Best Freemium Productivity Tools for Startups | Business 2 Community

Finding the best project management tools for your startup can be difficult because of the constant influx of new products. Without keeping a bead on the new tools in the market, you might be missing one that?s perfect for you. And finding the perfect one is the goal, no matter how much trial and error it may take.

When considering a new tool for your small business, it?s best to survey your options and test several. Consider the needs of your workflow. Do you need reporting for each project? Are you tracking leads, or building an assignment flow? After testing out the three products below, here are some things to look for when considering adopting Podio, Asana or Basecamp into your business.

Podio

Podio is a variety of productivity tools all wrapped into one. It can function as a CRM, social intranet, project management tool and more. Whereas choosing one project management tool, social intranet and CRM tool can separate your attention between three different platforms, using Podio consolidates each of those tasks into one place. And what really separates Podio from any other productivity tool is its ability to adapt to any situation or need. By allowing users to build custom apps to frame a workflow, Podio hands over the infrastructure of a workflow to the people. Whenever Podio lacks a certain functionality, there is almost certainly a plugin available to integrate with the existing services.

What makes Podio great, however, is also what makes it difficult. It?s relatively time consuming to figure out exactly how to build an app that fits the workflow you need. There are almost too many options. Once you?ve built a Podio app and begun storing data from a workflow, reporting is more difficult than on other platforms. While you can export your data outside of Podio, manipulating that data inside of Podio is difficult. However, Podio is rapidly changing after its sale to Citrix, so expect these problems to be addressed soon.

Best Features:

• Customization
• Integration with 3rd party services

Drawbacks:

• Time intensive for setup
• Lack of communication across apps

Asana

Asana is the brainchild of two former Facebookers, Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein. This tool is focused on project management and collaboration for teams. Create projects in Asana, and assign dates for specific tasks relating to one larger undertaking. Asana is a great tool for anyone looking for a project management tool where a large number of people have highly specific roles throughout the course of a project. It?s very easy to use Asana out of the box; but it allows for a significant amount of growth as your projects get bigger.

The drawbacks to Asana, however, are in reporting. It is very difficult to analyze the time it takes to complete a project or judge the efficiency of a project based on Asana. While the number of tasks and projects completed can be tracked, there is no way to export those results to analyze offline. This may be a deal breaker for some people looking for a project management tool in Asana.

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Best Features:

Drawbacks:

Basecamp

Basecamp is a relatively old platform ? it was launched in 2004 ? compared to the other two in this list. Still, its recent redesign has launched it into a highly competitive project management tool. The interface is a bit like looking at a desk with a stack of papers in front of you; it?s incredible intuitive. All of the projects, files, calendars, and discussions within projects, open into layers. These layers are like stacks of paper laid out on a desk that you can easily flip through. But the interface isn?t the only advantage of Basecamp. You can easily track the progress of any project, viewing all actions on a timeline. Plus, the ?Catch up? feature allows you to see everything that?s happened since you?ve last logged in to Basecamp. For any visually oriented project manager, Basecamp is a great tool.

The drawbacks to Basecamp, however, are similar to both Asana and Podio. It is difficult to manage any data using the platform;?Basecamp is more about text editing and collaboration. Without a third party tool or external calculation, it?s difficult to review the efficiency of your project. However, at its core, Basecamp is solely a project management tool for use within a business, rather than managing external relationships. And although Basecamp is a great hub for projects, managing documents involves?uploading?and downloading for each user. This is the same issue that rises from emailing documents back and forth; it?s difficult to keep track of the most current version.

Best Features:

• Clean, visual interface
• Clear progress tracking

Drawbacks:

• No summary reporting
• Little integration with third party services

Conclusion

With the number of tools available for your small business, there?s bound to be one that fits your needs. However, make sure to choose a tool that will accomodate the growth of your business. The benefits of using tools like Podio and Asana are that their infrastructure can be molded to fit your needs, in addition to?accommodating?growth.

Building an app in Podio can function as a variety of different things, and any app can accomodate large growth with simple tweaks. Similarly, Asana?s hierarchy of tasks and projects can be organized in different ways to adapt to different types of projects.

Always test these tools in various ways to see which one fits best ? it may not be the first time you test a tool that it works the way you want it.

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