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Dean and I had a great time on our final show of August about Entrepreneurial Resources. Often I’ve been asked about what resources I’ve used to start my own businesses. With technology these days, the list of great resources is constantly changing and expanding. Here are the resources we talked about on the show:

For Business Administration

LegalZoom.com - This is where you need to start. Get your papers filed and cut out the hassle of legalese

QuickBooks - This is the best way to manage your accounting as long as you are under 100,000 transactions per year. Once you are ready for a higher end system, there’s another platform to move to listed below

SalesForce.com - A great starting place for CRM. I’ll like a couple of Open Source solutions below

Ecommerce Platforms

Over the last six months, I’ve evaluated 40 different ecommerce platforms. The businesses I’ve been working with and starting have all had different requirements. From selling clothing to alternative medicine to jewelery to information and more, each business required different ecommerce capabilities. There are MANY excellent ecommerce platforms. I chose a top ASP platform and my top PHP platform because not everybody wants to run their site on Windows nor Unix.

Top ASP Platform: aspdotnetstorefront.com - Perhaps the worst brand name in the world (it’s like calling a company that makes health care technology Healthcare), but their technology is excellent for someone starting a business. And its a reasonable price point. Plus, they have an upgrade path to an excellent highend system ASPDNSF IS Edition. The IS Edition integrates with the Interprise Suite ERP platform, easily the best system I’ve seen for the price (starting at just $2,000!). It will replace QuickBooks, your warehouse management system, SalesForce.com, etc.

Top LAMP Platform: Magento - This is a rock solid open source platform, despite being a relatively newcomer to the market. But don’t let the open source price tag fool you. A custom template is going to cost you anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000, making it pretty much the same cost as getting yourself going with ASPDNSF

Open Source Software

In the world of the government, CivicCRM is an excellent solution.

For small business, SugarCRM is my top choice.

If you need audio editing… For example, you are doing a top rated show on BlogTalkRadio.com like Dean and I: Audacity is the best way to go.

Need a quality blogging system? Do what we do here on WordsCause. Use the best blogging platform in the world. WordPress tops many paid solutions. That’s part of the reason you’ve seen large news websites like CNN shift their blogging directly to WordPress!

Ultimately, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to business resources. However, if you are looking to become an ecommerce vendor, this short list gets you about halfway there. You’ll need a bank account and merchant account, but that will have to wait for another show!

 

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