10 free tools every small business should be using

I think most people are aware by now that the world of software is changing - moving from expensive applications that you purchase for each of your computers to online "software as a service" that you pay for monthly. FeedMagnet itself falls in this category of new software. And and as a part of us eating our own dog food, we are running pretty much every aspect of our business with other software-as-a-service apps.

One of the by-products of this new model for software is a plethora of free services that small and startup business can benefit from. Most of these new tools have a "fremium" monetization model - providing a free version of the product and then selling premium features at a monthly cost (this is our plan for FeedMagnet, btw). As a result, there are a number of products that can be used to power your business for free - at least until you grow to the point where you need the more advanced features.

There are a ton of these apps available, but in this post, I'll cover a handful of the ones that are particularly useful for small businesses.

Google Apps

Google Apps Google's suite of tools for email, documents, and calendaring as pretty incredible. All the email and calendaring features of Microsoft Exchange that most small businesses need, for free. Plus, the web mail is identical to gmail - a huge leap forward from Outlook web mail. It syncs with Blackberry, iPhone, and other devices for free. And the docs feature let's you collaborate online on text documents and spreadsheets. We keep our business plan spreadsheet in Google docs - everyone I invite can see it, but only a handful of people can make edits - and there is only one copy - not dozens of versions floating around via email. Not only are we not going to purchase Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, we won't be purchasing Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) either. We also use the built in IM functionality for daily team interactions and Google keeps a searchable history of every chat we've had right in my email box. No wonder Microsoft is a little scared of Google right now.

Cost: Free for basic functionality (what we're using now at FeedMagnet). Premium version costs $50/year/employee for more advanced features and extra storage space.

Highrise

Highrise Logo Highrise is possibly my most used app outside of email. It is a CRM - a database for keeping track of customers and sales leads. I use it to keep notes from every meeting I've had with other entrepreneurs, mentors, job applicants, potential business partners, and new business prospects.

Cost: Free for two users and up to 250 contacts. Very affordable monthly fees once you need more than that.

Basecamp and PivotalTracker

Basecamp Logo These are both great tools for managing teamwork. We're not using Basecamp yet at FeedMagnet, but I've used it in the past and we will likely use it in the future. Its strength is in managing projects from start to finish. It provides a central hub of messages, files, milestones, and documentation for the project and is a great way to collaborate with internal teams and clients. It is the flagship product of 37Signals, the same company that makes Highrise.

PivotalTracker Logo PivotalTracker is a very focused tool designed specifically for managing the agile development process. While it is mostly meant for software teams to use while doing ongoing development, I think a creative team could put it to use for other processes that are adopting an agile approach. We've been using PivotalTracker from the beginning to keep track of our development work on FeedMagnet and have really grown to depend on and love it.

Cost: Basecamp is free if you only need to keep track of one project and don't need any file storage. PivotalTracker is 100% free right now - although they could add premium features in the future that you could pay for.

Google Sites

Google Sites Google Sites started out as JotSpot - a wiki designed specifically for businesses. Google acquired them and after several years of sitting on it finally re-released it as Google Sites, with a few improvements in usability. Wikis are awesome for keeping records of development specifications, marketing plans, branding assets, and all kinds of other company documents. I've tried implementing wikis at companies in the past and always had trouble with adoption because of the learning curve to start using them. Google Sites overcomes that hurdle by making the interface incredibly intuitive and usability almost as easy as email.

Cost: Totally free.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp Logo Mailchimp is an excellent (and slightly quirky) email marketing tool. As a business, you don't want to be sending out mass emails using your personal inbox - you need to comply with anti-spam laws, provide a way for subscribers to opt-out automatically, and manage multiple lists of recipients. MailChimp does all of that for free - and is super easy to use. We're using it to capture email addresses of people interested in our beta right now.

Cost: Free for up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 email sends per month.

Clicky Analytics

Clicky Analytics Logo Clicky provides tracking data on visitors to your website. Google Analytics also does this (and is also free), but Clicky does a few things that Google does not. By far the coolest feature is the ability to see a live stream of people visiting your website and have Clicky determine what company offices they are likely visiting from based on their IP address. If you've been trying to land a big contract with Whole Foods, Clicky can tell you if people from their corporate offices are on your website right now - giving you an advantage if you are about to call or go in for a visit. We're actually using Google Analytics and Clicky both on www.FeedMagnet.com.

Cost: Free, as long as you are ok with it only reporting on data from the past month. There's a low monthly cost to remove that restriction.

Tumblr

Tumblr Logo Now we're starting to get into the realm of public communication and marketing tools. Tumblr is a great free way to set up a company blog. You can completely customize the look and feel by uploading your own custom design or choosing from one of their great looking templates. You can also have it run at your own domain (e.g. blog.mysite.com) for free. We're actually not using Tumblr for FeedMagnet because our development framework, Django, has such great blogging capabilities out of the box, but if you are not in the software business and don't have coders on staff, you should definitely check out Tumblr as a quick, easy way to start up your own professional-looking blog.

Cost: Totally free.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn Logos There are a ton of great options for getting involved in social communities. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are among the best for businesses, but there are often niche social networks for your specific region or industry. Twitter and Facebook are great for interacting with customers and fans. LinkedIn can be a great way to connect with sales leads and find new job candidates.

Cost: Twitter and Facebook are totally free to create business profiles. LinkedIn is also free, but offers a premium service that many businesses may want to take advantage of.

BudURL

BudURL Logo Let's say you have a Twitter account and you post a link from it to an article you found on CNN related to your business. Traditionally, there would be no way for you to track how many people clicked your link. If you post a lot of links, you have no way of knowing which were more popular with your followers. BudURL solves this problem by providing custom link URLs that redirect to whatever sites or articles you want them to and tracking how many people click the links. It also shortens links in the process, making it easier to post those unwieldy YouTube or Google Maps links. And it's not just for Twitter. You can use BudURL links in emails, on print materials, in PowerPoint or Slideshare documents - anywhere you can put a link.

Cost: Free for basic tracking. Low monthly cost for more advanced tracking. You can also pay to have use your own domain for the links (e.g. links.mysite.com).

FeedMagnet

FeedMagnet Logo You didn't think I was going to finish this list without at least a little plug for FeedMagnet, did you? Like all of the tools above, FeedMagnet will be offering a free version that provides basic functionality. It will let you put a feed on your website combining photo, video, and text posts that have been put out there by your company and/or key employees. We're still in closed beta right now, testing everything out, but we're hoping you'll be able to sign up by the end of the year to start using the free version of the tool.

Cost: Free for basic functionality. Premium versions will provide content sources and other advanced features.

Our full toolset

Not all of the tools we use at FeedMagnet are free, but they are all software-as-a-service. Just in case you're curious, here's the full list of web apps we're currently using to run our business:

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by Jason on Ford Nov. 4, 2009