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
