For most startup businesses, the odds are set against them. Inc. Magazine reports 50 percent startups failed within first two years of operation, 75 percent had to close down after three years, and 33 percent had to face failure within the 6 months of starting operations.
If you are a startup business owner and manage to pass the first few years, even that doesn’t guarantee you’re going to see profitability or make a name in the industry. For navigating your startup, right from the early days to successful profitability, starting on the right foot with the right resources is necessary.
Though there are several resources startups have at their disposal at initial stages, software programs, web and smartphone applications have grown in importance since they can speed up tasks, cut down costs and lead to seamless communication between business owners, employees, clients and customers.
G2 Crowd introduced a review site for business applications, similar to what Yelp offers. Startups can visit sites like these to see which application has been doing well for businesses and select the one that’s suitable for their operations.
Similarly, many companies like Salesforce Development and others, are working to boost up enterprise apps for businesses. They have developed apps for startups that allow companies both big and small to store business data online and offline.
Here are some more helpful software-based resources you can look into for your startup company:
1. NetSuite
NetSuite is an all-in-one platform, allowing you to keep everything related to your startup in a single place so that you don’t have to search or go on a worrying spree when requiring access to important information quickly.
With NetSuite, there’s a lot you can do; it can be used for bookkeeping, tracking of inventories, management of e-commerce operations and management of relationships between you and your customers. The best thing about this software is perhaps its scalability, which means the size of the software is going to grow along with your business, which is usually the kind of software a startup business aims to work with at initial stages.
2. Pivotal Tracker
It’s very important for you to get company tasks done right on time without any delay if you want to give your startup any chance of surviving in the market that’s now full of cut-throat competition. It’s not just you who needs to be top-notch; everyone attached to running operations need to be on schedule.
Pivotal Tracker will allow everyone to coordinate and collaborate with each other in real-time. You can also use this software to track individual progress, give feedback to how the staff is doing and set priorities based on the importance of different business tasks. You don’t need to browse through text documents or dozens of timelines as the software’s OneView dashboard will present you everything visually.
3. QuickBooks
While it’s unlikely (unless you have something innovative to offer) that your startup sees profitability within a first few months, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t keep a check on your revenue and expenses; you do want to see where you’re going with this. QuickBooks makes it easy to see how you’re doing with revenues and costs.
Apart from that, you can also make purchase orders and invoices, keep a track on inventories, and edit financial transactions in multiple accounts and a lot more. It’s scalable and will grow along with you. Plans can be upgraded after more transactions and entries are required.
Getting the right resources at the beginning, whether it’s hardware, software or anything else can prove to be the difference maker for your startup as you try to survive and redefine in your industry.