Tools to make your life easier as an entrepreneur

Whether you’re just getting started or already have an established business, whether you’re self-employed, a corporate CEO or a team manager, you will need tools to assist with your daily tasks. A vast panel of software, web applications, apps, etc. have been created to help you work better and be more productive. They help maximize your time, manage your tasks and priorities, communicate more effectively, improve team collaboration on projects, and optimize your communications and your online presence… long story short, they make your life easier!

Some apps are free, though their professional more comprehensive versions are paid. We recommend giving them a try before you buy them. Think free trials!

To begin, here are the top 3 must-have aps according to entrepreneurs:

Slack¹: flagship tool for internal communications (and external too). It’s easy-to-use on a mobile and can replace the other usual channels for exchanges (email, Skype, in-house chats, etc.). Discussions can be organized by theme/project, documents can be shared and modified, and notifications can be personalized to stay focused on what’s important. For smaller organizations, the free version is quite sufficient. Paid versions go from €7.50 to €14.50 monthly per user.

Trello²: an online project management tool for organizing tasks lists with your teams. Users can create and share charts, add to-do checklists, assign tasks to employees, etc. You work is continuously synchronized on all devices. Trello can be integrated with other applications (Dropbox, Google Drive, Slack, etc.) and is entirely free.

Evernote³: a popular note-taking and to-do tool, also used to capture and sort all types of content (web pages, blog articles, etc.). You can keep all your notes at your fingertips with Evernote, since it’s compatible with all devices. It’s fast, so you can search documents, notes, etc. efficiently. Three versions: free, €6.99/month and €13.99/month/user.

Aside from these three, there are a number of other tools established entrepreneurs list among the must haves. We’ve done our best to divide them into categories for you:

Office automation

Google G Suite⁴, sometimes used along with Boomerang⁵ and Mixmax⁶
Microsoft Office⁷

Organizing your time and your tasks

Doodle⁸ and Calendly⁹, for planning meetings, events, etc.
Toggl¹⁰, time tracker, your ally for increased productivity
Todoist¹¹ and Wunderlist¹², for drawing up your to do lists
Io¹³ or Zapier¹⁴, synchronize your apps and tools, and thus your various tasks
Freedom¹⁵, to stop distractions and keep focused!

Keeping yourself informed

Feedly*¹⁶, an RSS news feed aggregator and must have monitoring tool
Google Alertes¹⁷ : no more missing hot news online

Managing your projects

Asana ¹⁸ or Workflowy¹⁹, to stay organized in your projects
Tom’s Planner²⁰, “Gantt’s charts for the rest of us”

Communicating and sharing with your teams

Zoom²¹ and Skype²², for your videoconferences
Front²³, shared inboxes to avoid an overload of messages
Dropbox²⁴, service for storing and sharing files online

Sustaining and managing your online presence and fueling your community

WordPress²⁵, the most popular tool for easy website and blog creation
Buffer²⁶ or Hootsuite²⁷, for programming the posting of your messages on social networks
MailChimp²⁸, a must for launching your email campaigns
Hype Auditor²⁹, Social Blade³⁰ and Google Analytics³¹ for tracking your stats on social media, your website, etc.
Shopify³², for creating your e-commerce
Google My Business³³, for creating an attractive business profile to draw in customers

Managing your prospects, clients and sales

Pipedrive³⁴ or Sales Machine³⁵, for making your sales more efficient
Docusign³⁶, safe and easy solution for electronic signatures
Intercom³⁷ or Livechat³⁸, interfaces for easier interactions with clients
Hubspot³⁹, free CRM, fast and effective
Typeform⁴⁰, Google Forms⁴¹ or SurveyMonkey⁴², for all your needs in forms and questionnaires
Eventbrite⁴³, for managing all types of events

Managing your finances

Quickbooks⁴⁴ et Winbooks⁴⁵ (available in French or Dutch), online accounting tools, suited to SMEs
Freshbooks⁴⁶, online invoicing software
Expensify⁴⁷, for anyone who’s tired of managing their expenses and expense reports

Working on your visuals

Unsplash⁴⁸ and Pexels⁴⁹, bases of freely usable images
Canva⁵⁰, for finding attractive content or beautifying a presentation
Tuzzit⁵¹, platform with many visual and canvas tools
Adobe Photoshop⁵² or the free Pixlr⁵³, for editing your photos

Planning and managing your business trips

Jack & Ferdi⁵⁴, the first “bleisure” app, making your business trips into memorable experiences
Hotel Tonight⁵⁵, the best last-minute deals on hotels

Relaxing and meditating

Petit BamBou⁵⁶, free app with a large number of guided meditations
Insight Timer⁵⁷ or Headspace⁵⁸, for meditating and sleeping better

To top off our list, we wanted to talk about paper! It’s true: some of us may never manage to break away from it, be it for our to do lists, brainstorming or simply taking notes. If you classify as old-school, be sure to go for scrap or recycled paper!

Footnote: Our intent was not to be exhaustive with this list and a great many other tools could be perfectly relevant to you and your undertakings. So, what we encourage you to do is work on an objective/need basis and do a quick assessment of 2 or 3 tools (ideally using the free trials) to find the one that’s best for you!

N.B. : nous n’avons pas cherché à être exhaustifs en réalisant cette liste et d’autres outils non repris sur celle-ci pourraient également s’avérer pertinents pour vous et pour vos projets. Ainsi, nous vous encourageons de travailler par objectif/besoin et de faire une analyse plus ou moins approfondie de 2 à 3 outils, de profiter des essais gratuits offerts et d’ensuite décider celui qui vous convient le mieux !

Learn more :

1 : Slack / 2 : Trello / 3 : Evernote / 4 : Google G Suite / 5 : Boomerang / 6 : Mixmax / 7 : Microsoft Office / 8 : Doodle / 9 : Calendly / 10 : Toggl / 11 : Todoist / 12 : Wunderlist / 13 : Io / 14 : Zapier / 15 : Freedom / 16 : Feedly / 17 : Google Alertes / 18 : ASANA / 19 : WORKFLOWY / 20 : Tom’s Planner / 21 : Zoom / 22 : Skype, / 23 : Front / 24 : Dropbox / 25 : WordPress / 26 : Buffer / 27 : Hootsuite / 28 : MailChimp / 29 : Hype Auditor / 30 : Social Blade / 31 : Google Analytics / 32 : Shopify / 33 : Google My Business / 34 : Pipedrive / 35 : Sales Machine / 36 : Docusign / 37 : Intercom / 38 : Livechat / 39 : Hubspot / 40 : Typeform / 41 : Google Forms / 42 : SurveyMonkey / 43 : Eventbrite / 44 : Quickbooks / 45 : Winbooks / 46 : Freshbooks / 47 : Expensify / 48 : Unsplash / 49 : Pexels / 50 : Canva / 51 : Tuzzit / 52 : Adobe Photoshop / 53 : Pixlr / 54 : Jack & Ferdi / 55 : Hotel Tonight / 56 : Petit BamBou / 57 : Insight Timer / 58 : Headspace