Believe it or not, when you are about to start your own business, the initial stage is a full-time hustle. And holding it upright despite all the scarcities is like securing a fort which you can’t do with toothpicks and silly string.
During the early stages of building a business, entrepreneurs are bound to sail through the paucity of space, shortage of people or dearth of funds. And so, with the scantily available resources, it becomes challenging even to strike off a to-do list enlisted with simple tasks or carrying out routine activities. Let alone planning and executing projects or performing the product marketing and selling, which involves complex decision making.
Whether you have just stepped into the business world or are an experienced businessman doesn’t matter. You will need the function-oriented tools to work faster and more efficiently in a highly competitive industry. As an early-stage startup, you don’t need a large funding to afford the must-have resources.
And this is where SaaS comes to the rescue of new entrepreneurs in the modern-day work environment.
WHAT IS SAAS?
SaaS products are in huge demand due to their flexibility and robustness. The abbreviation SaaS refers to software-as-a-service. It means that the users can easily signup and access the software through their internet browser. With the help of a SaaS product, you may carry out various complex, and tedious activities such as:
Measure metrics
Understand user behaviour
Manage sales
Monitor your team
Track your business progress
WHY SAAS?
There are several reasons you should be considering SaaS products as integral parts of your work ecosystem:
Flexibility and scalability
Ease of use and speed
Great features
Reduces operating costs
High quality performance
Organized & time management
Cost-effective use
Maintenance-free
TOOLS FOR YOUR STARTUP
There are various SaaS tools available in the market that are superbly efficient for:
Project Management
Team Communication
Financial Management
Customer Support
Customer Relationship Management
Email Marketing Tools
Social Media Management
Marketing Analysis & Webinar Software
Here is some SaaS software that can be helpful for the top-of-the-funnel marketing of your business startup. They all are available on the App store and Google play, making it easy for teams to stay connected using other devices.
Canva: It’s a free graphic designing SaaS that makes it as easy as a pie for users to create and share graphics, animation, and videos. Though it has a few limitations compared to other graphic design software, it can handily achieve complex effects in a matter of a few minutes, an hour at the most. It is like a basic version of photoshop that’s free and doesn’t require photo editing knowledge to use.
Hi5: It is free for up to 10 users. It is a platform for remote teams to onboard new team members. The team members can set goals, and the managers can give their performance feedback using the ‘Pulse Survey Feature’. It allows the company to access the employee details from the people directory and also use the recognition dashboard to look after the staff members based on their job roles.
Mailchimp: When you have to send ‘not so’ cold emails or newsletters with some style and oomph, Mailchimp is your go-to tool that adds a personalized touch for every recipient. You can even watch a soccer match while sending emails to thousands of prospects. It satisfies the business needs and gives a way to reach new potential customers. You can also use this software for newsletters and automated email notifications and create signup pages, online shop fronts, website popups, and many more. It is free to use up to 2,000 subscribers (daily limit – 2,000 & monthly limit – 10,000 sends). It will provide you with a monthly send limit of 10x for Essentials, 12x for Standard and 15x for Premium. Apart from facilitating your email marketing, Mailchimp also offers analytical features by which you can determine how you have been faring with your email.
Shortcut: It is a great collaboration and project management tool. It is the best tool for software development teams that work on a sprint, epic, and iteration basis. It is free for one team with up to 10 team members. It includes features to track and plan user stories and report on work progress.
Zapier: The free version of Zapier allows you to carry out 100 tasks per month. As automation is highly essential to the company’s overall productivity, Zapier is an out-and-out tool. Apart from being a super cool platform, it offers free products for automating a good deal of tasks with no code! You can automate tasks that you frequently perform, like adding contacts to your CRM when someone fills out a form. You can auto-repeat weekly reminders for yourself or the team. It also updates spreadsheets and sends customized emails back to the lead.
ProofHub: It helps you to stay on top of your projects and tasks all the time. It also gives you the ultimate project management experience for free. It comes with amazing features to assign tasks, collaborate on projects and track each project. Many times, finding the right method for project management to start up a business is a hard nut to crack. Using ProofHub, you can manage your tasks and clients effortlessly from one place.
Piwik PRO: It’s a free and open-source web analytics solution that provides intelligent insights on your website. The statistics include website traffic, keywords visitors to reach your services or products and other helpful analytical information. It uses a variety of inbound marketing strategies to grow the business. It has been observed that Piwik gives progressive results by focusing on creating effective content strategies, utilizing marketing automation, and creating a great customer experience.
Slack: Numerous business teams love Slack because it allows you to create multiple channels (groups) and have private conversations with colleagues as well. You can also join other workspaces, so there is a lot of potential for consultants who work on connecting with other promising companies. It is free for limited access to your message history. It helps you to work in a few ways:
Connected: It makes it easy to contact your colleagues as you can message inside or outside your organization. People can work in a dedicated space that brings the right people and information together.
Flexible: You can access the information you need in your own time, regardless of your location, time zone, or function. It supports asynchronous work.
Inclusive: When the team works together in channels, the information can be shared with everyone at once, helping teams to stay aligned and make decisions more quickly.
CONCLUSION
Although SaaS products have some data security concerns, conventional business software solutions the tech giants have provided so far are exorbitantly expensive for small businesses and incur humongous maintenance costs. Apart from this, flexibility, agility and ease of use are major factors to be evaluated before zeroing in on the tools that will bind all team members together as one highly productive team.
Choosing the traditional and expensive software models may lead early-stage startups and small businesses to scrape the barrel. This is why most companies keep their ears to the ground looking for solutions that meet organizational requirements such as cost-effectiveness, high performance and quality work. And SaaS platforms fit those bills.