Updated Business tools for Startups

Every startup faces multiple choices and decisions when it comes to technology. Whether you're wondering what site search you should use or what is the best email marketing tool, knowledge is power. A group of Seedcamp entrepreneurs started a startup tools wiki for that purpose, and we thought it would be well suited here. For modifications, please edit the original document here. An additional list of business resources for startups is available here.

*Added - Nov 2013* Outsourcing and talent, mobile engagement tools

Outsourcing/ talent markets Mobile push notifications/app engagement

*Added - August 2013* Lean Startup Tool List, HN Tools of the Trade, IL Venture and invoicing and recruiting tools for startups

*Added - March 2013* Startup Intelligence tools

Everything you needed to find information about startups. From premium paid subscription databases to free tools showcasing new startups and startup maps, The Ultimate Startup Intelligence Tools List is guaranteed to help you get your research done.

*Updated* Startups for Startups, Google Startup Tools and HackerNews Vendor List

Startups for startups - the top B2B tools used by Startups - Includes the list of top 50 startup vendors in 2012 by Vendorstack, a reviews and Q&A platform on enterprise vendors for startups and mid-market companies. Also includes the most popular platforms, based on a year of data on business buy and sell marketplace, Flippa.com.

Google DevRel created a page of Google resources for startups - from the site's description: "This site contains a selection of tools you will find useful when building, measuring, and enhancing your apps. Once you have a first version of your app running, you can use the tools on this site to get it into the hands of users and to get paid."

Hackernews list of "Tools of the Trade" for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Also check out Tune Your Startup, who is trying to streamline these lists into one tool.

Tools for Hackathons - added Dec 2012

Based on the list posted on StartupWeekend Resources page and the TokBox blog

Design/Front End:

Twitter Bootstrap: Include this in your website, and you are half finished. Add a class name to buttons, forms, quotes, etc. and they will instantly look pretty. No need to write your own CSS for everything, you simply do not have time. You can also easily create tooltips, Modals, dropdown menus, check out the Javascript Section it's so sexy!

Subtle Patterns: Need background images? Subtle patterns give you a gallery of very subtle patterns. High Quality, and open sourced!

Cheat Sheets: Equip youself with HTML/CSS cheatsheets! Scan all the tags at once and see which one fits your needs!

Free Icons: Because Icons make your site beautiful.

LiveRoad: A Great IDE for design is very helpful. It's helpful to find an developer tool that allows you to write html/css and renders the view in real time, so you don't have to change -> save -> go to browser -> refresh.

Social Buttons: Want to add Twitter, Facebook, Google, buttons? Get them here.

Masonry: Create a pinterest like layout!

Cubism: Create TimeLine visualization of data.

Web Tools:

Here's the exciting part! Let's talk about tools and libraries that help you implement your Ideas faster:

Tokbox: That's us! Use us to power any video chat applications (talkshow, education apps, collaboration, etc). We have an iOS SDK as well, for web-web, mobile-mobile, web-mobile video chat and video messaging.

Twilio: Need to call/txt get a phone number from your web/mobile application? Check them out.

Firebase: Are all your developers front-end engineers? No worry, just use Firebase to store all your data. No need for back end! Plus, their javascript Library is real time so you get notifications on any database update. Very responsive. If you don't get beta access, just use the guest account and WIN.

Pusher / Spire.io: Need real time stuff? Chat apps, real time drawing, etc etc. Pusher and Spire.io will handle all of it for you.

Stripe / Dwolla: Super Easy payment for your app. Use their api to handle payment related stuff. No need to worry about security and such.

Leaflet: Need Maps? Try Leaflet. Most devs go with google maps, but I personally like leaflet and I feel like it's easier to use/develop with.

Rovi: Need Metadata for music/movie/actors, etc.? Rovi API has everything you need for information. Generate album/movie information on the fly!

Rdio: Want to add a music player on your website to play music? Rdio provides the music and the player via an API

Box: Need file storage (for physical files like mp3, flv, etc). Box API lets you store files dynamically!

Singly: Provides your app with your personal Data from foursquare, instagram, etc etc.

Sendgrid: Need to send email out to users? Use Sendgrid! They make sure that your emails never to go spam folders.

Mobile Tools:

If you are a web developer, you don't have time to learn iOS or Java during the weekend. It's better to use what you know already.

Phonegap / Appcelerator (Titanium) : Write mobile apps with HTML/CSS/Javascript. The are plugins available for almost everything. (Camera, video, and most of the APIs described above for web Tools)

Parse: Need real time push notification? Need a database/back end solution? Just use Parse! Did I also mention they also have a Javascript Library for your web application to interact with?

Promotions/Marketing

Launchrock: Website is not ready? Put up a LaunchRock Page and get your marketing working right away. When your website is ready, you will have users already!

VoiceBunny: Need a sexy voice-over for your videos? Send it to VoiceBunny!

Compare Ninja: Own your competitors by creating a Comparison Table quickly!

Something you need to do but not on the list? Tweet at me bro!

Backend

Sinatra: Super easy to use, the only drawback is that you have to learn ruby setup your database. I hate configuring stuff, so I usually use this as an option if I don't need persistant information.

Meteor: If you don't know any back end solution, learn Meteror. It's the new way to code, and quite easy to learn. You can write back end code in javascript, one language conquers all!

Railscasts: If you're not comfortable with rails, I wouldn't recommend using it for the hackathon. It has a high learning curve. But if you insist, check out railscasts. Ryan Bates create screencast for just about everything you might want to do with a rails app.

Heroku: Deploy your app to heroku. It's free, supports ruby, nodejs, static files, and a few other languages. Did I mention it's free? You have nothing to loose.

Express: Express is built on NodeJS framework. If you're using javascript backend, I'd rather take the time to learn Meteror. But that's just me, you're welcome to watch the getting started screencast for Express to see how you like it

Search

Bugs

Performance

Forms

Analytics

Color

Logo

Image manipulation

Audio

Video

Presentation tools

Login System

Social functionality

Location

Email

Telephony

Accounting, Taxes & Payroll

Invoicing & Payments

Subscription Payments / Management

Managing APIs

Web frameworks

Databases

Sharing & storing files

Image Galleries

Customer Relationship Management

Feedback and FAQ

Websites

Test- and Behavior-Driven Development

Collaboration Platform

Contractor Management

Code Hosting and Version Control

Social Media Tracking/Marketing

Browser Compatibility tools

Screenshot/screencast tools

CDNs

Cloud Infrastructure

Visibility

Loading Animations

Private beta invitations & management:

Scanning / Document Management

Ad Serving Technology

Project Management tools

Steve Blank's Lean Startup Resources

Research, Web prototyping, Testing and Building Tools

Lists of Tools from Others

Groups

SEO and Analytics Tutorials

Analytics Tools

Search Engine Optimization Tools

Online Marketing Suites

• HubSpot - online marketing and web analytics system
• Performable - personable web analytics/lifecycle marketing
• Custora - customer retention, churn reduction, lifetime value
• Zoho - free/cheap web customer relationship mgmt software
• Highrise - small business CRM
• Zferral - affiliate and referral marketing on the web
• Genoo - marketing automation software
• MarketBright - marketing automation suite

Email Blasting

Surveys

Collaboration

• Skype- free voice and video communication tool
• Campfire - team collaboration
• Slideshare - share Powerpoints and docs with customers
• Ning - Create your own social network
• Yammer - free enterprise social network
• Doodle - online group scheduling
• Syncpad - collaborative whiteboard

On-line Communities

• Stack Overflow - questions and answers for programmers
• Quora - questions and answers for non-programmers
• Yahoo Answers - post questions, sometimes get answers
• Disqus - Comments Platform
• WordPress- king of blogging platforms...doubles as startup website
• Tumblr - another blogging platform
• Posterous - yet another blogging platform

Wireframing Tools

• jMockups - convert existing website into a mockup then redesign and share without editing any HTML/CSS
• Balsamiq- rapid wireframing tool. Create software mockups in minutes
• Mockflow - online/offline, extensible wireframing tool w/design library
• OmniGraffle - it's been around before the web even existed
• JustinMind- define web and mobile apps with interactive prototypes
• Wirify - turn any webpage into a wireframe
• Axure - Wireframing, prototypes: buil-in widgets and shapes
• HotGloo - Online Wireframing Tool
• Mocksup - Share your web site mockups
• Mockingbird - Mock it up and share web site wireframes
• Protoshare - website wireframing
• Free Wireframe templates for iPhone, iPad and Web
• Wireframing Tutorial

Landing Page Tools

Website Tools

Mobile Testing/Build Tools

Billing/Subscription Management

Customer Support

• Tender - support, knowledgebase tool for your site
• GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.
• SnapEngage - live chat integrates with your apps
• Zendesk - web help software
• - turn customer feedback into action
• Kampyle - turn customer feedback into sales and relationships
• Ideaffect - customer feedback, vote, comment, manage
• Olark - live customer chat

Website Usability Testing

Website A/BTesting

Cloud Services and Tools

Web Development Tools

• Rubyon Rails- open source framework for Ruby
• CakePHP - a PHP open source framework
• Drupal - open source content management platform
• Heroku - Ruby cloud platform.Rails deployment made easy
• Django - high-level Python framework
• Cappuccino - open source framework for app development
• WebSequenceDiagrams -sketch sequence diagrams. automatic links to generated images
• Rietveld - asynchronous code reviews on changesets
• Tech*if*er0*urs - blog on roadmap for learning rails

Hardware Resources/Tools

Project Management

• Basecamp- web-based project management and collaboration tool.
• Github - Free public repositories, collaborator management, issue tracking, wikis, downloads, code review, graphs
• Mercurial - free, distributed source code control management system
• - free code hosting site for Mercurial
• Preceden - simple way to make timelines for presentations
• - project management visually see and interact with your work
• Acunote - Agile project management
• Agilezen - Lean project management
• Rally - agile product management
• VersionOne - agile product management and Scrum tool
• GoPlan - collaborative project management
• Unfuddle -hosted project management solution for software teams.
• Managewith.us - Collaborative Task Manager
• Mavenlink - manage project communications, documents, schedules, budgets, payments
• Industrial Logic - Agile eLearning

Misc Office Help

Freelance Help

Manufacturing Resources

Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents

List of Angel/SuperAngel Investors for entrepreneurs

Useful blogs and links for startups

Best of Y-Combinator Startup Advice

Raising Venture Capital

Founder Equity Issues

Incubator List/ Local Startup Resources/ Startup Q&A

Executive / Advisory Board Compensation

Lawyers/Legal

European Start-up Essentials

VC Cafe knows that as an entrepreneur you need all the help you can get. That's why we gathered a collection of 20 online resources for European startups that will help you with business plans, recruiting, publicity and networking.


1. Seedcamp: They provide a catalyst for the next generation of great entrepreneurs, help them take risks, think big, and succeed. In other words they are entrepreneurs that help others like them succeed in their new business.

They want to share senior level experience and best practices with technology companies. Their Partners all come from industry, where each has held senior level executive positions delivering industry-leading products. They are not career consultants-they bring experience to the table.

3. VC News: Dow Jones financial information service provides unparalleled reporting and analysis of the entire global venture capital industry, from fundraising developments to financings, liquidity events to people moves and other key developments at venture capital firms and portfolio companies in every industry and region.

4. Y Combinator: They provide a series of AA equity financing documents that are written with simpler words so start-up companies will have an easier starting point. Their goal is to make angel funding rounds for startups easier for both sides.

5. cmypitch.com: Network for small business, connecting entrepreneurs with each other, investors and service providers. It's a video-based web site that provides a platform to help entrepreneurs succeed.

6. UCL Advances: UCL Advances stimulates collaboration among researchers, business and investors driving innovations that benefit society and the economy. UCL has built a reputation as a pioneer of collaboration between industry and academia.

7. TIE UK: TiE, a not-for-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals, TiE is an organization of industry professionals who share the common interests of promoting and fostering entrepreneurial efforts.

8. Regus: Regus is the world's largest provider of workplace solutions, offering the widest range of products and services that allow individuals and companies to work however, wherever, and whenever they need to.

9. Business Link: They help Start-Up companies, Running businesses or companies that are looking to grow and develop how to manage their finances, employ people, find and keep costumers, taxes, tray internationally and many more.

10. NESTA: They invest in early-stage companies, inform and shape policy, and deliver practical programs that inspire others to solve the big challenges of the future.

11. Princes Trust: They are a UK charity company that helps young people overcome barriers and get their lives working.

12. British Library Business & IP Centre: Funded by the London Development Agency, the British Library supports inventors, small businesses and entrepreneurs from that first spark of inspiration to successfully launching and developing a business. The Centre offers free access to the UK's most comprehensive collection of business and intellectual property information.

13. Growing Business: Growingbusiness.co.uk is the leading online resource for entrepreneurs. Their practical guides cover all the issues an entrepreneur like you will face when expanding your business. From raising finance to business strategy and going public, they have all the need-to-know information you require to become a successful entrepreneur running a rapidly expanding and profitable company.

14. BPS: Business Plan Services' collaboration with the world-renowned London Business School reinforces its position within the commercial marketplace as the UK's leading practice that is dedicated to providing full assistance with business planning.

15. Company Guides: They specialize in helping high growth companies and entrepreneurs seeking corporate finance advice and private equity investment. They also publish a detailed directory of sources of finance and advice.

16. Sturtuply: They help the right job seekers find you and make the whole team-building process as easy as possible.

17. CrunchBoard: They are a job board that gives you access to millions of technology and business savvy readers of Tec Crunch, Mobile Crunch, Crunch Gear and other top technology blogs. Also check http://uk.crunchboard.com

18. OnStartups.com: Dharmesh Shah brings his experience by this site that isfor and about software startups.

19. Startupslive: With Stratupslive It's your chance to hear the people behind some the UK's most successful businesses tell their stories and also network with fellow budding entrepreneurs and provide you with quality independently written, practical advice to help you start your own business.

20. The Funded: TheFunded.com is an online community of entrepreneurs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. In addition, TheFunded.com allows entrepreneurs to view and share term sheets, to assist one other finding good investor, and to discuss the many facets of operating a business.

MORE:

Israeli Startup Essentials (under construction...)

1. IVC Online: (offers a paid database of Israeli startups, funds and research publication)

2. Invest in Israel: The investment promotion center of Israel's Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, Foreign Trade Administration (see industry reports and M&A summaries for the year)

3. MATIMOP: the Israeli Industry Center for R&D. A free online database of startups.

4. The Central Bureau of Statistics: a useful tool for research of population and reach.

5. Israeli Center of Incubators

6. Tnufa - Startup Promotion Program(Hebr