You’re starting a new business. What’s the best software to help you plan?

Stop brainstorming in the dark! Before you get lost in a swamp of spreadsheets and to-do lists, grab a flashlight – I mean, business model software! Think of it as a map for your venture, a crystal ball for your future revenue streams. It's not about crystallizing just yet, but about sketching the outlines, testing the waters, and making sure your ship doesn't sink before it even sets sail. This "software magic" comes in many flavors, like the Business Model Canvas or the Lean Canvas. Think of them as giant whiteboards, but digital, where you can scribble your value proposition, target market, and even how you'll pay the bills! Remember, your business plan is a living document, not a museum exhibit.

Keep in mind that business planning is an ongoing process, so you should continuously modify your business plan as you identify and learn new things about your model. I recommend LivePlan because it simplifies the business planning process, enhances financial planning, and assists in presenting a professional plan to investors or lenders.

A formal business plan, post-validating your business model, is key for outlining goals and strategies, essential for securing funding and engaging stakeholders. Business plan software like LivePlan or Bizplan, with financial tools and market data, aids in creating a professional document. However, in today's fast-paced business world, there's a shift towards more flexible planning. Lengthy, detailed business plans might become quickly outdated in rapidly evolving markets. Instead, a lean, adaptable approach, focusing on actionable strategies and iterative testing, can be more effective. Balancing a well-structured business plan with the agility to adapt to market changes offers a comprehensive strategy for modern business environments.

After a lot of trial & error, our team has found ClickUp to be the most effective tool for prioritizing tasks and managing our team's remote workers. Using ClickUp is intuitive compared to many other project management software we've tried.

Trello, Notion and Airtable are essentially the best softwares you can use for project management. Depending on your use case, spend the first 2-3 months trying out the different tools before zeroing in on the software of use. Remember, what you choose now will stay with your company for a very long time.

If you are Indian, use Tally. It is the most effective accounting software for Indian use cases. For any other country use Zoho or FreshBooks. They are incredibly start-up friendly and have a good suite of products.

For content creation, check out Writee or if you want things for free, ChatGPT is the way to go. For marketing automation, FeedHive is an incredible tool. For email marketing, if you are a developer, use Mautic. Very powerful open-source drip emailing software. If you aren't a developer, something traditional like MailerLite or Mailchimp is the way to go.

For an early stage company, do not waste time in setting up a cumbersome CRM. You can use one of these three to start of with: 1. Google Sheets - easiest to maintain and manage 2. Airtable - I’ve never used this but people swear by it 3. Notion - It can be your start-up’s knowledge bank, so you’d not have to manage a lot of softwares from the get go. Eventually you can move on to Zoho or Zendesk as your requirements change.

Use Generative AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT, ideally paid version) for idea validation and business planning. First, assign a persona to ChatGPT (e.g. ‘You are a seasoned entrepreneur with an X amount of successful businesses/startup exists in industry Y and you are now considering launching your next venture’). You can then brainstorm ideas, explore potential caveats, capture most common business models for your business types and even ask the tool to write the whole business plan for you. Use the technique “chain of thought prompting” for comprehensive results.

I don't want to be that person, but it's not about the software. 𝗜𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘂𝘀𝗲; you can use a piece of paper or a blank Word document, fill it with 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲!

In my perspective, I find Microsoft package very useful especially word and excel to initiate my business and plan for it, timely I switched to different software but at the initial MS Suit is best.

I'd honestly suggest to start with anything that works for you, something you'll stick to. It's easy to spend more time looking for the *perfect* software for the *perfect* application than actually getting anything done - and that's what it's all about at the beginning. You can get fancier down the road.