6 Must-Have Resources for Starting a Business

Software is eating the world, and even small business owners significantly improve their chances of building a successful business when they are equipped with the best applications and tools. In this article, we curated the best cloud-based software for your online store or service business.

Icanpreneur: The Most Important Application for a New Business

What It Does:
Icanpreneur is a platform that helps entrepreneurs get from an idea to a product-market fit without relying on luck. The platform combines proven methodologies with all the needed guidance, examples, and tooling to provide an entrepreneurial journey that is easy to follow and leads to market success.

Key Features:

• Icanpreneur Virtual Assistant: IVA is AI technology specifically designed and trained to support entrepreneurs. It combines years of experience with all the available context for developing a business idea. IVA is always next to you, ready to give suggestions and guidance when needed.
• A True Home for Your Business: Icanpreneur combines multiple tools to start a business in one place. You will find a mini-CRM, Calendar, Business Plan, and anything else you need to go from zero to hero.
• Real-time Collaboration: Building a successful business requires a team. Use the Icanpreneur platform to bring everybody together to collaborate on your business idea.

Why Icanpreneur Is a Must-Have for New Companies:
Icanpreneur helps entrepreneurs achieve market success by helping them express, validate, and evolve their ideas. The heart of the Icanpreneur platform is the idea that a company's most important goal is to deliver value to customers and capture part of that value to build a successful business.

Plans & Tiers:
Monthly or Annual subscription per user with a trial period.

Pro Tip:
You can create the first draft of your business plan in less than 30 minutes.

Try It Here:
Icanpreneur Platform

Canva: Design with Ease

What It Does:
Canva is a design platform that is especially useful for businesses and teams with limited or no design capacity. It allows non-professional designers to easily create good-looking marketing collateral without spending time learning complicated tools and concepts.

Key Features:

• Rick Template Library: The power of Canva is in its enormous library of templates for all kinds of marketing artifacts.
• Intuitive Interface: Unlike professional designer tools that use commands and complicated language, Canva's intuitive interface makes it very simple to get started.
• Brand Kit: Once you set up your brand, like colors, typeface, and logos, you can reuse it across all artifacts and have consistency and productivity when working on new projects.

Why Canva Is a Must-Have for New Companies:
New businesses can’t afford to hire professional designers from day one. External design services are expensive and can slow down productivity. Creating simple marketing materials yourself is a huge productivity booster and enabler.

Plans & Tiers:

• Free plan with limited access to templates, functionalities, and storage. This plan can get you pretty far until you need to upgrade.
• Pro plan full access to the template library and components

Pro Tip:
Never start from scratch. Canva has a vast community of creators who create high-quality resources that are readily available to you.

Try It Here:
Canva Website

Buffer: Level Up Your Social Presence

What It Does:
Buffer is an app that helps you plan, organize, and analyze your social marketing strategy in one place. Instead of managing 10+ social accounts individually, you can have everything in one place. It allows entrepreneurs to write once and publish everywhere.

Key Features:

• Content Calendar: Consistency is key to attracting and engaging your target audience on social networks. Buffer allows you to create a queue of posts scheduled to be published at the time of day that will get the most impressions.
• Ideas Backlog: Buffer is also a tiny project management tool for social media management. Whenever an idea strikes you, add it to your backlog so you can work on it later.
• Reporting and Engagement: Buffer provides metrics reporting across all networks in one place, so you can track what ideas worked and follow up with followers who interacted with you.

Why Buffer Is a Must-Have for New Businesses:
Buffer streamlines that work and allows you to block a weekday slot during which you handle all the work keep your accounts up to date, and focus on serving customers.

Plans & Tiers:

• Free plan with up to three social accounts with some limitations
• $5/month/channel with unlimited access to all platform features

Pro Tip:
Do you have an urgent announcement to make to all your followers? Buffer allows you to skip the line and publish immediately, so good news can travel fast.

Try It Here:
Buffer

Google Meet: Video Calls with Anyone

What It Does:
Google Meet is a video and audio communication service by Google. Interaction with customers, partners, and team members is increasingly moving to the online space.

Key Features:

• HD Video and Audio: This may sound trivial, but having reliable real-time interaction is foundational for having efficient and effective online meetings.
• Virtual Backgrounds and Filters: Online communication can easily enter our personal space, especially when working remotely. Google Meet allows you to hide your background and apply filters so you feel comfortable with your personal look and surroundings.
• Integration with Other Google Services: Google Meet seamlessly integrates with your calendar, Google Drive, and inbox, making it easy to use.

Why Google Meet Is a Must-Have for New Businesses:
The days of on-site meetings with customers and other stakeholders are long gone. Unless your business requires a physical presence, chances are your primary interaction with others will be online, and having a reliable platform for that from day one is essential.

Plans & Tiers:

• A free plan that will serve you well until you start hosting meetings with more than 100 attendees
• Pain plans for more attendees, enhanced security, and other enterprise features with 14-day free trial.

Pro Tip:
Did you know that Google Meet supports conversation captions and transcription both live and after the call is completed? Next time you conduct a customer interview on Google Meet, try dropping your conversation in Icanpreneur to receive automatic analysis and insights into the conversation.

Try It Here:
Google Meet

HubSpot CRM

What It Does:
A CRM is a platform for managing your relationship with your customers. HubSpot is one of the most innovative CRM tools currently available. It is famous for its ease of use, personalization, and ability to scale with your needs.

Key Features:

• Contact Management: It is flexible and easy to track everything related to your contacts - from demographics and contact details to all their interactions with your brand, like emails, support tickets, etc.
• Sales Pipeline: HubSpot can track everything related to your current and future deals to better manage your sales process.
• Mobile App: Spending most of your time on the go? That is no problem. HubSpot works equally well on your phone.

Why HubSpot Is a Must-Have App to Start a Business:
Once you start scaling your sales process, keeping track of your sales funnel can become challenging. A system that automatically monitors all activities and provides contextually useful information when needed is a secret weapon for strong customer relationships.

Plans & Tiers:

• Free plan, which includes essential contact management and basic reporting
• Paid plans with additional options, including marketing hub, rich reporting, meeting scheduler, etc., at €15/month/seat.

Pro Tip:
HubSpot can easily integrate with other platforms, such as Lemlist, Stripe, etc., to provide a complete overview of your interactions with leads.

Try It Here:
Hubspot

LegalZoom

What It Does:
LegalZoom is an app that offers various legal services for businesses. It handles tasks related to starting a new business, protecting intellectual property, and managing compliance requirements.

Key Features:

• Business Formation Services: Register your business, including LLCs, corporations, and nonprofits, quickly and with legal compliance.
• Trademark Registration: Protect your brand by filing for trademarks with easy-to-follow guides and access to legal expertise.
• Compliance Tools: Keep your business compliant with ongoing legal requirements, including annual report filings and tax services.

Why LegalZoom Is a Must-Have Platform to Start a New Company:
Legal work is important and can completely derail your business if not appropriately prioritized, but it’s not adding value to your customers. The more work you can handle automatically outside your team, the more time and resources you have to focus on providing your customers with a great product or service.

Plans & Tiers:

Starter plans for business formation, trademarks, and legal documents at varying prices based on the type of entity and the services needed, starting from $0 + state fees.

Pro Tip:
The Trademark Infringement service will give you peace of mind and automatically keep track of potential infringements.

Try It Here:
LegalZoom