‘Founder’s Tech – Tech trends, tips and advice for founders, entrepreneurs and bootstrappers’ is a recurring column by Jake Hare, founder of Nashville-based Launchpeer, a web & mobile application development agency focused on startups, entrepreneurs and bootstrappers.

Trying to kickstart your tech startup can be difficult, especially when your budget is close to zero. Staying lean is easier to do now than ever before, but maintaining a smooth-running startup can be difficult with tons of tools are out there that run from $15 to $30 or more per month, with that cost adding up quickly. Because my company has been working with startups for so long we’ve been able to find and utilize some incredible tools, not only for our agency but also for our clients whose budgets are trying to go toward their product or payroll and not toward software costs. Below are some incredible tools, all free, that can help any startup run.

Uber Conference: Ever tried to use Skype or GoToMeeting for conference calls or screen shares? For us, it was less than reliable. Then we heard about Uber Conference, a free online tool that gives you a dedicated URL for your startup along with a dedicated conference line that you can use anytime. With the free tool you can collaborate with up to 10 people, sharing screens and talking on your conference line, and it also has an in-app chat so you can share files and notes with those on the call.

Trello: Whether you’re managing complicated workflows or just need a place to collaborate on product requirements, Trello is lightweight enough to do it all. With the Kanban-style boards it’ll be easy for you and your team members to use without being stuck in the monotony of detail that some other tools have. What’s more, Trello allows you to collaborate with not only your team members but also outsiders who you can give read-only access to.

Slack: If you don’t know Slack by now you’re wrong. The company is growing at a self-reported rate of $1 million a week in revenue, and there’s a good reason why. Slack is an incredible tool for team communications, allowing you to add in as many team members as you like, create private and public channels to communicate with different team members on various topics, and also upload and comment on files when needed. The company is even looking to add screen sharing and conference calls to its list of features, which should scare a lot of competitors. If you want a taste of Slack, go check out Nashville’s own NashDev Slack Channel, a community of people in Nashville interested in the tech community. Nashville’s not the only city to have such a channel; Charleston, Atlanta and Huntsville along with many others are using the tools to connect startups, entrepreneurs and business people in their city in a way that’s never been done before.

Wave Accounting: When our company was looking for an accounting solution, we figured we’d have to shell out $30 to $50 per month or more to find a tool or service to do bookkeeping. Then we found Wave. Wave is a free, lightweight accounting tool that connects to your bank account and does the heavy lifting for you. All you have to do is login and assign items to categories like travel expenses, sales, payroll and more while Wave keeps detailed reports for you. The premium plans even allow you to manage payroll at a really reasonable rate. Definitely recommended, and your accountant will love you for it.

Zapier: Ever wish you could automate some parts of your business? Zapier will let you do it. Zapier has worked for years connecting different software tools for you. For example, we’ve used it to send automated emails to clients when an item in Trello gets marked as complete. We’ve also automated our sales process, so when a client signs a proposal they’re automatically sent an invoice. Zapier can save you hours a week if not more, time you could be spending building your startup.

Invision: Creating good wireframes and mockups is incredibly important for most tech startups. Without them your developers are left hoping the front end reflects your wishes. Invision is a great tool you can use to create clickable mockups that mimic your product. It lets you add actions to various elements of the mockup, such as ‘On Click’ send the mockup to a new screen. You are also able to collaborate with team members and outside people within the tool with a unique share link, at which the collaborators can comment on various elements of the mockup.  

Canva: Creating social media images, blog graphics and infographics used to be a pain for us. We were using an Adobe Illustrator license that’s not cheap. Then we found Canva and it’s like our whole world changed! Canva is a free tool that lets you create any sort of graphic you can think of. It has a ton of predefined templates for you to use that are all incredible, and you can even upload your own images to use. The templates are also cut at predefined sizes so no more worrying about ensuring the images you create are appropriates sizes for your needs.  This tool also saves us hours a week in design work that we’d rather be spending on our clients.

Calendly: Appointment scheduling has never been easier than with Calendly. Whenever we need to schedule a call with a new prospect, partner or client we send them a link to our business’s Calendly page where they can choose a time that works well for them. The best part is that it syncs up with your calendar so people can only schedule appointments at times you’re available. The only downside to it is that you have to have a Gmail or Outlook account to connect your calendar.

Typeform: Google Forms are great but they’re also pretty ugly most of the time. Typeform is a beautiful form-building tool. It has a ton of predefined fields such as checkboxes, dropdowns and numbers so users enter only the information you’re trying to capture. It also can send an automated email to the people who fill out the form which you can customize to fit your needs. It’s a great way to capture whatever information you need. If you want an example of one go check out our old Project Calculator.

Hubstaff: OK, this one’s not free, but it’s worth it. Paying team members, especially hourly staff, is not easy.  We used to do this manually, having members track time in our project management tool, then manually adding numbers up and paying them with a check. That sucked.  Hubstaff lets you add team members, set their hourly rate and then pay them through the tool. The best thing about it is that it lets you add projects to which team members can track their time against. Your team can just click a ‘Play’ button and it’ll track the hours they’re working. If you want to get really fancy it also has a feature that lets you record the screens of your team members while they’re tracking time, a good way to ensure your team is working the hours they say if that’s your cup of tea.

The post Awesome (and Free) Tools for Startups appeared first on Startup Southerner.

‘Founder’s Tech – Tech trends, tips and advice for founders, entrepreneurs and bootstrappers’ is a recurring column by Jake Hare, founder of Nashville-based Launchpeer, a web & mobile application development agency focused on startups, entrepreneurs and bootstrappers.

There is so much documentation out on the Internet regarding this. Most articles talk about how code is at the core of tech startups, especially SaaS (software as a service), which has become an increasingly popular area for bootstrappers and entrepreneurs to get into because of the promise of monthly recurring revenue. Who wouldn’t want to build such a business?

The problem with the idea that founders should learn to code is time. How realistic is it for hopeful founders to spend the time needed to learn to code, and I’m not talking about WordPress or simple HTML and CSS, but an actual application framework such as Ionic, Ruby or countless others that will yield a usable web or mobile application. Even if it’s just building a minimum viable product, it’s difficult to spend hours of your day, oftentimes after already working eight hours at a full-time job that pays the bills, to learn to code. There are a lucky few who have the time and money to attend schools like Nashville Software School or The Iron Yard for months on end, but that’s simply not realistic for most. For most, it’s spending time on sites like Codecademy or Code.org trying to pick up some knowledge, which could take months if not years to master enough to fully build what you need, if you were electing to build on your own.

At the end of the day founders should ask themselves why they should learn to code. If the answer is to build your MVP inexpensively and quickly, that’s likely not a correct assumption. The reason a founder should learn to code is actually something quite different. It’s really to know enough that you don’t get screwed by the freelancers or developers you hire to build your product. At Launchpeer at least half of our clients come to us with an existing, often horrible, code base, with the founder or team having worked with freelancers in the past, writing code in a silo with little checks on the work they were performing. Best-case scenario is the code actually works, but is buggy; worst-case scenario the team gets something that doesn’t work at all, all while they were billed some hourly rate that ended up being for nothing. The reasons for this are often the same: the founder or team didn’t know enough about code to provide meaningful assistance in terms of application requirements, didn’t know enough about code to know what items should be worked on first and for how many hours, and didn’t know the best framework for their situation to begin with. This leaves the founder at the whim of the freelancer, who doesn’t have near as much invested in the business venture as the founder.

The reason a founder should learn to code is actually something quite different. It’s really to know enough that you don’t get screwed by the freelancers or developers you hire to build your product.

In short, a founder should definitely learn how to code. Not necessarily enough to build a full application, but enough to know how long some features will take to build over others. Enough to know that their application should be a native app instead of a hybrid app because of the features being built. Enough that when their freelancer or development team is running into problems, the founder understands, at least at a high level, what the issue is and can provide assistance or prioritize certain items over others.

If you’re a founder trying to learn how to code, and you have the time to attend a code school, then definitely do it. Our agency has hired developers out of The Iron Yard and other schools, and the training they provide is definitely enough to build an MVP. But, if you’re like most entrepreneurs and you’re busy working a full-time gig, hustling part-time to build your startup, then elect for something like Udemy, Pluralsight or Codecademy if you’re OK with self-guided modules that can teach you the basics. If you’re looking for something a little more intense with the help of a mentor try the online programs at Bloc or Thinkful, both fairly costly but come with a mentor who you can meet with regularly.

The post Why Founders Should Learn to Code (It’s Not Why You Think) appeared first on Startup Southerner.

‘Founder’s Tech – Tech trends, tips and advice for founders, entrepreneurs and bootstrappers’ is a recurring column by Jake Hare, founder of Nashville-based Launchpeer, a web & mobile application development agency focused on startups, entrepreneurs and bootstrappers.

Usually when our agency hears an entrepreneur say, “I’m looking for a tech co-founder,” what they’re actually saying is, “I’m looking for a developer to write code for little to no cash in exchange for equity in a non-existent business.” It’s everywhere: message boards, chat rooms, Reddit, Quora, your local co-working space. Non-technical founders everywhere seem to be having trouble finding these incredible tech workers interested in working for free.

You would think that offering a good bit of equity would help woo one of these potential technical co-founders to work with you, but that’s usually not the case. Why? For one, these techies probably have well-paying, full-time jobs that take most of their time. Or it could be that your idea hasn’t been proven to the point that the risk they would take to jump on board is mitigated by the relatively high chance of startup success.

So what can you do to get a technical co-founder? Prove your worth. Prove that you’re a competent, trustworthy and understanding employer and product manager who the future tech co-founder can trust. Be able to show that you’ve already gone through the process of validating your idea to the point that people are begging to buy it right now, or, even better, that they’ve already given you money for it.

Every startup our agency works with has to first go through validation, a packaged phase designed to get the company early traction with prospective customers. Sometimes the startup has already gone through the validation stage. This is awesome because it saves a lot of time and heartache down the road when months have gone by and thousands of dollars have been spent on a product that ultimately isn’t wanted or needed enough for prospective users to pay for it or download it.

Obviously this advice pertains mostly to early-stage, pre-funded and pre-product startups and founders. I know of some startups that are looking for a tech co-founder for high pay and equity, which they definitely deserve if they’re being leaned on as the go-to tech person at a tech company. After all, ideas are everywhere. The hard part is implementation, which means your tech co-founder should be looked to as a prime component of your business, not simply someone willing to work for free.

The post Why It’s Hard to Find a Tech Co-Founder for Your Startup appeared first on Startup Southerner.