Tools and Tips for the Millennial Entrepreneur

Often Millennials are looked down upon by older generations for not being complacent in their jobs and careers. Job satisfaction and life balance are important factors to working life, and when we Millennials aren’t feeling either of those things, we tend to seek other jobs rather than put up with a working situation that causes daily stress and anxiety. Some will never find satisfaction at a corporate job, and might be considering going into business for themselves.

Starting a business can seem daunting, but actually it’s much easier these days to become an entrepreneur then it ever has been before. There are so many tools available that help with nearly every aspect of business ownership, and once you know about them, you can start making your entrepreneurial dreams come true.

Quickbooks

There is a lot of paperwork and math involved in owning a business, but don’t let that deter you. Intuit Quickbooks has a resource page of free tools that help you understand and navigate those aspects. Some of the free tools available include guides to taxes, calculators for taxes and equity, and an invoice template. There is also a “Business Entity Wizard” that will help you correctly classify your business, whether it’s a sole proprietorship, Limited Liability Company (LLC) or another type of company.

Square

If the company you want to start relies on selling goods or services, Square is the service you need to exchange money. Most people these days don’t carry cash with them, and cards are the main means of payment, so it’s essential to your business to have a way to charge a card. Square provides a secure and reliable system for charging cards on a smart device with a headphone jack to plug in the card reader. There is no monthly commitment or heavy fees to use Square, just a small percentage of each purchase to pay for the service. It’s a great wait to get started fast and easily selling your product.

Social Media

Almost everyone uses social media these days. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or countless others, people are engaged on these platforms every day. According to an infographic from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, entrepreneurs need to embrace social media in order to be successful. Not only is social media is the best way to advertise for free, it’s a great way to engage directly with your customers and learn more about them and what they want. You can put out polls, advertise events and contests, and get customer feedback quickly and organically.

SEO

Most people who aren’t engaged with online marketing have no idea what SEO is. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is essential for getting traffic to your business’s website. What SEO does is help your company’s website rank higher on Google when you search for specific search terms. This is done by optimizing your website design and URLs, and also getting other websites to link to yours. For example, if you are hoping that people find your page when they search “dog beds Seattle” you will want to get other, more established sites sites to link to your site with some arrangement of those words.

It’s also helpful for you to create content on your own website that links to other high authority sites. All of this linking back and forth alerts the Google web crawlers to recognize your site, and soon your website’s authority will rise and allow it to show up higher on Google searches.

Starting a company, no matter if you have small or lofty goals, is a lot of work and knowing of some useful tools and strategies to help you get started is key. It may take a while to get going, if you are passionate enough about your business idea, the work you put into it will be more rewarding than any job you’ve had before.