10 Awesome Free Products for your Startup

by Audrey Melnik, Founder of ZootRock.com

“We charge you more as your user base grows. Our interests are aligned.” This is a statement on the pricing page of one service. I like it. I like it when a company aligns their interest with mine. More and more, companies are realizing that by offering you value when you need it most, at the start, before you can afford them, they will build loyalty. And when you have grown sufficiently or your demands are greater (the two often occur concurrently), you can start paying them. There’s not a lot wrong with this model.

Here are some of my favorite products that adhere to this model, by offering a free plan or service. I am a customer (or soon-to-be-customer) of all of these services.

1. Softlayer
   Join their “incubator” program and get the first 12 months of hosting for free, up to $1000 per month. You have to try really hard to spend that much per month early on. Forget Amazon or Heroku, these guys are free and they provide support and advice too.
2. Freshdesk
   Support & Knowledgebase software, with your first 3 users for free. Just as good as Zendesk but free. Works for me.
3. First Republic Bank
   I just switched over to these guys. They have a department that focuses on startups, and offers fee-free accounts. They have a physical presence in San Francisco, one branch is just around the corner from me and they are bucking the trend of most banks by supporting high-touch relationships. And they have a personal banking offering that will help me should I want to take a mortgage at some point in the future. Extra bonus for me — they’re showing a real interest in how they can support more women-led startups.
4. Meldium
   This is really awesome and saves me in so many ways. It’s a single-sign on solution for up to 5 users. I get a dashboard of all my apps which I can access with one click, so I don’t have to remember what my username and password are for each individual account. I can add members of my team to any account, without telling them the password. And then when I need to remove them, it’s a simple click away and I don’t have to change the password because they never knew it!
5. Zapier
   If you’ve never tried this you have to check it out. Zapier automates data between two apps. IFTTT also does this but Zapier has many more apps to integrate with. They have a bunch of recipes you can use that have already been set up and you get 5 recipes for free and 100 tasks per month.
6. BitBucket
   Just like GitHub but private accounts are free. And it’s from a great Aussie company, Atlassian.
7. SignNow
   This app sits on my iPad and makes it easy for me to sign my agreements without having to print out and scan. Seeing as I usually don’t have ready access to a printer these days, it saves me a ton of running around. Sign 5 agreements per month for free.
8. New Relic
   Application Monitoring. Has lots of add-ons and special features for when you’re ready to start paying.
9. Asana
   I couldn’t survive without this app — it keeps my team organized. Enough said.
10. ZootRock
    Last but not least — my app. If you have a startup that needs a social media presence but lack the funds to hire a social media consultant, this is a perfect solution. I built this for my last startup, just after I fired my social media consultant. I got more engagement and more followers using ZootRock than a social media consultant. ZootRock will come up with relevant content for you to share on social media and post it for you. We have free plans that include 2 tweets or facebook posts per day. Check it out today.