More often than not, creating infrastructure including computers, web technology, software, etc consume a lot of thought process of entrepreneurs, who are looking to start small businesses, or just launching their new entrepreneurial idea.
Internet or IT world is replete with lots of custom solutions for various types of needs of entrepreneurs. At the same time, a careful selection of free online tools can make the function hassle free and save quite a lot of money. No need to mention that entrepreneurs would be glad to know how they can save money at the very initial stages of their ventures.
Thinking about these lines, we have created a list of 5 very important and useful computer and internet tools that entrepreneurs can use personally and also in their team.
For chatting, free phone calls, conference calls, international free calls and what not: Skype offers the best possible method for entrepreneurs to keep in touch with their team, collaborators, and even the customers (if needed).
Skype is suitable for Windows as well as for Linux: One of the best free tools that the small businesses and entrepreneurs can use to reduce cost of calls.
TeamViewer, as clear from the name itself, allows users to share screen of remote systems. This tool helps in screen sharing across the team as per the need. However, free version of this tool is available for personal use only, which means that an entrepreneur should not use it for business purposes with the team. But of-course, he/she can use it for the personal computers if office, home, etc. There is a paid version available if the entrepreneur deems that it makes a good tool.
Dropbox, a free online backup tool, allows up to 2GB of data that can be stored. For paid customers, data storage of up to 100GB limit is available. This is one of the best tools for online back files, file sharing and synchronization between the team members. Extremely useful for startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs!
What is life on Internet with Google, barren! If you, being an entrepreneur, have not used Google Apps for various needs, you are missing on a treasure-trove of free internet tools providing business solutions. Right Gmail, Gtalk and Google Docs, entrepreneurs can use Google Calendar, Google Reader, and lots of other applications. They are absolutely free and offer lot of convenience to the users. Can be termed almost indispensable for startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs!
A lot of people will agree to disagree here. I myself found it very difficult to use OpenOffice when I had to. However, like with everything new, I got used to it. Later, I noticed that the whole organization, a real big one in a print media (meaning the use of OpenOffice was extensive), was totally dependent on this tool. They were saving heavily on MS-office. If such a big organization can sustain itself on it, why can’t startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs?
