Tech Tools to Grow your Business from Idea to IPO

Any founder, C-suite, or management-level executive will agree that scaling a business is difficult. SaaS companies continually develop tech tools for business growth and while this provides consumers with a multitude of choice, the speed and scale of such developments results in an increasingly populated and convoluted marketplace.

Therefore, consumers, when faced with such a myriad of options, often face a cognitive process known as choice overload. This is described by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock, “[Choice overload takes place when] the advantages of diversity and individualization [sic] are cancelled by the complexity of buyer’s decision-making process.”

As a growing business ourselves, we’ve tested multiple tools on the market for friendly user experiences and effective performance. Here are some of our top tools for supporting and managing business growth.

Growth Tools

• Buffer – While each social platform could be handled separately, using a content publishing platform such as Buffer allows for better time and workflow management with its scheduling capabilities. It also allows you to keep a more cohesive handle on your social efforts by managing all of your platforms from a single site.
• Hootsuite – Hootsuite is somewhat comparable to Buffer in that it allows you to manage all of your social platforms in one place. Hootsuite, however, provides considerably more in-depth analytics, scheduling, and content management features for a deeper dive into your social performance.
• Unbounce – Unbounce is a user-friendly platform for designing landing pages. These landing pages are generally linked to paid ads primarily for acquiring leads. No coding skills are necessarily and the platform comes with build-in options for A/B testing to optimise lead conversion.
• Mailchimp – Having leads to opt in to an email subscription is an effective way of nurturing them if they aren’t ready to convert right away. Mailchimp is a marketing automation and email marketing service with a user-friendly interface (complete with cheeky messaging) and design engine that allows you to build visually appealing emails without code.
• Hubspot – If you want to manage all of their inbound marketing and sales efforts on one platform, Hubspot is a great all-in-one tool that covers the majority of aspects of customer journeys from acquisition to retention. The platform is complete with social media, content management, web analytics, landing page, and SEO tools.
• Salesforce – All of the leads your marketing team acquired are best managed in a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Salesform organises all customer information on an integrated platform for ease of marketing, sales, customer service, and business analysis.

Design Tools

• Adobe Creative Suite – Adobe Creative Suite, consisting of programs such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, and InDesign for creating visual designs and editing photography, dominates the market for creation of all things visual and is a favourite for content creators globally.
• InVision – Before your software team starts to write code, your UI and UX designers first should create clickable design prototypes to demo the user experience of your final product. InVision is a prototyping platform with functions for easy collaboration between team members.
• WordPress – Using a CMS (Content Management System) is a convenient way to keep your written and visual content organised. Wordpress is a popular CMS and web design platform that powers 18.9% of the Internet as of October 2017. The system began as a user-friendly blog platform and has grown to cover various aspects of web design and content management.

Productivity Tools

• Trello – Keeping each team member on track is challenging, especially when you’re a business that is trying to scale. Trello is a visual project management application that helps teams keep on top of their tasks with drag-and-drop task organisation, categorisation, and assignation features.
• Google Drive – Google Drive is a cloud-based Google app that is linked to each user’s Google account. This provides you with an easy platform to share files and create, edit, and share documents with your team.
• Google Calendar – Google Calendar is another Google app, which helps users plan their schedule on a shareable calendar and invite others to events and meetings.
• Evernote – Evernote is a cross-platform app designed for on-the-go note-taking and organisation that supports the majority of popular operating systems and automatic synchronisation across devices.
• Slack – Team-messaging app Slack has taken the startup world by storm in recent years. While being a simple platform reminiscent of the early days of instant messaging, Slack is specifically designed with collaboration and productivity in mind, featuring multiple channels for teams to discuss everything from product updates to where to go for lunch.

HR Tools

• Charlie – While keeping a spreadsheet or a Google Doc of each employee’s personal details and booked time off gets the job done, using a visually appealing HR platform makes the same employee information more easily accessible and digestible. Charlie is one such platform that helps companies onboard new hires, store team documents, and book time off.
• Hubble – At Hubble, we’re dedicated to providing each business with the perfect space to continue their growth, wherever they are on your journey from idea to IPO. A great space in a great location surrounded by inspiring people is the best way to motivate your team to do their best work. Search our spaces here.

Finance Tools

• Transferwise – In a world where business is increasingly international, the need to transfer money between countries and currencies becomes greater. Transferwise is an online platform that provides international money transfers at the current exchange rate within 24 hours.
• QuickBooks – Proper financial management is crucial to business growth. Quickbooks is a multi-platform online accounting software for freelancers, small businesses, and accountants for finance-related functions such as creating invoices, gaining cashflow insights, running payroll, sorting receipts, and calculating tax.

What tools have helped you with your business growth?

We’d love to hear about the tool you’ve found most useful (and possibly try them out for ourselves)! Give us a shout at marketing@hubblehq.com.