300 Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs

Working on starting and growing your own venture? Check out the 300 best tools and resources for entrepreneurs.

Taking a look at the journey’s of the most successful entrepreneurs, companies and founders with amazing exits, it is clear that startup success is a lot less about what you know and your coding skills when you take the leap than about leveraging resources, learning as you go and find the best help. Here’s where you’ll find access to many of the things you’ll need and find of value on your own mission.

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Resources For Fundraising 

1. The Inner Circle for tips and see how much you should be raising at each round
2. Winning pitch deck template for showing your opportunity in the best possible way
3. Panthera Advisors for fundraising consulting and getting connected to raise money
4. Dealmakers Podcast for learning how others have successfully raised millions
5. The Art of Startup Fundraising book for all the steps you need to take
6. The SEC regulations for crowdfunding a funding round
7. 9 ways to meet your next investors
8. How to bootstrap your startup to $100M in revenue 
9. Founder Suite is a CRM for managing the fundraising journey
10. Crunchbase is the biggest database of data around startups and investors

Storytelling is everything in fundraising and founders need to be able to master this. Being able to capture the essence of what you are doing in 15 to 20 slides is the key. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) where the most critical slides are highlighted. Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400M (see it here).

Remember to unlock the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

You can also make your own the pitch deck template that is being used by startups to raise millions by introducing your email below.

[emaillocker id=693]ACCESS THE PITCH DECK TEMPLATE[/emaillocker]

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs:  Accelerator Programs For Speeding Up Your Journey

1. Y Combinator, the most well known and effective startup accelerator
2. 500 Startups has spawned some highly successful ventures including Udemy
3. Techstars, the accelerator behind Startup Week and Startup Weekend
4. Plug and Play, a Sunnyvale, CA accelerator with 60 exits, and 731 investments
5. MassChallenge, the Boston based machine that has created over 80,000 jobs
6. SOSV, Sean O’ Sullivan’s ‘accelerator VC based in Princeton, NJ
7. Startup Bootcamp, the tech accelerator with an average funding of around $1M
8. Startup Chile, the popular South American program with lots of perks
9. AngelPad, the Thomas Korte accelerator which has helped startups raise over $1B
10. NYC SeedStart, offering mentorship and funding for Seed stage ventures in NYC

 

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Hot Venture Capital Firms To Raise Money From

1. Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the favorite funds entrepreneurs love to have
2. Sequoia Capital, one of the most respected and well known of all funds
3. First Round Capital, focusing on early stage startup funding
4. Benchmark, Bill Gurley’s early-stage investment capital firm out of the Valley
5. Lightspeed Ventures, a fund with 350 investments, and a 30% exit rate
6. New Enterprise Associates (NEA), based in Menlo Park with $20B under management
7. Andreessen Horowitz, the name for founders Ben Horowitz and Marc Andressen
8. Founders Fund, the Silicon Valley-based fund started by Peter Theil
9. Iconiq, the legendary fund and global office which counts Mark Zuckerberg as a client
10. Accel Partners, based in Palo Alto, California since 1983

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Top Books For Startup Entrepreneurs

1. The Art Of Startup Fundraising by Alejandro Cremades
2. Zero To One by Peter Theil
3. The Art Of The Startup by Guy Kawasaki
4. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
5. Harvard Business Review Entrepreneur’s Handbook
6. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
7. So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport
8. Purple Cow by Seth Godin
9. Built To Last by Brene Brown
10. The Lean Startup by Eric Reis

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Top Blogs & News Sites For Startup Entrepreneurs

1. Forbes’ Entrepreneurs column
2. Techcrunch
3. Startup Digest
4. Startup Grind
5. Venture Beat
6. Inc.
7. Fast Company
8. Entrepreneur
9. Mashable
10. AlejandroCremades.com
11. AVC by Fred Wilson
12. Seth‘s Blog by Seth Godin
13. Both Sides of the Table by Mark Suster
14. Gary Vaynerchuk
15. Andrew Chen
16. Venture Hacks
17. Harvard Business Review

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Marketing Tools For Entrepreneurs 

1. MailChimp for email marketing, automation and building a prospecting database
2. WordPress for easy to develop and highly scalable websites
3. Shopify for putting up new ecommerce stores online fast
4. Canva for creating graphics, marketing materials and pitch decks
5. Google Ads for gaining visibility fast and testing new ideas
6. Google Drive for rapid and real-time collaboration with remote team members
7. Hootsuite for managing all of your social media profiles in one place
8. Fotolia for legal images for all your marketing materials and online assets
9. SurveyMonkey for getting feedback and honing your product and service
10. Forrester for data and market research

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Social Media Accounts To Follow For Entrepreneurs

1. Alejandro Cremades on LinkedIn
2. Richard Branson on Instagram 
3. Mark Cuban on Twitter
4. Barbara Corcoran on Twitter
5. Peter Thiel on Twitter
6. Reid Hoffman on LinkedIn
7. Y Combinator on Twitter
8. Guy Kawasaki on Twitter
9. TechCrunch on Twitter
10. Bill Gates on Twitter
11. Ratan Tata on Twitter
12. Arianna Huffington on Twitter
13. Biz Stone on Twitter
14. Aaron Levie on Twitter
15. Gary Vaynerchuk on Twitter
16. Tim O‘Reilly on Twitter
17. Chris Sacca on Twitter
18. Tim Ferris on Twitter
19. Kevin Rose on Twitter
20. Paul Graham on Twitter
21. Jeff Bezos on Twitter
22. Marc Benioff on Twitter
23. Sam Altman on Twitter
24. Seth Godin on Twitter
25. Michael Dell on Twitter
26. Jeff Weiner on Twitter
27. Reid Hoffman on Twitter
28. Vinod Khosla on Twitter
29. Pierre Omidyar on Twitter
30. Ben Horowitz on Twitter

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: M&A Resources & Tools For Startup Founders

1. Panthera Advisors for M&A consulting
2. SEC reporting guidelines for Initial Public Offerings
3. Harvard’s clarifications on M&A disclosures and accounting methods
4. South Carolina’s University Library for M&A regulations
5. Pitchbook template for selling your startup
6. The value of an M&A advisor when selling your company
7. The 6 Types of Successful Acquisitions
8. How to sell your company
9. How earnouts work in acquisitions
10. How to value your startup in an acquisition

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs:  Coworking Spaces

1. WeWork, 834 locations
2. VentureX, 11 locations
3. Impact Hub, 92 locations
4. Techspace, 9 locations
5. Industrious, 44 locations
6. Bamboo Detroit 1 location
7. The LAB Miami 1 location
8. Regus, 3,000 locations
9. Green Desk, 9 locations
10. Rocket Space, 2 locations

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Most Active Angel Investors

1. Fabrice Grinda
2. Paul Buchheit
3. Wei Guo
4. Alexis Ohanian
5. Scott Banister
6. Naval Ravikant
7. Daniel Curran
8. Marc Benioff
9. Mark Cuban
10. Ron Conway

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Common Excuses If You Don’t Want To Launch Your Startup Yet

1. “I don’t have enough time.”
2. “I should have started last year.”
3. “It’s before its time.”
4. “I don’t have enough money to do it.”
5. “If only I had a little more money.”
6. “I must be crazy to think I can do this.”
7. “Someone else already stole my idea.”
8. “If I tell anyone they will steal my idea.”
9. “I don’t know everything I need to yet.”
10. “I’m too young or old to start a business.”

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Top Places To Publish Your Content & Get Noticed

1. Forbes for getting in front of the masses
2. Medium for circulating your articles
3. Facebook for highly targeted and mass distribution
4. Instagram for highly visual content
5. Reddit for engaging with the crowd
6. LinkedIn for getting noticed by potential recruits and investors
7. Slideshare for putting your pitch deck online
8. Business Insider for SEO and credibility
9. Entrepreneur for awareness in the startup ecosystem
10. Fast Company for showing off your growth

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Website Builders

1. WordPress.com famous for running 30% of the internet
2. WordPress.org for those that want more robust tools
3. Go Daddy by the famous domain registrar
4. Wix free drag and drop builder
5. Squarespace known for beautiful site templates
6. Shopify is perfect for ecommerce businesses
7. Weebly is free for basic websites
8. Google Website Builder offered free by Google
9. Gator Website Builder by HostGator
10. Strikingly for fast and simple pages

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Landing Pages & Coming Soon Website Pages

1. Instapage claims up to 400% better conversions
2. Leadpages a common alternative to Instapage
3. Launchrock now part of startups.com
4. Infusionsoft now a part of Keap
5. Wix fast and easy to use DIY site builder
6. Squarespace the slightly more complex, but beautiful page builder
7. Unbounce landing page builder with free trial
8. Hubspot landing pages and marketing automation
9. Clickfunnels for basic video landing pages
10. Mailchimp the simple landing page tool for your email marketing

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Project Management Tools & Software

1. Basecamp long running PM software solution
2. Monday a newer tool for online collaboration
3. Hive offering 1,000+ integrations
4. Trello a classic, proven free software 
5. Freedcamp free project management tool with white label option
6. Zoho one of the most robust options
7. Asana named one of the best by Forrester
8. SAP one of the most recognized names
9. Wrike is used by Airbnb
10. Smartsheet offers a 30 day free trial

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Top Founder Success Stories To Learn & Get Inspired From

1. Vahe Kuzoyan and Ara Mahdessian
2. Ali Ghodsi
3. Jay Chaudhry
4. Tim Hwang
5. Michael Cammarata
6. David Gurle
7. David Hauser
8. Derek Wall
9. Lidia Yan
10. Nick Green

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: CRM Software

1. Zoho offers a 15 free trial
2. Salesforce offers a 30 day free trial
3. BPM online offers a 14 day free trial
4. Insightly used by Bloomberg and Sanofi
5. NetSuite one of the top reviewed solutions from Oracle
6. Hubspot with many integrations for other automations
7. Agile free for 10 users
8. Infusionsoft now known as Keap
9. Pipedrive from just $12.50 per user per month
10. Streak specifically built for Gmail users

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Hiring & Recruiting Tools 

1. Zip Recruiter Recommended by Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin
2. HackerRank for analyzing developers by skill
3. Upwork the world’s largest outsourcing platform
4. LinkedIn the place to find professional talent and executives
5. Pymetrics for using neuroscience to pick your rockstars
6. HireRight for global recruiting
7. Ideal used by Indigo and S&P Data
8. Textio for creating job ads
9. When I Work for employee scheduling
10. Glassdoor claims a 30% higher retention rate

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Pitch Deck Creation & Presentation Tools

1. Peter Theil’s pitch deck
2. Free pitch deck template
3. Google Slides for integration with everything else you do
4. Canva to do it yourself and share online
5. Prezi ranked better than PowerPoint by university researchers
6. SalesHandy with behaviour tracking
7. DocSend for secure document sharing
8. Haiku Deck for online presentations
9. Slidebean AI powered designs
10. Dribbble for getting help from designers

 

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Top Colleges For Entrepreneurs

1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Wharton
4. Babson
5. Rice 
6. Columbia
7. Miami University
8. Michigan State
9. Brigham Young University
10. Texas A&M

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Events For Entrepreneurs

1. Startup Grind
2. Saastr
3. Inc. 500 Conference
4. SXSW
5. CES
6. Next Web
7. London Tech Week
8. RISE
9. Startup Weekend
10. Startup Fest

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Where To Pitch Your Startup

1. Shark Tank
2. Cold emailing angel investors
3. Y Combinator
4. Angels Den
5. Seedstars
6. MIT $100k Entrepreneurship Challenge
7. New York StartUp
8. Startup Fest
9. TechCrunch Disrupt

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Tools For Communicating With Your Team 

1. Skype for video chat and free calls
2. Google Hangouts for team meetings
3. Google Drive for collaborating on documents
4. Slack used by Airbnb and Oracle 
5. Monday a new project management tool
6. Go To Meeting for broadcasting and screen sharing
7. Zoom for video chat
8. Harvest for time tracking  
9. JIRA for project tracking
10. Groove HQ for shared inboxes

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Market Research Resources & Tools

1. Google Trends to find out what’s trending fast
2. Survey Monkey for asking your customers how you can help
3. US Census Bureau for official demographic data
4. Pew Research for advanced research
5. Statista for quick stats on just about anything
6. Alexa for competitor research
7. Think With Google for marketing trends and insights
8. Nielsen for marketing data
9. Deloitte for business data
10. Gartner for enterprise level research
11. CB Insights for anything related to the venture world
12. PitchBook great for finding valuations of your competitors

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Split Testing Tools For Conversions

1. Instapage pricey tool for easily split testing landing pages
2. Google Analytics a tool no one should try to operate without
3. Google Ads the number one platform on the web
4. Twitter for content headlines
5. Unbounce for SaaS companies
6. Omniconvert used by Samsung and T Mobile
7. Kissmetrics for advanced analytics
8. Adobe Target for testing digital experiences
9. Apptimize for mobile testing
10. AB Tasty for AI powered experimentation

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Where To Post & Syndicate Your Video Content

1. YouTube the number one platform for video channels and ads
2. Tumblr for video blogging and building SEO
3. Vimeo for cloud storage and syndicating your videos
4. Netflix for branding with your own films 
5. Udemy for creating your own video course
6. Instagram for live stream and advertising
7. Snapchat for live streaming and limited time content
8. Facebook for live streaming and daily updates
9. Wix Video for creating and monetizing your own channel with ease 
10. Dailymotion For becoming a publishing partner on a variety of targeted channels

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Graphic Design Tools & Help

1. Dribbble for finding designs and artwork
2. Canva for creating images and promotional material
3. 99 Designs for comparing designs and getting inspiration for your work
4. Upwork for hiring graphic and editing help
5. Fiverr for inexpensive design help
6. Fotolia for stock images
7. Aaron Productions India for explainer videos and custom graphics
8. Pixabay for stock images and videos
9. Pexels for stock images and video
10. Shutterstock for stock images, music and videos

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Email Services

1. Mailchimp for free email autoresponders services
2. Keap which was previously known as Infusionsoft
3. Vertical Response for email campaign management
4. Get Response inexpensive email marketing software for small lists
5. Pinpointe for those who have outgrown other email marketing services
6. Aweber email marketing with lots of integrations
7. Constant Contact email marketing software
8. ConvertKit email marketing for small lists
9. Gmail by G Suite Business
10. ZohoMail for those using other Zoho tools

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Business Planning Tools & Tips

1. How To Create A Business Plan 
2. Small Business Association Business Plan Templates
3. What To Include In Your Executive Summary
4. SCORE Business Plan Templates
5. Winning Pitch Decks Of Highly Funded Startups
6. How To Find The Best Location To Start Your Business
7. Help With Financial Modeling
8. Go Daddy for domain registration
9. LegalZoom for incorporating your business
10. Apply for a Tax ID number

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Top Movies For Entrepreneurs

1. Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened
2. Startup.com
3. Catch Me If You Can
4. Lord Of War
5. Wall Street
6. Rogue Trader
7. The Godfather Trilogy
8. The Smartest Guys In The Room
9. Erin Brokovich
10. The Founder

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Top Podcasts For Entrepreneurs

1. DealMakers
2. The Tim Ferris Show
3. The GaryVee Audio Experience
4. Eventual Millionaire
5. Entrepreneurs On Fire
6. Mixergy
7. The Pitch
8. Jocko Podcast
9. The School of Greatness Podcast
10. How I Built This

Best Tools And Resources For Entrepreneurs: Resources For Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs

1. The Lean Startup by Eric Reis
2. The $100 Startup by Chris Guillibeau
3. The Pros & Cons of Bootstrapping Your Startup
4. The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
5. How To Bootstrap A $100M Business
6. Small Business Loan Comparison Tool
7. HARO for PR and generating buzz
8. Upwork for hiring on demand
9. Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson
10. SBA.gov

Summary 

There’s a lot on your plate when you decide to launch your own business and at each stage. From concept and market research to testing, getting it live, finding the funds to keep going and growing, leading a rapidly swelling team and achieving a grand exit, these resources will give you plenty of assistance.

Make your own the pitch deck template that is being used by startups to raise millions by introducing your email below.

[emaillocker id=693]ACCESS THE PITCH DECK TEMPLATE[/emaillocker]