Australians love to support each other, whether that’s at the cricket, in the community, or even in the world of business. That’s why we’ve put together this list of 20 useful Australian business tools featuring well-established companies through to brand new startups, who are keen to help as you establish and grow your business.
WP Curve
Website: http://www.wpcurve.com
Use for: 24/7 support for your wordpress site, tech support, content marketing
WP Curve empowers business owners to build their business without worrying about WordPress. Choose from a monthly plan or order a one-off job, all with same business day turnaround. As a bonus, they also offer a free Content Marketing course, a suite of marketing guides and the “Startup Chat” podcast, all aimed at entrepreneurs.
Envato
Website: http://www.envato.com
Use for: Finding professional website templates, high-quality web assets and resources
Envato is one of Australia’s biggest websites and provides a convenient ecosystem of sites covering three areas: Envato Market – a marketplace for digital assets including themes, templates, photos, music, video and more, Tuts+ – an educational platform for creative and technical skills and Studio – an online shopfront for freelance services.
Gleam
Website: http://gleam.io
Use for: Creating user actions and interactions from online content
Gleam takes the work out of creating interactive content with online apps for competitions, galleries, social rewards and email captures. Users complete customisable actions including signing up, following on social media, visiting or viewing specific content, and receive competition entries or rewards in return.
Airtasker
Website: http://www.airtasker.com.au
Use for: Getting local help with everyday tasks
Airtasker is an online marketplace for people and businesses to outsource tasks and find local services, from simple chores to business and admin. Tasks are free to post and users then choose from verified and rated members of the Airtasker community.
FlyingSolo
Website: http://flyingsolo.com.au
Use for: Bouncing ideas and receiving specialist advice from other business owners and entrepreneurs
FlyingSolo is Australia’s community for micro-business, with over 70,000 members. It’s home to the country’s most active online small business forums, along with 2000+ articles, podcasts and videos all geared toward entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Canva
Website: http://canva.com
Use for: Creating beautiful designs online for web-use.
Canva creates an easy-to-use graphic design experience with its online software. Drag and drop elements onto a blank canvas or template, and utilise Canva’s hundreds of free and premium elements and fonts. Canva also enables collaboration, with the ability to share and edit designs with others as well as import them into desktop graphic design software.
Freelancer
Website: http://freelancer.com
Use for: Hiring the best outside help from around the world
Post a project on Freelancer and receive bids, compare proposals and select the best applicant. Freelancer provides real-time chat, project collaboration and tracking of tasks to make sure your project is completed to your specifications.
Qwilr
Website: http://qwilr.com
Use for: Creating beautiful, user-friendly websites from documents
Qwilr eliminates the process of sharing static documents by creating beautiful and responsive web documents. Qwilr allows for tracking and analytics as well as password protection and time limits on viewing pages, and has a handy dynamic quote/proposal template.
DesignCrowd
Website: http://designcrowd.com
Use for:
Creating design competitions for your logo, ad creative, landing page
DesignCrowd is an online crowdsourcing marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services with access to a ‘virtual team’ of over 400,000 designers. They aim to give designers opportunities to be creative while providing businesses with risk-free graphic design.
Pollenizer
Website: http://pollenizer.com
Use for: Learning how to build and scale a business in record time
Pollenizer is Australia’s first digital startup incubator and accelerator. They help entrepreneurs and large companies get started with high-growth, tech-based businesses through ‘startup science’.
Atlassian
Website: http://atlassian.com
Use for: Providing your dev team with first-class collaboration software
Atlassian provides a suite of software focused on team collaboration, work planning, bug resolution and code management, all aimed at streamlining and improving the development process.
Speedlancer
Website: http://speedlancer.com
Use for: Getting tasks outsourced and completed within 4 hours
Speedlancer is an online freelance marketplace with a twist: if your project is not delivered within 4 hours, you don’t pay a fee. Speedlancer offers services in design (Canva integration included), writing, data entry and research with a global network of approved freelancers.
Bigcommerce
Website: http://bigcommerce.com
Use for: Creating a personalised online store
Bigcommerce provides you with the tools to build responsive, search-optimised online stores. The Bigcommerce infrastructure also integrates with industry-leading marketing tools such as olark and MailChimp, and provides enterprise-grade control over orders, inventory and shipping.
Interactive Accounting
Website: http://interactiveaccounting.com
Use for: Sorting out your bookkeeping at a fraction of the cost
Interactive Accounting is a subscription accounting service with full Xero integration. Outsource your accounting and utilise the different packages available from Interactive, from simple bookkeeping to a full systems evaluation for your business.
Equitise
Website: http://equitise.com.au
Use for: Running a local crowdfunding campaign for equity
Equitise provides opportunities for entrepreneurs to find potential shareholders for their business through a crowdfunding platform. Entrepreneurs profile their plans and set a funding target; if this target is met then shareholder agreements are signed.
Loandesk
Website: http://loandesk.com.au
Use for: Finding and comparing Australian business loans from a range of providers
Loandesk uses Match, a proprietary algorithm, to find lenders who suit your business. All lenders are hand-picked and rated and the Loandesk team have extensive experience in lending and non-bank business loans.
Campaign Monitor
Website: http://campaignmonitor.com
Use for: Sending beautiful, responsive emails to your customers
Campaign Monitor helps you to create responsive emails with high-quality design while managing lists, integrations with other services, segmentation, automation, optimisation and testing. Campaign Monitor’s reporting includes their popular real-time report Worldview.
Learnable
Website: http://learnable.com
Use for: Web design and development resources in an online community
Learnable is a constantly growing online learning environment of courses and books for web designers and developers. They offer courses and resources in HTML, CSS, Javascript, WordPress, Android, iOS, Ruby and Adobe Photoshop.
Pixc
Website: https://pixc.com
Use for: Removing the background of an image within 24 hours
Pixc helps users overcome a simple hurdle of eCommerce – they remove the background of any product image within 24 hours, creating a more professional look for online stores.
Netregistry
Website: http://www.netregistry.com.au
Use for: Domain names and web hosting plus all the extras – web design, SEO, PPC, website security and email marketing
Netregistry is one of Australia’s top domain registrars with over half a million customers. They offer a range of services to compliment their domain registry, including web and email hosting, SEO optimisation and 24/7 phone and email support.
