35 Free or Cheap Online Resources for Your Internet Start Up

This lens provides an outline (including url's) of some fantastic free and cheap web resources and applications that will help you 'bootstrap' your start up.

What's the Idea Behind this Lens?

When you start a new business you need to find as many ways as possible to keep your costs down.

Fortunately there are some fantastic free and cheap resources on the internet that will help you bootstrap your start up.

Our company has gone from two to ten people. Over the last three years we have tried hundreds of software solutions and online services. These are 30 of the free and cheap services that we now use.

Please let us know about better or new ones...

Communications

Skype

Skype - Communicate by voice and text with company colleagues, suppliers and customers for free using Skype.

Other similar services exist, but none of them have the coverage and reach of Skype.

Communications

Jajah

Jahjah - When you need to call people who don't have a Skype account consider using JahJah.

It's not free, but you can save up to 98% on your calls.

Communications

Gmail

Gmail - Google's free email service is getting better by the day.

POP3, mobile access, integration to the diary, good spam filters, and much more.

Communications

Pidgin

Pidgin - the free Pidgin software allows you to have one instant messenger (IM) application, that brings together messages from AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICG and IRC.

Also consider Trillian, or MAC users try Adium.

Images & Image Editing

SnagIt

SnagIt - Download the trial and they should send you a discount offer (normal price $40).

This tremendously useful application allows you to grab images, parts of pages or whole websites, so they can be reproduced in an article, document or email.

Images & Image Editing

Fotoflexer

Fotoflexer - A simple, but powerful tool for editing and enhancing your photos online.

Should meet most of your image editing needs.

Also consider Google Picasa - and Picnik.

If you want to edit on your computer try Paint.net

Images & Image Editing

iStockphoto

iStockphoto - Traditionally stock photos have been very expensive to license.

Now there are a lot of new online image libraries which provide images from just $1.

Also consider StockXpert and Fotolia.

Images & Image Editing

Flickr

Flickr - store and share your photos on Flickr.

It is important to back up your photo library, in case your hard drive gets damaged. This is one place to do it.

Also consider PhotoBucket.

Multimedia

Camstudio

CamStudio - If you want to occasionally make simple flash videos this free screen capture software is fine.

If you want to make more sophisticated videos invest in Camtasia.

Multimedia

Camtasia Studio

Camtasia Studio - If you are planning on regularly creating high quality videos, then invest in Camtasia Studio 8 ($299 or academic license £78).

Networking

Facebook

Facebook - When you start a business you will be working so hard it will be difficult to keep up with friends and colleagues. But maintaining your network is very important so try using Facebook to keep in touch.

Also consider MySpace.

Networking

LinkedIn

LinkedIn - LinkedIn is another networking tool which enables you to stay in touch with existing contacts, whilst reaching out to new ones.

As an entrepreneur it is a great way of getting introductions to potential partners, suppliers, investors and employees.

Networking

Plaxo

Plaxo - manages your contacts by updating your address book as peoples' contact details change. It also notifies your contacts about changes to your details.

There is quite a bit of overlap between Plaxo, LinkedIn and Facebook, but I would recommend using all three.

Back Up

Carbonite

Carbonite - Over 50% of small businesses that lose all their data through the corruption of a hard drive or theft, go out of business.

Back up is critical so don't rely on free services.

Carbonite provides a fully automated online back up solution. At a $49.95/£25 per year for unlimited space, it's a great deal.

Back Up

SyncBackSE

SyncBackSE - For local backup, SyncBack wins hands down.

Try it for free. Software costs $30/£15.

Company Organization

Google Sites

Google Sites - centralize file storage so you can easily edit and share documents, images and videos with your colleagues, suppliers or customers.

Its like your own company intranet.

Company Organization

Google Calendar

Google Calendar - Being able to share a calendar with your colleagues saves you time and increases efficiency.

Google Calendar is easy to use, has a mobile phone version and now syncs with Microsoft Outlook.

Also look at 30 Boxes.

Company Organization

Google Docs

Google Docs - If you want to edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations online, this is a fairly good place to do it.

However, you have problems if you want to do editing whilst not connected to the internet. For that try OpenOffice.

Also consider ZoHo.

Company Organization

OpenOffice

OpenOffice - at last a good free alternative to Microsoft's Office.

It includes a high quality word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software and database.

All the files are compatible with Microsoft Office.

Company Organization

Freshbooks

Freshbooks - Invoicing and tracking outstanding debtors is critical to every businesses success.

Freshbooks does a very good job at doing these boring but essential tasks.

Company Organization

Google Reader

Google Reader - There are loads of news feed readers and everyone has their own preference.

I use Google Reader just because it is integrated into a Google personalised home page so I can have my feeds, calendar, bookmarks, Gmail and widgets all in one place.

You can achieve the same with Facebook or Netvibes.

Also consider Pageflakes.

Web Stats & Alerts

Google Analytics

Google Analytics - You cannot run a successful online business without understanding how many people are coming to your site, what they do when they get there and how what pages are most popular.

Google's free analytics service provides a fantastic overview of your sites activity.

Web Stats & Alerts

Popuri

popuri - To get a quick snapshot of how well your online marketing is doing, type your domain name into Popuri.us and get your Google PageRank; Alexa, Compete and Quantcast position; and number of backlinks from Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Technorati.

Web Stats & Alerts

Google Alerts

Google Alerts - It is very important to keep an eye on what people are saying about you, your company, products and website.

It is also useful to keep an eye on what your competitors are up to.

Google Alerts sends you an email each time your chosen words are posted on the web.

Customer Relationship Management

SugarCRM

SugarCRM - The open source version of SugarCRM can be a very effective customer management tool.

You may need to get a developer to set it up for you but once established it is flexible and comprehensive.

SugarCRM also offer a commercial managed version.

Customer Relationship Management

Kayako

Kayako - An excellent online help desk solution which enables you to track and support hundreds of clients.

Not free, but good value for what it provides (from $29.95 per month).

Customer Relationship Management

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting - At SubHub, we do all our client demos over the web, using the GoToMeeting service.

It's $49 a month, or $468 per year, for as many meetings as you need.

Useful Stuff

FreeMind

FreeMind - Mindmaps are a very effective way of capturing and sharing information.

FreeMind is a good free open source solution.

Also try The Brain for organising files in a logical way.

Useful Stuff

KeePass

KeePass - Most internet users accumulate dozens or even hundreds of passwords which can become a headache to manage and remember.

The open source KeePass PassWord Safe helps manage your passwords.

Useful Stuff

AVG Free Anti-Virus

AVG Free - Free anti-virus software that is as good as most of the commercial solutions.

Useful Stuff

CutePDF

CutePDF - Simple free PDF creation software.

SubHub sends a lot of PDFs and this solution works OK.

Also consider PDF995 and PrimoPDF.

If you need a much more professional solution for ebooks and reports, try Nuance PDF Converter (£99).

Useful Stuff

FileZilla

FileZilla - If you need to FTP files onto your server this FTP client is a free, easy-to-use solution.

Useful Stuff

TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt - free open-source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Works well.

Getting Help

Elance

Elance - A good place to find lots of freelance specialists to help with design, proofreading, writing, development, marketing, etc.

Pay attention to the ratings.

Getting Help

oDesk

oDesk - If you are looking for a programmer or web designer, oDesk is a good place to start.

Conclusion

Make the most of all these amazing tools to help you launch and grow your business.

As we at SubHub have found out to our cost, free solutions can be a false economy for critical applications. However you can nearly always find an excellent and cost effective solution on the web.

Please add any other applications you use in the guestbook below, so readers can benefit from your experience.

Thanks.

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Please add any other applications you use in the guestbook below, so readers can benefit from your experience...

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beachbum_gabby

thanks, I really need this esp the Multimedia and Image Editing. 5*

Posted April 21, 2008

inspector-clouseau

Great Site, can't wait to make use of all these resoures !

Posted April 03, 2008

bengylsen

Thanks Miles - great resources

Posted April 02, 2008

TiZargon

Thank you for such good information.

Posted March 31, 2008

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Posted March 29, 2008

jnmzietz

Hey Great lens found a great printer on the net. it's at www.jnmprinting.com they will do logo design for free and they charge 32.00 shipping for a 1,000 14pt 2 sided full color cards with UV coating. Their cards are awesome

Posted March 27, 2008

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Posted March 27, 2008

ankursharma

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Posted March 27, 2008

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Posted March 27, 2008

lisawillard

Thanks for the great info and resources. Great Lense!

Posted March 24, 2008

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35 Free or Cheap Online Resources for Your Internet Start Up

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Created by Miles Galliford (contact me)