If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, it's not uncommon to dread the responsibility of managing a business. It's one thing to think of business ideas and a whole other thing to run a company.
Fortunately, there are plenty of tools available that can help you make this process easier. Here are eight useful apps every young entrepreneur should have.
1. Pocket
One thing that almost all successful entrepreneurs seem to promote is reading. But you might not always have the time to check something out right away even though it's important to you. With Pocket, you can save a piece of content offline to revisit later anytime and on any device.
The tool is as useful as it is simple. You can create tags to better organize your saved items, listen to articles for better multitasking, and highlight the text you find interesting. With Pocket Premium, you can use paid features like unlimited highlighting, customizable text, and much more.
Download: Pocket for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
2. Evernote
Evernote is one of the most popular note-taking apps to save text, audio, images, emails, and PDFs all in one place. Just like Pocket, you can organize these saved items in their relevant categories. What makes Evernote unique is its library of 50+ useful templates like Daily Planner, Project Overview, Marketing Plan, and Event Budget to help you get more done.
You can also add your team members as collaborators to brainstorm ideas together. Sadly though, its free version only lets you sync your data across two devices. But you can subscribe to its premium plans to access more features and increase your monthly upload limit.
Download: Evernote for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
3. Canva
If hiring a graphic designer is not an immediate priority (or affordable) for you, Canva is a great replacement. It's a beginner-friendly design tool that helps you create all sorts of visual content. We're talking infographics, flyers, posters, invoices, business cards, PPTs, checklists, and more.
Thanks to its vast library of more than 250,000 free templates, you can use Canva for pretty much anything. Whether it's social media marketing, business presentations, or something else entirely. All while collaborating with your team in real-time.
Canva's highly-intuitive UI makes it fun to experiment with different colors, fonts, themes, graphics, and backgrounds to find your unique style. You can also upgrade to Canva Pro to access a wider selection of stock images, premium templates, and special features.
Download: Canva for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
4. Buffer
Buffer is perhaps the most popular social media marketing toolkit among entrepreneurs and small business owners. At its core, it's an automation tool that helps you schedule and publish content on your social media channels at the right time to gain maximum reach. It makes it easy to schedule Instagram posts, for example.
You can also use Buffer to view your performance analytics, craft detailed reports, and create specialized teams by assigning roles and managing who has access to what. With its free plan, you can manage up to three social channels and schedule up to 10 posts per channel.
Download: Buffer for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
5. Toggl Track
Toggl Track is a time management app that lets you track the number of hours you work on a project or for a client. It's ideal for freelancers who charge on an hourly basis. You can organize your entries with custom tags, get reports of your working hours, and use a Pomodoro timer to focus better.
The free plan includes unlimited time tracking, idle time detection, data sync across multiple devices, and much more. If you wish to upgrade, you can start a 30-day free trial. The premium plans let you mark which entries are billable, save reports, create tasks, and choose from templates.
Download: Toggl Track for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
6. Trello
Trello is a collaborative project management tool designed to help you create and assign tasks, set project priorities and deadlines, and visualize progress. It's centered around the Japanese Kanban workflow management technique used to organize, manage, and track projects at various stages.
Trello arranges tasks using projects boards and cards to help you visualize your progress. The app is ideal for managing simple tasks and small teams, but as your projects become more complex, the Kanban technique might start to seem a bit inadequate.
Download: Trello for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
7. FreshBooks
Accounting can be tedious and confusing, and if you plan on doing it yourself, FreshBooks can help. It's an accounting tool designed to simplify managing payroll, inventory, invoicing, and billing. It's ideal for small businesses, freelancers, and sole proprietors.
With FreshBooks, you can track your expenses, create and send invoices, respond to client feedback, among many other things.
Sadly though, FreshBooks doesn't offer a free plan but a 30-day free trial. Its higher-end plans let you create customized e-signatures, track project profitability, remove FreshBooks branding from your emails, track bill payments, and send unlimited invoices to unlimited clients.
Download: FreshBooks for Android | iOS (Subscription required, free trial available)
8. Headspace
Being an entrepreneur isn't just about managing people, time, and money but also your stress levels and overall mental health. Headspace can help you with that goal. It's a meditation app designed to be as flexible as your needs.
You can use Headspace to get better sleep, track your workout time, and get better at maintaining focus. The app offers 10 free meditation sessions, but if you want to access more sessions you need to upgrade to Headspace Pro.
Download: Headspace for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
Arm Yourself With the Right Tools
If you're a young entrepreneur, it's essential to be armed with the right tools to increase productivity, save time, and organize resources. Download the above eight apps to better run your business and manage your personal well-being without compromising on the quality of your work.