Modern tools of business.

The last time I started a business was over a decade ago. Good news: it’s gotten a lot easier. There was a lot of overhead in startup costs that have been reduced to little or nothing, due to the rise of internet-based tools. I had to do some research and try a lot of tools before I settled on the basic suite. Here’s what I’m using at the U.S. Open Data Institute:

CRM

Contactually watches my e-mail and serves as a repository for notes after meetings and phone calls. I associate each contact with a given project and classify them based on the nature of our relationship (client, funder, employee, vendor, colleague, board member, etc.) Based on those criteria, it reminds me when I need to get in touch with somebody. $20/month.

Task Management

The Asana group task management software is almost like using native Mac OS X software. Everything I need to do goes in here, attached to a given project and categorized. As the US ODI adds more employees and contractors, the group functionality will start to pay off. Free for teams of up to 15 people.

Assistant

I’d included an assistant in my budget, and the cost was non-trivial. In reality, the amount of assistance that I’ll need is going to fluctuate over time, and at this point my need is so minimal that I don’t even know how to meaningfully employ a competent person for, say, 4 hours a week. Then a friend suggested Zirtual. Now I have an assistant in North Carolina, who I can call or e-mail when I need some help. (Admittedly, I’m still figuring out how to work with an assistant, accustomed as I am to doing everything myself, but that’s not Zirtual’s fault.) $200/month for 8 hours of work.

Teleconferencing

Most teleconferencing systems are terrible, and I’ve generally relied on the folks on the other end of phone line to arrange something. Now I use UberConference. It has a simple web-based interface, allows selective muting of participants’ phones (that one guy with the barking dog), it doesn’t require a PIN, and it’ll even call the participants when the conference starts, rather than vice-versa. Free, $10/month for a bunch of nice features, or $20/month for those nice features and a toll-free number.

Phone/PBX

There was no way I was going to pay for a landline. And I’ve already got a mobile phone, of course, so I didn’t need a second one of those. But I needed an organizational phone number, voicemail, an employee phone directory, etc. That’s where Grasshopper comes in. They host the PBX, and connect calls to my phone. Voicemails are e-mailed to me, or available via an iPhone app. Starts at $12/month.

E-Mail

Like most everybody, I host organizational e-mail via Google Apps. Not only is it drop-dead simple, but their support of two-factor authentication gives me one less thing to worry about. $5/month/user.

Office Suite

The days of having to shell out a few hundred bucks for Microsoft Office are over thanks to, again, Google Apps. $5/month/user.

Website Host

The US ODI’s website is hosted on GitHub Pages. Cost: $0. I’ve got an Amazon Web Services account should I need to host anything that won’t work there, which I can just drop some files into S3. Cost: literal pennies.

The grand total is $279/month, with $200 of that for Zirtual. The equivalent services a decade ago would have been a great deal more expensive, or more crude. I’m not sure what’s been more powerfully beneficial to entrepreneurship: the shift towards internet-hosted business services, or the Affordable Care Act. Perhaps we’ll know in a few years.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

3 replies on “Modern tools of business.”

  1. I pray that you are recovering, Waldo. I hope that your latest endeavor is a great success. You do great work and I have always enjoyed your wit. I must admit that when I first read the name of the new venture, I thought that you were entering a business affiliated with the U.S. Open.

    Best of luck and I hope you fully recover from your illness.

    Tyler

  2. I was cleaning out a box of my old stuff at my parents’ house this morning, and I found a WAM! business card.

  3. I must admit that when I first read the name of the new venture, I thought that you were entering a business affiliated with the U.S. Open.

    *Laugh* You’re not the first! When speaking the phrase, I’ve gotten good at emphasizing the proper words to prevent confusion (the sporting events are generally pronounced “you ess sopen,” and I avoid that), but not so much in writing. :)

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