The best collaboration tools for startuppers

From big organizations to small businesses and startups, collaboration is very essential. Running a business is no one-man job. As a matter of fact, you’ll wear yourself out if everything is laden on you.

This is why division of labour plays an indispensable role in any business organization. Even outside the scope of business, assigning roles to different individuals makes a project or task easier and faster to accomplish.

As much as division of labour is great, it may be counterproductive if not well managed. Communication lines must be effective, circulatory and timely. Everyone must be carried along without a lapse anywhere. In other words, there must be a strong collaboration for division of labour to work efficiently when running a start-up business.

Business must be married to technology

Every business owner and start-upper should understand that technological limitations can draw back the success of their businesses. How? A quick check around the business world will provide a clear answer – businesses making use of technology are more successful than businesses with limited or no technological application.

If your business will develop and meet up with the standard of a successful and modernized business, then it must be married to technology, in one way or the other. In the place of collaboration, your business team can’t help but make use of technological tools.

As earlier stated, collaboration is a key feature for a startup business marked out for development. It is very important your startup team knows how to optimize technological tools and apps for enhanced collaboration and teamwork.

With a plethora of technological tools and apps around, knowing the right ones that’ll be suitable for your business can be head-knotting. It is because all these apps have their respective functions and uses. If used for what’s not designed for, they’ll give substandard results.

Oh… What to do! But don’t worry. We got you!

In this article, we will be checking out top 4 apps that can promote an effective collaborative team work for your startup.

Ready? Let’s ride!

Top 5 Collaboration tools for Start-uppers

1. ProofHub

ProofHub is an excellent team collaboration and project management tool that is suitable for businesses and teams of all sizes. Startups rely on open communication and strong collaboration among team members. ProofHub thrives in that environment. 

ProofHub’s adaptable processes allow teams to engage via chat, create discussion topics to exchange ideas, and a dedicated notification space to ensure that no essential information is missed. The different views in ProofHub including Kanban, Calendar, and Table help team members manage project tasks with ease. The Gantt charts help the project team visualize every stage of a project using the Timeline view. 

ProofHub also comes with a Time Tracking feature to help teams remain one step ahead of the project deadlines. The Timesheet feature helps teams keep track of the time spent on a task using automatic and manual timers. In addition, it eliminates dependency on email threads when searching for a project-related document. 

ProofHub is available on iOS as well as Android OS. Teams can also use its web-based version that comes with all the features for flawless team collaboration. You can  Start with the free trial version and work your way up to the paid options.

2. Trello

Information and awareness of your team’s progress is very crucial. If you don’t have a clear picture of how your business is doing things, you will be beating about the bush with no result. You need a managerial tool that can help you keep track of your business workflow and keep an accurate record of your tasks. The best tool for you is Trello.

A web-based management tool, Trello is an outstanding project management tool that is very easy and simple to use. It makes use of the Kaban approach for executing its managerial functions. That is, it gives a visual layout of tasks.

With Trello, you can create a team, add members and set up a board for each project created. What’s more, Trello comes with customized columns. To have a clear and visual progress of your project, you can mark each board with customized columns. For instance, you can write denotations like “ideas”, ” drafts”, “up for review”, “project in progress”, “done”, etc.

If you want your team to be carried along with everything going on about a project in your business, then Trello is the best choice for you. It has free and paid versions.

3. Asana

Asana is a collaboration tool suitable for businesses, especially startup businesses. It shares a whole lot of similarities with Trello. The only difference being that Asana has a variety of functions and scopes than Trello. If Trello isn’t enough for you, the next best option to consider is Asana!

Asana works best around projects that teams can collaborate on. The tool gives you the chance to view tasks related to a  project in different ways. You can view the projects by using listing view, calendar view or board view. Another function that gives you an organizational layout is the creation of sections within projects.

Furthermore, Asana is the perfect cut for bigger and complicated tasks requiring work-flow specificity. Asana also works and integrates well with other commonly used apps like Gmail, Slack, Google drive, just to mention but a few.

Also, accessing Asana via your web browser is very easy. The tool comes with a cool mobile app that enables you to get timely updates and notifications in real-time. Just like Trello, Asana has free and paid versions.

If you want a pronounced collaboration of work in your business team, having a management and collaboration tool like Asana can help you immensely.

4. Slack

If there’s an app any start-upper should never be found not having, it is Slack. As a matter of fact, your startup business journey is still not exposed if Slack isn’t on your app lists. One of the best tools that foster collaboration is Slack. It does this through its communication functions.

Slack is a multipurpose and versatile messaging app. It has been the foundational cause of the tremendous success and breakthrough of millions of business teams all over the world. Having a desktop and mobile version, Slack gives you the chance to create and send messages to different channels.

You can make the channel accessible to all the team members. On the other hand, you can also place a restriction on the channel. This way, it is only those you give permission that can join the channel.

Furthermore, Slack gives you control over the kind of messages you receive. Its sophisticated notification settings enable you to select the types of messages you want to be alerted about. What’s more, Slack supports voice and video calls. It also supports file sharing. It has integration with other apps like Dropbox, Google Drive. And the best part of it all – it is free for small teams!

5. Canva

Talk about creative apps for creating charming works beaming with the balsamic reverie of creativity. You can mention a host of them, but if you don’t mention Canva, your talk is suspended in the air of incompletion.

Canva is the best design tool for creating beautiful and professional designs. With Canva, you can create different kinds of designs, from flyers to postcards, ebooks design cover to infographics, and so much more. The interesting part is, you don’t need to be a top notch graphics designer to design. Everything is all set and good for you on the tool.

Furthermore, Canvas has a vast collection of templates. Even if you’re a non-art person or you have no design skills, the templates allow you to create professional and business-worthy designs from scratch. You can also find an array of photographs, images and graphic elements that will trigger your inspiration to create beautiful designs.

Designs are very essential, especially for advertisements. The visual appeals of a design speak volumes about your business. If you don’t have enough capital to call for the service of a graphics designer, you have an alternative now. A better one at that. And that is Canva!

Conclusion 

Successful business is a reflection of a smooth running internal corporation and togetherness. Businesses don’t just bloom for no reason. They don’t just have streaks of success without underlying reasons.

Business has two faces: the internal and the external faces. The two faces are like two sides of a coin. The external face is the part visible to the world. The internal face is the reality of the teams making up the business.

For your business to have a record of success, it must have a collaborative internal face. Only then will its external reflection glow of achievement and success.

We have mentioned some best collaboration tools that can help your business. Try them out for the growth of your startup business!