Welcome to yourEntrepreneur's Armory, Accelerate DFW's curated list of tools / assets for entrepreneurs. This is a choose your own adventure format that can help you drastically cut down on wasted time chasing tools you can't use or that do not fit your business.
Total Results: 16 | Displaying 1 - 16
Trello Project Management Platform
Type: Technology Platform | Fee: Freemium
Accelerate DFW Foundation runs on Trello. We use it to mange our various projects, teams, workshops, program leads, etc... It is a tool that we find to be indispensable in our day to day operations. Find out why! Trello is the easy, free, flexible, and visual way to manage your projects and organize anything, trusted by millions of people from all over the world.
Startup Communities - Brad Feld
Type: Book | Fee: Paid
It takes a village Startups need help and not all cities and communities support their startups in the same way. If you want to understand where to find help for your startup this book is a must read. It will give you a great perspective on where to establish your company to maximize resource help and kwhen you might need to look outside of your current location for help.
Lean Canvas - A Great Starting Place
Type: Tool | Fee: Free
In the early days when you don't even know if your solution is something that can make money or that people will pay for it does not make sense to spend months writing a business plan. However, you need to get your initial thoughts out of your mind. This tool is perfect for that. It gives a great overview of where you stand, where you gaps in knowledge or understanding are and reveals some paths forward. This is a staple, go to, tool for any entrepreneur.
Steve Blank's Customer Discovery Checklist
Type: Video | Fee: Free
Steve Blank's Customer Discovery Checklist on Wistia's website. This video and the checklist are great tools for learning about your customers and conducting customer discovery interviews in a efficient and productive manner
Business Model Canvas
Type: Tool | Fee: Freemium
The Business Model canvas is an excellent tool for determining the structure of your business and specific approaches to tackling certain problems. Entrepreneurs that have a deep understanding of their industry can use this tool to convey that expertise to others in a very compact and simple manner. However, a warning to those entrepreneurs, business model innovation is disrupting almost every industry globally. Thus, that industry expertise could work against you as it uses industry standards.
Canva
Type: Tool | Fee: Free
Canva is an essential graphic design tool for everyone but especially for startups. You can design you marketing materials and make them look professional without having to spend the time and expense on a graphic designer before your company is ready and can afford it. One thing we often hear from entrepreneurs is the need to create a logo. You can do that in Canva. In Canva, you can also design professional looking facebook posts and ads, instagram posts, flyers, brochures, posters, videos, presentations, invitations, newsletters, reports, proposals, and media kits.
Betalist - Test Your MVP
Type: Technology Platform | Fee: Paid
"Building a product customers really want and marketing it to them are the most difficult parts of launching a startup. That's why we built a platform to help entrepreneurs to show off their startup to an audience of 15,000 early adopters ready to provide them with valuable feedback." Betalist is a great tool for testing your idea and your minimum viable product. Its also a good tool to look at how other start ups are presenting their Minimum Viable Product and to see good examples. You will need a personal twitter account to sign in.
StrengthsFinder Analysis
Type: Book | Fee: Paid
What is StrengthsFinder? Clifton's StrengthsFinder Assessment is likely the most popular and widely adopted tool for helping you discover what you do best and creates a foundation for sharping your talents. It helps you define what your "34 strengths" are. The CliftonStrengths assessment is a Web-based assessment from the perspective of Positive Psychology. StrengthsFinder was developed by the Gallup Organization. How Does StrengthsFinder work? Gallup strengths are made up of three aspects: Talent, Knowledge & Experience
Traditional Business Plan
Type: Tool | Fee: Free
The trusted business plan, it has been a staple of established and startup business for around 40 years coming into prominent use in the late 1970's early 1980's. A traditionally business plan is simply a tool that a manager or entrepreneur can use to collect ones thoughts on how to tackle a business challenge. There is no set format or defined sections of a business plan which can lead to some confusion on what should and should not be included.
Problem Statement Canvas
Type: Tool | Fee: Freemium
The beginning of a great startup is having a very well defined and understood problem you are attempting to solve. The Problem Canvas takes a psychological approach to “deconstruct” a problem worth solving, it is a great tool that allows you to look at the problem from several different angles. The key to leveraging this tool is understanding it is a work in progress and will change as you get more information from potential customers.
Wordpress.com & Wordpress.org
Type: Technology Platform | Fee: Paid
What is WordPress? There are two Wordpress sites that you need to know about Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org.
Spreadsheets for Analysis
Type: Tool | Fee: Freemium
It would be challenging to find a successful existing or startup business that did not use some type of spreadsheet to help define and analyze their business. They are powerful tools in transforming your business from ideas & assumptions to data driven insights you can act on. They are also the universal language of finance and if your business is seeking any funds you need numbers to back up your assumptions.
Google Advanced Search
Type: | Fee:
Information is power but today where you have access to all of human knowledge within a click, information can be paralyzing. How many times have you searched for something only to get back thousands of results that are not exactly what you are looking for.
Bootstrapping your business
Type: Article | Fee: Free
According to Fundera, only 5% of start ups get VC funding. A sobering reality is that most startups fail. This reminder is not to discourage you from building your business. It is to explain part of the reason most startups do not get funding. Most successful entrepreneurs have several startups that fail before becoming successful. It is okay to fail and in fact that is where you learn. However, it is an important thing to keep in mind as you are building.
Marketing & Sales Funnel
Type: Tool | Fee: Free
Marketing and sales funnels span from low tech post-it notes to sophisticated automated systems that process thousands of leads a day. Depending on your needs there is a perfect tool for the job. In the early days most entrepreneurs can get really far with simply using excel and a google calendar to create their sales funnels. However, if you are a business to consumer company where you will be processing multiple orders a day, such as an e-commerce site, your sales funnel is going to need to be a little more sophisticated.
Crafting a Pitch
Type: Article | Fee: Free
Entrepreneurs give countless pitches, in a multitude of different formats, targeted to specific audiences. Because there is no "right" kind of pitch, it makes it very hard to create a pitch and to know what information in relevant to each audience. Below we break down pitches into 4 categorizes and give some advice around creating your pitch. At the end of the day, it is up to you to decide the best path forward for each of your pitches. Categories of Pitches