Start-ups play with two precious, but limited, resources — time and money. Their flight rolls down a short runway with a wall at the end. If they cannot take off in time, the typical alternative is to crash and burn. Here we present 10 apps that should provide some lift to start-ups. Consider these to be the digital equivalent of wind beneath your wings. Note that all apps on the list are available for Android and iOS devices unless otherwise mentioned.
When I Work
Start-ups often engage remote employees from different parts of the world, especially for design and development work. Given the timezone differences and other variables, scheduling virtual meetings or assigning tasks can get tedious. When I Work promises to help you run your business from your pocket and take the time out of employee scheduling. It uses a combination of text messaging, email and the web to communicate, alert and notify your staff about the work schedule. Remote employees can use it to accept or reject trade shifts and request time offs.
RescueTime
Those who can successfully block out distractions — yes Facebook, we are looking at you — can achieve far more on the job. RescueTime runs in the background and keeps track of time you spend on apps, websites and phone calls. You can set up alerts and goals to manage your digital life or highlight achievements for days when you kept distractions at bay. Also analyse historical data and sniff out patterns to your time wasting. The desktop versions for Windows, OS X and Linux do similar duty on your computer, and also let you selectively block sites during specified times. An iPhone version is not up yet.
MailChimp
Apart from social media, email and newsletters are key tools for updating your growing customer base with the latest news and offers. One of the most popular option is MailChimp, apparently used by 10 million people who design and send a staggering 600 million emails every day. With the mobile app, you can manage lists, add new subscribers, send campaign drafts, and view reports. You can also create an email marketing campaign on the desktop, and then use the phone to push it out.
Buffer / Hootsuite
Where would start-ups be without social networks to spread the word about them? But updating and keeping track of social media activities on various platforms can become resource and time-intensive for many bootstrapped start-ups. Apps like Buffer or its competitor, Hootsuite reduce the workload by letting you manage multiple social networks from one place. Hootsuite connects with more than 35 services. You can blast your messaging to some or all of your networks in one go, stack up and schedule the updates, track interactions and conversions, measure ROI and even turn the social media exercise into a team effort.
Addappt
As your digital rolodex grows, so does the challenge of keeping it up to date. The ideal solution, if a contact moves to a new location or changes her phone number, would be to have the info in your address book automatically update itself. And that’s the challenge Addappt tackles, by replacing your phone’s default contacts app with one that updates instantly when friends change their contact information on their phone. The downside to this app is that your friends also need to be on it. But for a company, getting its employees on Addappt could be an efficient way of ensuring everyone has the latest contact details.
Sunrise Calendar
Over the past year, Microsoft has increasingly been making some of its crown jewels available on other platforms, as also creating new ones like the Sunrise Calendar. The app hooks up with Microsoft’s Exchange servers, Google Calendar and iCloud. Besides, you can link it up with Trello, Facebook, Evernote, TripIt and other services to make sure you’re always up to date with all the events happening in your life. Sunrise Calendar also includes a Meet feature, which claims to be the fastest way to schedule a one-to-one on the go. Apparently, once you use it, you’ll never schedule meetings any other way!
Shoeboxed
Shoeboxed claims to be a fast way to digitise and archive receipts in a single, secure location. These receipts are verified, categorised, organised and made available anytime, anywhere. The mobile app lets you click images of receipts and also grabs location data via GPS. You can then create expense reports or send the data to your accounting software. Shoeboxed asserts its service works with nearly every popular accounting solution. For other types of paperwork, check out the Tiny Scanner app, which uses the phone’s camera to convert documents to PDF files.
Zoho Books
It claims to be the accounting software for growing businesses, making it easy to stay on top of the cash flow. You can send out estimates and invoices, accept payments, record expenses and bills, categorise them on the phone itself, keep track of how much you owe and always pay your bills on time. You can set up and automate various tasks or get business insights via a dashboard available within the app. Zoho Books also allows the business owner to extend access to a trusted advisor to review numbers right from the comfort of his home or office.
Trello
Project management can make or break start-ups — done well, the budding organisation can execute projects with clockwork precision. Trello is a leading option start-ups can rely on. It looks great and is easy to use — even technologically-challenged employees can be up and running on it within minutes. Trello uses cards to denote tasks and you can colour code them based on how critical the tasks are, assign dates and responsibilities, attach documents, or drag and drop them from one list to another. You can also create multiple boards within an organisation, and add different sets of team members to each board.
HipChat
The Australian start-up, Atlassian, is in the news for its IPO. Hailed as one of the strongest this year, it turned the company into a unicorn with a valuation of $5.8 billion (Dh21.3 billion). The company boasts that its group messaging tool, HipChat, is loved by great teams in start-ups and enterprises. HipChat lets you speed up communication. You can do video and voice chats with coworkers, teammates and friends, exchange files, create rooms, and do things faster than email and more personal than fax. The app integrates with over 80 third-party products and services, including Wunderlist, Twitter and Hangouts.
