The Best Collaboration Tools for Startup Teams

Teamwork is the key to success for many businesses, but your startup team is a new breed in itself.

With ambitious project plans, tight deadlines and budgets, and often a smaller team, startups need the very best tools at their fingertips to support their employees and get stuck in with new ideas and projects.

The importance of collaboration tools for startup teams

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Whether you’re a fintech challenger brand or a niche marketing agency with a fresh approach, you and your team members need to be in sync, aligned and ready to take on the world, so having the right tech in place is crucial for effective collaboration.

But there are many other reasons you might need to acknowledge the importance of effective team collaboration:

• Productivity

Being able to quickly communicate with colleagues makes your teams more agile, and online collaboration tools mean workers can be much more efficient with their time. The back-and-forth nature of email can be a real drain on resource time, and switching between email, project management software and different marketing tools can have an adverse effect on team efficacy.

• Reducing costs

With the right tools for collaboration at your fingertips, your business could significantly reduce your communications costs. If you have disparate teams and home workers, phone bills and fees from different providers can add up. Adopting an all-in-one collaboration solution could help you to fine-tune your costs and free up budget for more new projects.

• Employee engagement

Having the tools that meet their requirements can have a huge impact on your team’s morale as well as their productivity. Being able to work more flexibly around their own schedule allows team members to feel more trusted and valued, and ultimately, a happy workforce is a more productive team. What’s more, having the right tools and forward-thinking solutions in place helps you to attract and retain key talent.

• Opportunities to scale

With online collaboration tools, your startup business has better capacity to scale. The agile nature of team collaboration tools in contrast to traditional communications solutions means that you won’t be as restricted by user numbers or location. If your business plan involves hiring a global team of talented candidates, a well-chosen, flexible communications tool makes it feasible.

• A smoother customer journey

With the right collaboration tools in place, you not only improve the experience for your internal teams but also your customers. Allowing your customers to choose their preferred platform to contact you, IM and chatbot integration, or simply offering video calls for customer troubleshooting are some of the ways brands are streamlining and improving their customer experience. Empowering your customer-facing teams with the right tools to resolve customer queries easily and quickly can have a huge impact on both your employees and your external stakeholders.

What are the best collaboration tools for startups?

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Whether you want a holistic solution that helps you to manage tasks and improve productivity or simply allow your teams to connect online via instant messaging, there are several collaboration tools on the market with varying functionality.

We’ve highlighted some of the popular solutions to choose from and their key capabilities:

• RingCentral

RingCentral’s easy-to-use, all-in-one solution was designed with effective collaboration at its core. With features such as file storage, file sharing, instant messaging and task management, it has become an indispensable tool for many businesses looking to streamline their communications and empower more productive, efficient collaborations.

Learn more about RingCentral features here>>.

• Asana

Asana has gained a great reputation as a project management tool. The comprehensive solution with mobile app and integrations offers features including task sharing, comprehensive reporting, custom templates, file storage and security, calendar syncing and automatic email updates.

• Basecamp

Another popular project management platform is Basecamp. Revered for its simple and low-cost task management, Basecamp offers easy-to-use to-do list formats, assignable tasks, customisable views, messaging, progress charts and custom templates, all within one simple interface.

• Daylite

In a Mac-inspired way, Daylite expands the definition of collaboration tool and boosts your team’s productivity while reducing the steps and time spent searching, merging, and typing. As a bonus, you can integrate Apple Calendars, Apple Mail and reminders, Siri, and more. Online or offline, on any Mac device, to and from any Mac user, Daylite is the Mac-minded way of keeping your business, your team, and yourself moving forward — fast-forward. Check it out here.

• Trello

Popular with businesses wanting to adopt a more visual project organisation software, Trello is a great option. Using the Kanban view to visualise workflows and task dependencies, Trello is popular for colleagues working across different teams. Users can choose their preferred view, assign tasks and set deadlines using cards to manage and organise their workflows.

• Teamviewer

TeamViewer is a comprehensive collaboration tool that boasts a range of features designed for remote and disparate teams. Its many collaborative features allow businesses to streamline and simplify their team communications. Teamviewer houses features such as video and audio conferencing, chat, screen sharing, file sharing and even remote access, all within one single application.

• Slack

Slack is quickly becoming a go-to solution for startups in need of a collaborative instant messaging platform. The versatility of this popular messaging app, available on desktop and mobile, allows teams to create and distribute messages to different channels. Businesses can set up channels according to individual projects, teams, or allow open, company-wide communications.

How to choose the right collaboration tool

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Choosing the right tools can be daunting. With so many intuitive and well-designed solutions on the market, it’s easy to get a little lost in all of the options available. Here are a few things to consider to help you choose the right collaboration software for your business.

• Identify challenges your business is facing

Your software solutions need to solve your team’s problems. Whether it’s reducing the amount of time your team members spend in their inbox or delivering quality video calls to connect your disparate teams, make sure the tools you’re tempted by actually help you to mitigate those key challenges.

• Support multiple features

The best collaboration tools will offer a holistic experience. The best software is designed to solve a multitude of workplace challenges, so consider the bigger picture with what features you might need. Simplifying file sharing and storage might be a primary concern, but you may also benefit from features such as audio conferencing, instant messaging, video calls.

• Look for ease of use

There’s no point investing in a new platform if the interface is notoriously hard to use. Adopting a new platform needs to alleviate the workload for your employees, and help them to fine-tune their workflows, so be sure to consider your employees and be on the lookout for tools that are user-friendly.

• Consider security

Make sure you think about security when choosing any new technology. Keeping your teams and customer’s data safe is paramount, so look for markers of trust when shortlisting your options. Whether it’s physical security at their data centres or robust encryptions and administrative restrictions, make sure your providers have everything in place to keep your infrastructure secure.

• Opt for cloud

Make sure you choose a cloud-based platform for your business collaborations. Software that is based in the cloud allows you and your teams to be much more agile and more mobile, making it a better option for remote workers and globally distributed teams. Adopting a cloud solution will make it much easier for your startup team to scale in line with your long-term plans for growth.

• Look for integrations and compatibility

It’s important to ensure your chosen tools come with the right compatibility to suit you and your everyday platforms. Be sure that your collaboration platform integrates with your integral tools such as Microsoft or Google suite tools, but also check that you can build in off-the-shelf or custom integrations with your marketing automation platform, project management tools and your CRM to help make workflows more efficient.

Why is RingCentral the best tool for startups?                                                          

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Startups are choosing RingCentral for its range of intuitive features and cloud-based infrastructure. The flexibility and customisability of the platform make it an ideal choice- but here are a few more reasons you might want to opt for RingCentral collaboration.

1. Easy-to-use

Our dedicated collaboration platform is easy to set up and easy to use, meaning your teams will be able to get up and running in minutes.

2. Integrated

With RingCentral, you’ll be able to integrate your collaborations with hundreds of work tools like Microsoft, Google Workspace, and Salesforce, meaning you have all the tools you need at your fingertips.

3. Secure

RingCentral keeps business conversations secure at every layer of your organisation. RingCentral gives you added peace of mind by instituting robust security measures at every level of our architecture, including the physical, network, host, data, application, and business processes.

4. Scalable all-in-one collaboration platform

Encompassing voice calls, audio conferencing, video calls, instant messaging, screen sharing, file sharing and storage, RingCentral’s holistic features mean you benefit from all your communications needs in one scalable platform.

5. Cost-effective

Consolidating your communications fees by using one single-platform solution means you’re likely to reap the rewards in terms of your monthly telecommunications bill. Likewise, using a unified solution saves your employees time, meaning you can fine-tune your operations and make your business most cost-effective.

With a number of pricing plans on offer, RingCentral allows you to choose a manageable plan in accordance with your needs and your budget.

Essentials	Standard	Premium	Ultimate
₤7.99 /user/month	₤14.99 /user/month	₤19.99 /user/month	₤24.99 /user/month *
Compare Pricing

 

6. Team messaging and more for startups – Features

Built with agility in mind, RingCentral is the perfect solution for your startup’s communications needs. Here are a few of the key features your teams and managers could benefit from.

• • Organise Teams

Whether you have a small internal team, or you work with a wider network of freelancers, agencies and partners, RingCentral allows you to collaborate easily and invite users directly from the app for free. What’s more, your teams can access everything they need whether they’re on a Mac, PC, or a mobile device.

• • Message teams

Hold one-to-one chats with your team members within the app, or start a group thread to message an entire project team. You can even add specific threads to your favourites list for ease of access, helping you and your colleagues get to work quicker.

• • Manage tasks

RingCentral’s in-built task management allows you to create, assign and monitor tasks all from within the app. With task notes, assignees, and the ability to set project start dates and due dates, the app houses everything you need to keep your teams on track.

• • Share files

File sharing means you can exchange important documents and projects with your teams, allowing them to access all the files they need from wherever they are in the world.

 

Explore RingCentral solutions                                  

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Whether you’re looking for a solution to allow video conferencing or simply enable better collaboration for your remote teams, RingCentral offers the key capabilities you need to connect and empower your employees.

Video conferencing

RingCentral Video lets small teams or global workforces meet face-to-face, in real-time and benefit from the high-quality audio and video expected in a business communications platform.

Learn more about Video Conferencing>>

 

Team collaboration

Set up threads for different project teams, send files, pin documents, and meet via video or audio conferencing at the click of a button. RingCentral offers you a prime virtual collaboration environment for your whole workforce.

Learn more about Team Collaboration>>

 

Conference rooms and devices                       

Our conference room solutions and devices allow you to make any room a conference room. Whether you’re in a small huddle space or an auditorium, you and your team can get straight to the agenda with one-click conferencing.

Learn more about Online Meeting Rooms>>

Integrations that startup teams need

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While you may have used some software tools that don’t quite hit the mark, some solutions may have become absolutely indispensable in the everyday operations of your startup business.

Here are a few you might find you’ll need to help your startup teams hit the ground running:

Originally published Jun 01, 2021, updated Aug 06, 2021