When starting a business it is becoming ever more important to be agile and flexible. This also holds true for your location. At the start you may be moving between different co-working spaces, through accelerators or nearer to your customers. As you grow, you may need to get a larger space or relocate to a more secluded environment in which you can cultivate your company culture alone. At some stage you may also wish to relocate without any disruption to the morale of your team, the quality of your product and level of service that you give to your customers. To achieve this, you need to make smart decisions about the tools you use, as early on as possible. Here is a taster of some of the tools for consideration on the market that could help being a startup that thrives on the move —
Instead of purchasing costly software you can subscribe to apps on a pay-as-you-go basis. Ensuring your company data is secure and up to date is essential to ensure your team can keep working and that you can keep delivering even when you might be relocating. Having bulky data storage is something that will hamper you in moving smoothly.
Top picks from site, consumer review site business.com
Heroku: Excellent cloud computing platform for small business. Heroku has excellent compatibility with every major web language. Data monitoring and analytics are easy to use. The platform is also uncomplicated to scale which makes this service great for backing up when on the move.
Amazon Elastic Beanstalk: Based on the Amazon Web Services, Amazon Elastic Beanstalk, allows you to select from a multitude of tools to manage your data.
Windows Azure: Perfect for anyone who wants to outsource the administrative tasks associated with cloud computing. It is easy to use, update and maintain. It is also supports .NET applications. Windows Azure ensures that its users have comprehensive information at hand to ensure that they are able to handle whatever situation they may encounter. They also have email and phone support, making it one of the most user-friendly cloud services out there.
Top pick from the Startup Magazine
Evernote: Evernote is a great tool for collecting everything in one place, whether they be hand written notes or articles found on the web, Evernote is a must have tool for sharing information with your team. Evernote allows you to easily search for particular information and present it to your team. Furthermore, Evernote can be synchronised with software such as Nuance’s Power PDF.
AUTOMATING MARKETING SERVICES
Marketing can be time consuming when you are rooted in one place let alone when you are on the move. Being able to track and manage your data on the move is essential in order for you to be able to monitor where your existing sales are coming from and how you can attract more clients to your business. Online tools allow you to manage marketing campaigns across a variety of platforms. You can keep track of what’s working and what’s not, raising awareness of your brand amongst consumers and boosting your profile.
Top picks from the Startup Magazine
Buffer: Helps you save time on social media by scheduling your posts across multiple platforms.
Commun.it: Helps you to prioritise your Twitter campaigns, gives you key insights into where to focus your social media energies.
Publicate: With its easy to use interface, Publicate is a great tool for organising and sharing content with your customers.
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Great team work relies of great communication, that both involves sharing information and sharing documents.
Top picks from the Startup Magazine
Slack: Available on web and mobile, slack is a valuable for keeping your team members on the same page. Slack allows you to create separate channels that track history and puts need to know knowledge into everyone’s hands. Slack is also easy to integrate with other services such as Dropbox and Twitter.
HipChat: A tool that allows you to not only converse with your colleagues but share your screen with colleagues, share files and have unlimited chat rooms.
mIRC: For the more traditional among you, mIRC is an internal relay client that offers a clean and practical interface for Windows. It is highly customisable and can be used to perform a range of functions, from network communications to playing games.
But most importantly, remember to always use technology to keep messages personal. Maurizio Tripi, CEO of Realcontact emphasises this in his interview. Business is about people, serving value to them consistently and finding ways to delight them through your product, service and how you communicate with them. Irrespective of what changes in your company internally, it is important for your customers to still consistently experience a high level of service from you. There are tools to help you do that… For further details on the tools that you should consider to be a more effective startup on the move click here.
