Online resources for startups / small business

March 12, 2010 | Comments | Permalink

Listed below are some of the tools that I personally feel are very critical for small business / startups at least in the early stages. If you have used similar tools in the past, or are aware of better tools that can get the same job done - do drop me a line Email / Collaboration tool - Google App: Almost all of us have some part of google in our daily online routine, Google App takes a step further where one can quickly get the google mail, google docs, google sites, google calendar and google chat configured for your own domain. They have a standard edition (free of cost) which pretty much fits in for the need of a startup or a small business. Where I feel it really helped us:

Email - hassle free, zero maintenance required from our side. There are bunch of clients available for desktops and now they even support integration with MS Outlook. You can take it on your blackberrys, other smart phones etc - works well! You can also define distribution lists / email groups and give them appropriate access - so you really don't miss MS Exchange much. (Note: I do backup all my emails on my laptop via Apple Mail, for Windows once can use Thunderbird)
Google Docs - with the addition of folders, bulk upload and ability to add any file - it is an online repository where we store our SOPs, Manuals, Guides, Trackers, Instructions, handouts etc for the team. Setting permissions on folders help keep restricted areas to certain groups / individuals ... and with the offline access enabled, I don't have to worry about network outages etc (Note: I avoid keeping confidential information on Google docs, one needs to define the boundaries)
Sites - I am using this as our internal intranet, any new releases / updates to the application are published to the site and everybody gets notified. Common tasks / activities are also published to the sites or the Google Docs are linked via the site ... very easy to keep everybody informed
Chat - you can chat with people on your domain and aslo add other gamil folks outside of your domain to your friend list. Can be a security issue, but for a small business / startup - this is a good to have.

Invoicing - Zoho: Any services account need to have professional invoices, this is where Zoho comes in. They have a great collaboration tool that competes with Google, but I am sticking only to invoices for now. Their free plans gets me started very quickly and as I grow, will pick up their basic plan that is very reasonable and takes care of all my needs. I can track my invoices / payments, send reminders, turn them off, modify the templates etc etc - complete self control - never had any issue! They recently launched expense tracker, that will ease tracking expenses for me RWW had done an article on Online invoicing resources, Zoho was not in the top 4. I am still sticking with Zoho, because of their support for multiple currencies, pricing and simple reporting / tracking options. I feel Zoho is more apt for an international / global client while the others were geared more towards North America Payments - Paypal: For small payments, it works very well. Easy to setup and configure, can be easily integrated with Zoho. I just find their exchange rates / transaction fee on the higher side when compared to a direct wire transfer (but then it saves you the hassle of handling multiple wire transfer accounts). When compared to other online payments, Google Checkout or Amazon etc - they seem to be the most flexible and accepted Conferencing - SabseBolo: Looking for telephone conference bridge in India- this is the place, they provide local numbers across all major cities in India, cross city chats can help you save money. Easy and simple to get started, works well. For free accounts they play an ad, bit irritating - don't mind it for the cost! They do have services like fax to mail, which are again very helpful. I wish their pricing was transaction based instead of a flat fee per month. For a small business / startup I do not expect many faxes and I had rather pay slightly extra price for one fax instead of flat fee MockingBird - share mockups of the website, quick, easy and free!