Tech Tools & Software for Startups

It goes without saying we love talking about tech around here, and one of our favorite sessions from this year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week was on the topic of how entrepreneurs can use tech to simplify, automate, and grow different areas of their business.

Techlahoma board member and GEW speaker, Milecia McGregor, made the point that each tool you decide to bring on should solve a particular problem. She recommends evaluating your business needs before adding more tools to your kit by asking the following questions:

• What tasks are required to maintain/grow my business?
• What tools will help solve my customers’ problems?
• What need will this tool meet that we can’t build ourselves?
• Can this tool integrate with systems we already use?

When to bring tech into the picture

Bringing on a new tool can seem overwhelming at first, but buying a tool – instead of building it yourself – can save you time and upkeep in the long run.

McGregor says having a well-defined and documented problem that you’ve already tried solving from multiple angles is a sign it’s time to bring in tech as a solution. Timing is also important here – you must be willing to take on a new tool, which will likely involve hours of implementation and training to get up and running.

Before you start exploring solutions, McGregor advises talking to your customers to discover what’s important to them and focusing on tech that will solve their problems and enhance the customer experience.

Finding the right software for your business

Examples of customer communication, customer management, payment systems, visual tools, task tracking, accounting, and internal documentation tools were all on the list of McGregor’s Magical Tools (link coming soon!). We also like this Startup Software Checklist from B2B Reviews that covers 11 essential tools to help startups scale.

No matter what tools you decide to explore first, remember to follow these steps:

1. Make your list of business needs
2. Organize your documentation and labeling 
3. Ask employees about the software they use to get a holistic view of potential integrations
4. Interview customers to uncover pain points and use tech to improve the customer experience
5. Identify key metrics to track how a tool solves a particular problem