There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur, especially when it comes to online business. The Internet has become the great equalizer, allowing anyone with a business plan to equally prosper, so long as they are willing to do the hard work and learn those essential lessons that only an online living can teach.
Technology and innovation go hand in hand, so it makes perfect sense that the online world would be the first to experience a steady stream of sharper and sharper tools, continuously being developed with the online entrepreneur first and foremost in mind.
Here are 5 areas the online entrepreneur must always keep their focus and 5 ways to stay at the bleeding edge.
Content Creation
Drafting compelling copy is an absolute must for the serious online entrepreneur. Business online requires sales letters, marketing and email auto-responders, at the very least. In other words: copy, copy and more copy. While it used to be enough to use Microsoft Word, Open Office or Apple’s pages, these days online entrepreneurs can collaborate with cutting edge online tools such as Google docs, allowing us to use spreadsheets presentations and forms. Google Docs have been around a couple of years now, but they keep on adding features, the best of which is still the first — seamless sharing without any risk to loss of data.
Communication
Remember when cell phones were about as big as the yellow side of the phone book? These days the cell phone is more than just a phone, it is an all-in-one communication device. Skype, text messaging and Twitter are only the beginning. By this time next year, Google Voice will also be available to the general public, ushering in a full integration of services such as voice-to-text, and all of it available from a single phone number.
Online Office
Because it has never been more possible for the entrepreneur to have colleagues spread across the planet, it has also never been more important to establish the most effective ways of sharing information. Physical office space is going the way of the t-rex. New tools such as Dropbox allow online collaborators to easily exchange files by dropping them into an online server shared by multiple users. Accounts are free with 2 gigs of storage, but for just $10 a month, users can multiply it 25 times and go all the way to 50 gigs.
Project Management
An online office is important, an online project management system is even more so. Basecamp is one of the best friends of many a modern day entrepreneur. The online application is subscription based, can be tailored to fit the needs or budget of any user and can be shared with anyone at any time. Basecamp allows for online communication that is both powerful and fluid. With everything the modern day entrepreneur must juggle, setting an efficient project management system in place is essential to the bottom line.
A PC in Your Pocket.
Phones have been slowly transforming into magic wallets, allowing users to carry anything from their entire address books to each to-do for every project on their plate. The iPhone is only the first in a giant wave to crash on the shore. With tens of thousands of applications instantly available that can make your entrepreneurial life instantly accessible, it has never been easier to fit your desktop, or your entire office, directly in your wallet.
There has never been more opportunity for entrepreneurs, nor has there been more quality tools to help make it possible. The above are just a few, but the smart entrepreneur also knows to keep their eyes on what’s just past the horizon.
What are some of the tools in your “Entrepreneurial Toolkit?”
-Adam Toren
Matthew Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Adam. Matthew is co-author of the newly released book:Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs.
It’s a fun world even for old entrepreneurs as well Adam.
Provided we can keep up with the changes and fast young guys!
Yes in deed the internet has sure been a blessing. I personally have been in business over 9 years and with the right determination and drive any business can be very successful. Motivation is key. Don’t get frustrated. Keeping focused on tasks and writing a daily planner which I like to call mini goals. Thank you for the great info
If you’d consider Basecamp, you should check out http://www.veoproject.com first. Its about the same price and offers considerably more… including integrating your project plans with Google, Twitter, Outlook and Salesforce.com.
The Dropbox idea is really good idea for large files. We use Google docs to share documents across users for our web business consulting firm.
Thanks for the post. In addition to Google Voice I wanted to let you know there are other virtual phone services out there better suited for business users. Full disclosure – I am the Product Marketing Manager of my1voice (www.my1voice.com), which is a virtual phone service targeted at entrepreneurs and small businesses. Google Voice is great for a single user, but as your business grows and adds employees, you will no doubt need extensions for your employees to be connected at the same business number. Also, a small business will benefit from a virtual receptionist or auto-attendant to answer and direct calls to these employees.
Great collection of tool I use 4 out of 5 of them already and would recommend them, yo anyone reading this article.I only don’t own an iPhone, but my trusty Sony Erickson seems to pick up the slack.
EPIC article! I am so looking forward to seeing more articles.
I would have to add Paypal as number 6. It has allowed people to pay from anywhere in the world! Maybe it has been around too long to be bleeding edge but I think its probably at least as game changing as the other examples.
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