How Innovative Software is Enabling Startup Growth

The idea of a "startup" is a relatively new concept. It is not simply a new business. It is a business that has potential to scale rapidly from humble beginnings. It is relatively new in part because that process was not possible until relatively recently. Software is a big part of what has made it possible for a couple of guys to get an idea, start a company, and grow it quickly. The following are a few things helping to make that happen.

Collaboration and Project Management

Products like Trello get used for team collaboration and project management. This particular product is web-based, so it can be accessed from anywhere. The people in charge can check on things while on the go. It has a great deal of flexibility. It can be used with any size team and any type of organizational structure. This is ideal for a new business. By definition, a new business will tend to not fit pre-existing categories of organizational structure. Using a platform that doesn't force the company into fitting in to existing notions of how things are done allows the business to organically develop processes that work best for the problem space in question.

Employee-Centric Software

For the first few hires of a new company, it usually isn't necessary to have any kind of formal onboarding process. Typically, at the earliest stages, new employees get hired at a slow rate and there is adequate time for the founders to help properly orient them. But there comes a point where that process breaks down, but the scale of the organization is not yet such as to justify the overhead involved in setting a human resources department. At that awkward middle stage, the right software can play an extremely valuable role. HRIS database software is enabling businesses, from startups to multi-national companies, to better allocate HR resources. This gives HR leaders more freedom to focus on job responsibilities beyond spreadsheets and processing mounds of paperwork.

Bookkeeping

It is now possible to use software to track expenses, issue invoices, and file your taxes. In the past, this was a much bigger headache for small businesses. Historically, money related issues, such as tax laws and billing processes, were a critical part of doing business that was often beyond the expertise of the founders. The cost of hiring experts could be punishing. Furthermore, people who deal with your financials are people you need to trust a great deal. Small businesses sometimes were ruined by shady financial people because they tried to hire someone "affordable." Software helps bridge that gap. It makes standard processes and relatively deep knowledge of the space something that can be acquired on a shoestring budget. This is game-changing for small business.

Customer Relationship Management Tools

Although not necessary at the very earliest stages, these products allow a more established small business to get to know important information about customers and handle their relationship to the public in a sophisticated, informed manner previously only achievable by large corporations. This can greatly enhance sales efforts. Sales is the lifeblood of a business. Historically, this was a much harder problem to solve. In most cases, the data simply was not readily available.

Business has always been a risky venture. This is still a truism, but new products are helping to reduce the amount of risk and leverage the resources available to a small team. This is increasingly putting small, new businesses on equal footing with corporate giants, giving these companies a better shot at breaking out of the startup phase and becoming successful ventures.