The essence of bootstrapping is to build your business by first leveraging those resources that meet the following criteria:
- Before spending money on tools or services, you must fully explore those resources that are free or at least very inexpensive.
- The best way to fully explore a tool is understand how others are using it, use it yourself and experiment with any levels of customization that the respective tools permit.
- Dismiss the notion that running your business on a shoestring is a compromise. The Web is a goldmine of very high quality free tools. Free does not mean compromise.
- Understand the benefits (and limitations) of open source tools.
- Web-based tools will in many cases remove the need to buy or install similar tools on your computer. The better ones also manage things like backups and ongoing security for you. Open Source tools are available for all operating systems, though some are specially built for Mac. They all have user groups and very helpful they are.
- All (better) business tools are constantly evolving and being upgraded. Be prepared to devote some time to understanding these changes and be careful in making upgrades. I will be exploring this with you through this website.
Right off the top, I want to provide you with a core set of software downloads and web based tools that you should add to your business toolbox today. I will be exploring each of these over time but do yourself a favor and get these now.
1. Open a Google account.
The number of tools and benefits are too numerous to mention in one article but suffice it to say that over the next while you need to put Google at the center of your business effort. More on this later.
2. Choose a good web browser – Firefox.
Right now I operate 80% of my work on a mac platform but whether I am using Windows or Mac, I make Firefox my primary web browser. If all or some of your business is web dependent then you will want to have Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari on your system The reason being that you will want to view your website in all three from time to time to make sure that the visitor experience is in line with what you are expecting. Too many websites are designed with only one browser in mind and the results can be credibility killers if a potential customer shows up and finds a broken site.
3. Choosing a document management system.
While I have been a big fan of Microsoft office in the past, I have found that the convenience factor associated with keeping my documents and spreadsheets online far outweighs the benefits of buying a copy of Microsoft Office or any of the other commercial office solutions. My primary tool of choice is Google Docs. If you have already signed up for a Google account, you will quickly find that you can begin adding applications and plugins that will meet many of your business needs.
There are other options as well:
* Zoho Office and Business Suite (web based)
* Open Office (free download, local install)
4. Managing Your contacts / Email Tools
Email, for all it’s faults is still the most widely used web tool and so choosing one becomes really important. Gmail should be at the top of your list when considering your options as they do provide virus scanning, spam filtering, the ability to add your old pop3 email accounts to your gmail account so that you can send/receive with these email accounts. Most importantly, you can tag, categorize and search email archives to your hearts content and not have to worry again about loosing a database or contact list because of a local hardware failure. Gmail can be used in conjunction with most mobile phone systems as well. More on this later.
5. Backup System Systems.
I have used just about every backup system conceivable and over the last 8 months I have found myself using online storage and backup more and more. I still keep an external harddrive running on my network but I also make use of Mozy Online Back-up Dropbox (2 GB free) and more recently, (2 GB free). Both systems are expandable to paid versions and the added costs are nominal. Try them both!
6. Web Development and Blogging
This is a area that creates more debate than just about any other subject when it comes to creating your first website presence. indeed, the choice will often come down to personal preference and need but having worked with virtually all the free software and many paid systems I find that Wordpress and Joomla seem to provide the greatest ease of use and expandability. You can download a free copy of the latest Wordpress here. I would also suggest that you create a free Wordpress account for yourself here. If you do not have a web hosting account, you can have your first wordpress blog hosted for free at wordpress.com though there are some limitations if you take this route.
If you are the roll-up your sleeves type and prefer to build something from scratch the options for website development are many. This is one area where I have never really found an open source product that really met all my needs. I currently rely on Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. It’s not cheap, there is a learning curve and it is the best product of it’s kind. If you are running a Mac, I think Panic’s Coda and RapidWeaver deserve an honorable mention.
7. Here are some other free services that I will be discussing at a later date:
* Free Teleconference Calls
* Skype – Free Long Distance Calling
* more to come soon!
