Resources & Tools
Start Small Think Big is a non-profit organization, serving Californa Bay Area and New York City, that provides entrepreneurs positioned to grow their business with high quality legal, financial, and marketing assistance through a combination of in-house and pro-bono experts. Their mission is to help under-resourced entrepreneurs build businesses so owners can increase their personal financial security and stimulate economic activity in their communities. They provide about 350 businesses per year with one-on-one services and 60% of our entrepreneurs are women.
“Personal Branding” is a video featuring Amie Vaccaro from our partner, Career Girls.
“Marketing Tips & Strategies” is a video featuring Ritu Mathur from our partner Career Girls.
Google analytics (which has free and paid options) can help you understand things like how people are using your website, how people are finding your business, and how you can better market your business online.
Shopify is helpful if you are selling items online, either through an online store, Facebook, Amazon, or elsewhere. The service helps you set up an online store, track sales, manage inventory, create invoices, and more. A basic plan starts at $29 per month, and a lite plan starts at $9 per month.
Google Business offers a free way to manage the online presence of your business across Google. You can register and list your business on Google Maps and Google’s platforms to help potential customers find you more easily.
Unsplash offers free stock photos that you can use in marketing materials, your website, or for your branding.
MailChimp helps you create marketing emails, sign up forms, and to track the impact of your emails on your business. The service is free if you have less than 2,000 email subscribers, and $10 per month or more if you have a larger subscriber list.
Piktochart offers infographic tools, with templates and formats that you can use to design flyers, presentations, or information sheets. This website is useful for businesses that want to make the information they want to share more visual and compelling. Their basic service is free, $12.50 per month gives you access to more extensive services.
Canva offers graphic design tools to create branding and images for websites, ads, banners, etc. It is free to use the basic plan, and $12.95 per month for access to more extensive services.
Yellow Pages is a business directory where customers leave reviews. List your business on Yellow Pages to increase traffic to your website, store or services. Make sure to encourage people to leave reviews! It is free to use but advertising on Yellow Pages does cost money.
Yelp is where many people go to find local businesses. List your business on Yelp to increase traffic to your website, store, or services. Make sure to encourage people to leave reviews! It is free to use but advertising on Yelp does cost money.
Use this marketing budget calculator tool to help you figure out how much you need to spend on your marketing. This website also has resources about how to improve your marketing budget and make it more effective.
Does your business require a lot of social media? Use Hootsuite to manage your social media marketing, track what’s working and what’s not, and schedule posts. The basic plan is $19 per month.
Mad Mimi helps you with your email marketing: use this site if you want to create, send, share or track online email newsletters.
WordPress.org offers a basic, free way to create a website for your business (note that you will still have to buy your domain, which is your website address). A website with more features for small businesses costs $25/month.
Squarespace offers easy to use website templates that allow you to build a website for your business. It is easy to use, but costs $12 per month for a basic website (plus the cost of buying a domain, which is your website address). For businesses that include online transactions, the cost is $26/month.
She Owns It features articles for and by women entrepreneurs. The articles provide advice, inspiration, and guidance for those starting, maintaining or growing a business. Women businesses owners can also advertise their businesses on the site (for a fee), contribute stories, and find conferences to attend.
iFundWomen is a crowdfunding platform for women-led startups and small businesses. They also provide coaching on crowdfunding, a helpful guide to crowdfunding, and support in creating a crowdfunding video.
Not only do they offer a way for you to create a crowdfunding campaign, but they reinvest 20% of profits into the campaigns on their platform. They also offer a helpful guide to creating a crowdfunding campaign, as well as crowdfunding coaching and support with producing videos for your campaign.
A network and online resource for women entrepreneurs. They have a business directory that features women-led businesses, events, resources. Membership costs $299 and then $60 annually.
SCORE provides you free business mentoring and advice. They also offer educational webinars, courses on demand, and a library of resources with guides and helpful articles. Connect with SCORE in your community or online at www.score.org.
Send Grid offers a comprehensive email marketing guide, with lots of tips about how to use emails to market your business.
Kissmetrics offers a paid service for analyzing your online marketing. They also offer lots of guides, blog posts and webinars about online marketing and how to engage more customers.
Walker’s Legacy is a digital platform for entrepreneurial women with a strong focus on diversity. They offer articles, a directory of businesses led by women, and communities that you can join in select cities.
Pablo offers a way to easily design graphics for social media posts. You can select a size (for Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, or Facebook), add text or a logo, and then download or post directly to social media. It is free.
Do you have a business website? Website grader will give your website a (free) health check. By entering in your web address, you can check to see if your website is secure, if it is working well (in terms of connection speed and adapting to a mobile device) or if there are issues.
Buffer is a service that helps you manage your social media. You can track multiple social media accounts in one place, schedule posts for different times, and track how your social media is doing. There is a free version, and a version for small businesses that cost $99 per month.
Quicksprout offers a variety of tools, webinars and guides on how to increase your online marketing. The website has short, free videos that explain things like increasing website traffic through Facebook ads, making the most of paid ads, and more.
Offers free business plan templates, as well as a variety of free tools including a small business toolkit, resources for pitching and funding your business, and numerous templates and tools.
Hello Alice uses AI technology to curate tools, resources, events and opportunities based on stage of business, and they believe in inclusivity for women and minorities. They also run a 12 week virtual accelerator.
“Developing Sales & Marketing Skills” is a video featuring Sue McCauly from our partner, Career Girls.
CareerGirls.org is a video-based career exploration tool for girls, with an emphasis on STEM careers. The mission of Career Girls is for all girls to reach their full potential and discover their own path to empowerment through access to inspiring career role models.
