to send out from any of your email addresses and to use a unique signature for each address you send from. Gmail integrates well with smartphones and is powerful.
b) Google Docs is my word processor of choice because everything is saved in the cloud and can easily be accessed by any computer, smartphone, or tablet device.
c) Rapportive is a great App that integrates with your Gmail Account. It automatically loads a photo of the contact you are emailing, their twitter feed, LinkedIn/Facebook Info, and more. It's a perfect way to easily learn more about your contacts, what they do for a living, and how to get in touch with them using social networks.
6. Google Voice – Business Phone Number – Free
If you want a free local number to use for your business take a look at what Google Voice has to offer. The Google voice number forwards to any phone and allows you to distinguish between a call coming in on your cell phone as being a personal call or to the business google voice number. It works great and did I mention it is 100% free? Check out a quick video I did on it a couple months ago by clicking here.
7. Dropbox – Online Storage and Transfer Software – Free Version
Dropbox is an amazing program that allows you to easily store, transfer, and backup large files for business or personal use. It's been perfect for storing all of our companies marketing materials and allowing our designers, coders, and marketers access to the files. Everything is stored online and in one place.
8. Market Samurai – Keyword Research Tool – Paid
Keyword research is an essential part of any online business or blog. In order to rank for search topics and increase traffic you'll want to do some research on keywords. Google does provide a free keyword search tool which does work well. The reason I like Market Samurai is because it saves me so much time and energy. Market Samurai analyzes and takes the guess work out of determining which keywords to target and the competition you will have. It's allowed me to rise quickly in the ranks for keywords Think Entrepreneurship is focusing on.
9. Quickbooks – Accounting Software – Paid
Quickbooks is certainly the accounting software of choice for entrepreneurs. Although “the books” are not my favorite part of running a business, Quickbooks makes it easy, whether you use a PC or Mac. I recently did a review on the latest Mac version of Quickbooks seen here. Quickbooks has an online version as well in case you need 100% mobility in using their software.
10. Grasshopper – Cheap 800 Numbers for Entrepreneurs – Paid
Grasshopper allows any small business to get an 800 number quickly and easily. An 800 number will make your company look more professional and legitimate. Your Grasshopper 800 number can be forwarded to as many phones or cell phones as needed, which makes it a great option for businesses with multiple employees working from the office or from the road. Click here to read a review by Think Entrepreneurship about Grasshopper.com 800 numbers.
11. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, & Acrobat – Creative Suite – Paid
While not everyone has the desire to work with graphics design and photos, Photoshop and Illustrator can save you time and money. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator give you the ability to edit photos and artwork. There is a learning curve, but when little changes need to be made you can take care of them yourself. You'll also be able to save files in any format for when it comes time to send artwork to your printer, embroiderer, or to an advertising company.
12. Google Analytics – Web Traffic Analyzer – Free
Google analytics is a powerful and free tool used to track your website or blog's traffic. Google tracks just about everything you'd ever need to know about your sites visitors. It's almost scary! Anyhow, you can see where traffic is coming from, what keywords are driving traffic, demographics of your visitors, and all sorts of other information that is helpful in building your business and catering to your clients or customers.
13. Craigslist – Free
What can't Craigslist be used for? That's the question! Craigslist is a gem for entrepreneurs. It is a great place to buy and sell, purchase used equipment for a business, advertise for a job opening, look for freelance work, or sell products and advertise services. You can even advertise real estate, apartment rentals, and the sale of businesses. Craigslist is without a question one of the most popular classifieds sites on the net.
14. Haro – Blogging and PR Tool – Free
Haro stands for: Help a Reporter out. It is essentially a community that brings reporters and sources together. Each day three emails are sent from HARO showing what stories reporters are looking for. If you believe you are an expert or good source for the topic you can email them with your credentials and tell them why you'd be the best person to talk with. Reporters of all sizes use HARO; including the WSJ, NY Times, Forbes Magazine, and Yahoo.com. Learn more about how HARO has helped a fellow blogging acquaintance to get written up on the front page of Yahoo.com and on FoxNews TV by checking out Jamie Tardy's blog named “Eventual Millionaire.”
15. Elance – Outsourcing Tool – Paid
Elance is an excellent resource to use for outsourcing various tasks that need to be completed. Elance allows you to post job descriptions for all sorts of work including graphics design, book keeping, web design, writing, and so on. Anyone in the world can use Elance which opens the doors to working internationally. I've hired contractors from the USA, Canada, London, India, and Australia. Learn more by reading a post I wrote about “Why Elance Rocks.”
I hope this list of Tools For Entrepreneurs is helpful for you and your business. They've all contributed to building my businesses. Please note that the links above are affiliate links for products and services I use and highly recommend. If you do end up using one of the recommendations at some point I'd really appreciate you clicking on the link above prior to purchasing, as Think Entrepreneurship will get a small commission for recommending products we believe in.
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Pete – Great post I just recently found out about Rapportive for Gmail very useful tool.
Thanks Herby, that’s awesome you are using Rapportive, it is a great addition to Gmail!
Nice list, use many of these already.
Found an even better 800# service that is stupid cheap and works great called Toktumi. No “minutes limit”, all the usual bells and whistles and $15 a month. Sick!
Hi Dana! Toktumi sounds interesting. Do they have an App at all for the iPhone or Android that you know of? I like the idea of having a flat fee per month. Thanks for the input!
Yes, I believe they do. I have it on my Android Bionic and I have seen some videos on the support side on iOS applications.
http://www.toktumi.com Also called “Line2” If you shoot me an email, I’ll send you an invite. I get a free month if you sign up. LOL
I use so many of these for my business. I heard about Google Voice from TE and now I use to have a different “On Call” number than my regular cell phone number without having to walk around with 2 phones! One of the best posts yet TE! Thank you!
That’s great Dustin, I’m glad Google Voice makes things easier. Thanks for your comment. – Pete
You should also consider adding a naming agency to this list. I’m a new entrepreneur and found http://www.namella.com for the naming of my maid business, and they did a great job.
I use a lot of these products. If you want to be successful you have to start out with WordPress and Google has so many tools to help you.
Great advice Michael. WordPress is a great way to bootstrap and start an amazing website. It’s extremely powerful, I’d even recommend it for any sized company.
i use most of these products and could not imagine how difficult it would be without them!
You and me both Dave! Glad they work well for you too. Hope all is well and business is booming:)
Good post. full of helpful resources for entrepreneurs.
First of all, thanks for the great list! As a consultant, currently I use proofhub to collaborate and manage the projects between the developers and the customers. It is totally free for one user without any hidden cost. You have all the essential areas like project planning, time tracking and gantt chart etc.
Nice list of tools. I’d also suggest a helpful tool for growing businesses, Deskun. We use it for email customer support, it’s quite easy to process all inquiries. Also it’s integrated with G Suite.
Thanks a lot. Very generous of you)
Never heard about your keyword tool btw, gonna check it.
I use SerpStat now for all seo. What can you say about it?
Great list! Another service to check out is proofy,io – email verification tool which is cost effective and very much efficient and give lots of value addition services.
Great list. I’d like to add ProofHub in this list. It is the one place for all your projects, teams and communications.
With ProofHub, you can:
Bring down the project delivery time.
Get better control over projects & team communications.
Make teams more accountable.
Achieve better work satisfaction.