First things first, a massive congratulations to you, the budding entrepreneur, for striking out on your own. It’s not easy taking risks, especially when it comes to the unconventional path. Yet here you are, delighting in — and struggling — the hustle and bustle of running your own business.
One of the toughest things in starting a company is managing its budgets. So here at Vulcan Post, we thought of lending you a hand. Take a look at these resources and feel free to bookmark the page — or better yet, save it on Pocket.
Above all else, be patient and stay curious. Because you know what? Your time will come.
Note: Some of these resources offer premium features at additional cost.
Personal development
Go High Brow: Five minute email lessons delivered to your inbox every morning. Subjects ranged from business to technology.
Coursera: Courses from established universities. Financial aid provided. Can be used with SkillsFuture.
edX: Online courses from universities like Harvard and MIT. Some classes offer credits.
FutureLearn: MOOC with 84 partners and over 3 million learners. Owned by The Open University.
Canvas Network: Lesser-known MOOC that offers courses from the world’s leading universities.
Skillshare: Pocket-sized online classes with topics ranging from DIY to business.
Khan Academy: Non-profit organisation well known for its math and computer programming courses.
TED Talks: Thought-provoking videos from experts on technology, education, and design.
The New Savvy: Women-centric career resource and financial guide.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Learn from one of the best. His most popular video to date is ‘The Most Important Word Ever‘.
Seth Godin: Bite-sized blog posts from the American entrepreneur himself.
99u: For the visually creative.
The Muse: Career advice that actually works.
MIT Open Course Ware: Extensive courses on entrepreneurship.
Coding
Codecademy: Learn the nuts and bolts of coding.
CodePen: Coding playground. Test out what you’ve learned.
W3Schools: Step-by-step tutorials.
FreeCodeCamp: Code and help nonprofits!
Code School: Ruby, JavaScript, Python courses, and more.
GitHub: Programming books.
Podcasts
Perpetual Traffic: Digital marketing, social media, and more.
#girlboss radio: Nasty Gal founder and author of #Girlboss Sophia Amoruso chats with top-notch entrepreneurs.
Startup Chat: Live online business growth podcast.
ProBlogger Podcast: Traffic, blogging, and more.
Brand Ambition: Chats, strategies, and experts interviews from branding and marketing gurus.
EOFire: Actionable advice and daily chats with entrepreneurs.
Game Changer: Topics include setting goals, importance of focus, and more.
Pictures and Videos
Raydar: Royalty free stock images. Made in Singapore.
The Stocks: The best royalty-free photographs in one site. E.g. Unsplash, Visual Hunt, and Women in Tech.
Free images: Over 300,000 pictures.
Death To The Stock: A batch of photos sent to your inbox every month. (Bonus: they frequently host creative prompts on Medium!)
Free Photos Bank: Categories ranged from architecture to transportation.
Dreamstime: Web design graphics, illustration and clip arts.
FoodiesFeed: Lifetime access to food photography.
Mazwai: Video clips and footage.
Jeshoots: High-Res photos.
Kaboompics: High-quality and beautiful pictures.
DesignerPics: Hi-Res, simple photography for personal and commercial use.
Lifestyle
Rainfor.me: Relax to the sound of rain. For the entrepreneur (or pluviophile) into meditation.
Calm: Mindfulness and meditation app.
Go Fucking Do It: Track your goals. Pay up if you fail.
Evernote: Brilliant note-taking app.
Design
Design Seeds: Frustrated about the colours of your new logo? Look no further.
Slogan Maker: Get hundreds of rad slogan ideas for your new business.
Canva: Online infographic maker.
Venngage: Another infographic generator.
infogr.am: Create infographics and charts.
Logo Garden: Easy-to-use logo generator.
Google Fonts: Open source fonts that designers and developers frequently use.
1001 Free Fonts: Alphabetically organised fonts.
Perfect Icons: Create resolution independent social icons.
Fontello: Icon fonts generator.
Font Awesome: Font and CSS toolkit.
Newsletters
MailChimp: Professional email newsletter. By far the most popular out of the lot.
TinyLetter: Brought to you by MailChimp. Perfect for sharing your thoughts with your fans or readers.
Paper.li: Curates content around a topic. Can be sent out to any MailChimp list. Great stepping stone if you want an active readership and influence.
Adobe Slate: Turn your newsletter to a visually arresting story.
Online forms
Survey Monkey: Basic online survey software tool.
Typeform: Online forms and surveys with a new twist. Beautiful and simple interface.
Google Forms: Practical surveys with style.
Submittable: Great for companies or start-ups that regularly receive pitches, manuscripts, or job applications.
Survicate: For entrepreneurs who want to get to know their visitors.
Blogging & Writing
Random Name Picker: Pick a random name. Handy tool if you host giveaways.
Irregardless.ly: Crowd-sourced style guide for writers (with a tinge of humour).
Hemingway Editor: Shows readability and offers smart suggestions to improve writing.
Thesaurus: Churns out synonyms, definitions, and translations.
Grammarly: Free grammar checker.
English idioms: Wide selections of idioms to spice up your writing.
Visuwords: “Modern dictionary for a modern world.” For fans of the visual.
LanguageTool: Cool proof reading programme in more than 20 languages.
E-storage
Dropbox: Powerful and popular file hosting service.
Google Drive: Another popular alternative among Google users.
One Drive: Cloud storage for Microsoft users.
Sync: “Like Dropbox, but secure.”
Communication
Wrike: Project management tool.
Trello: See your project(s) in one glance.
Slack: Efficient real-time messaging.
Helprace: Simple customer service platform.
Analytics, plugins, social networks, and themes
Parrot: Discover viral articles to share on Facebook. Content Insights and content strategy formulation for your blog.
Alexa: Check traffic rank, audience geography, and more.
STARNGAGE: Get a peek into Instagram analytics, such as fans growth and best engagement time. Can be used for brands or influencers. (Psst! STARNGAGE is giving Vulcan Post readers a 90 day free trial on their paid Basic Plan of IG analytics [account + hashtag]. Drop them a note and they’ll take care of everything else!)
Hootsuite: Social media management.
Google Analytics: Get insights on page views, bounce rates, and more.
Quick Sprout: Fuss-free site analyser. [Tool under construction]
WordPress: Create professional websites or blogs.
Free WordPress Themes: What it says.
Tumblr Popular Free Themes: Ditto.
Editorial Calendar: See all posts and drags them accordingly to your desired date on the calendar.
Buffer: Schedule your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook posts.
WordPress SEO by Yoast: Optimise page content, image titles, and more.
Photo editing softwares
Pablo by Buffer: Design images in under 30 seconds (or less).
PhotoScape: Easy graphic editing programme developed in Korea.
GIMP: Used for photo retouching, image composition, image authoring and more.
Fotor: Simple online photo editor. Usually use for collage.
Pixlr: Online photo editing software to polish up everyday image.
Miscellaneous
Invoiceto.me: Simple and clear-cut invoice generator.
Slimvoice: Minimalist online invoicing.
Termsheet: Curated collection of startup resources.
Audacity: Cross-platform software for recording and editing audio clips.
AngelList: Find potential investors for your business.
PhotoFeeler: Get people to judge your profile photo to see how competent you look.
Peek: Get people to judge your website or blog. Brace yourself for the unbiased feedback.
Know anything else we should add to the list?
Featured image credit: Visual Hunt