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 startup.

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 35 of the free and cheap services that we now use. Please let us know about better or new ones:

Table Of Contents

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.

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

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Slack - Slack is a cloud-based set of proprietary team collaboration software tools and online services. Slack brings team communication and collaboration into one place so you can get more work done.

Images and Image Editing

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Also, consider Google Picasa and Picnik. If you want to edit on your computer try Paint.net

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iStockPhoto  - Traditionally stock photos have been very expensive to license. Now there are a lot of new online image libraries that provide images from just $1. Also, consider Fotolia

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.

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Multimedia

camstudio homepage

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

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.

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

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Instagram –  There are now 800 million monthly Instagram users,  as Instagram is the go-to social network for millennials. Instagram is best to building a great network of people who are relevant to your business or personal goal.

Backup

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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.

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SyncBackSE -  For local backup, SyncBack wins hands down. Try it for free. Software cost $30.

Company Organisation

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Google Sites –  centralize file storage so you can easily edit and share documents, images, and videos with your colleagues, suppliers or customers. It's like your own company intranet

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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

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. Google docs is now Google Drive.

open office

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.

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Freshbooks – Invoicing and tracking outstanding debtors is critical to every business's success. Freshbooks does a very good job of doing these boring but essential tasks.

Web Stats and Alerts

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 the activity of your site

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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 (CRM)

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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 offers a commercial managed version.

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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)

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GoToMeeting – we do all our client demos over the web using the GoToMeeting service. It is $14 a month or $144 per year for as many meetings as you need.

Useful Stuff

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LastPass  – Most internet users accumulate dozens or even hundreds of passwords which can become a headache to manage and remember. LastPass remembers all your passwords, so you don't have to.

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

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CutePDF – www.cutepdf.com – Simple free PDF creation software. We send 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)

filezilla homepage

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

Getting Help

Fiverr  – A good place to find lots of freelance specialists to help with design, proofreading, writing, development, marketing, etc. Pay attention to the ratings

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

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AirTasker - Another online resource available for when you need to help of freelancers who specialise in design and website marketing.

airtasker

Conclusion

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

As we 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 comments so our readers can benefit from your experience. Thanks.