Spoiler alert.
Making it as a solopreneur isn’t easy.
At times it feels like climbing a mountain backwards, blindfolded, with your hands tied behind your back.
Okay, okay that might be a stretch. The point is it’s hard work.
If you’re going to make it, you need every advantage you can get.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of tools out there that can help.
One problem.
Most of them aren’t cheap.
That doesn’t work when you’ve just spent a ton of money on inventory and you barely have enough left to buy a coffee.
So what do you do?
Not to worry.
There are some amazing free solopreneur tools that can help you get started on a shoestring budget.
Here are 10 of the best you can start using today.
#1| Canva: Design Made Simple
I’m no design expert.
My idea of art is a few stick figures and a catchy heading.
You won’t catch me creating amazing artistic masterpieces to sell at Christmas.
That’s where solopreneur tools like Canva comes in.
It allows graphically challenged solopreneurs like me to quickly and easily create professional graphics for web pages, social media, business cards and just about anything else you can think of.
The interface is easy to use and you never have to pay a dime to use it if you don’t want to.
There is a premium plan with lots of extra goodies, but you can create jaw dropping design elements for your business without upgrading. I use the free plan myself and it’s more than enough for what I need it to do.
This is a tool every solopreneur needs in their toolbox.
#2| Ideogram.ai: Image Creation Without An Art Degree
There are tons of expensive image creation tools online these days and they’re great if you can afford them.
Want to know a secret?
There’s a completely free, AI alternative that can create anything you like, just by typing in a few descriptive words.
Want an image of a blue bunny walking on a tightrope with a sign advertising your business?
It can do that!
Ideogram.ai is a great example of why AI business ideas are game changers for the solopreneur.
You don’t have to pay for expensive help from graphic designers any more!
#3| Asana: Streamlining Your Workflow and Planning
No list of solopreneur tools would be complete without a workflow and planning tool. That’s where Asana comes in.
You can manage projects, assign tasks, set deadlines and much more.
It really comes in handy if you’re juggling multiple clients and want to keep their individual projects organized.
No need to guess when a task is due. Asana will remind you!
#4| WordPress: The Website Powerhouse Of Solopreneur Tools
WordPress isn’t the only platform you can use to create a professional website for your business, but it’s the best one and it’s not even close!
WordPress is to website creation what Google is to search. It’s the giant of the industry.
Want to know the best part? You don’t have to know anything about code to create your own site.
There are hundreds of plugins and themes that make it possible to do anything you need your site to do and anyone can do it.
Okay, maybe not your 80 year old grandma that’s never touched a computer before. For anyone else — easy.
WordPress is completely free, although you will have to purchase a domain and pay a nominal fee for hosting your site.
Don’t worry it’s not a major expense. I pay less than $200 a year for my domain and hosting — try and start a brick and mortar store for that!
No list of solopreneur tools would be complete without WordPress on it!
#5| Google Keyword Planner: An SEO Power Tool
Now that you have that website up and running for your solopreneur venture how do you drive traffic to it?
After all, you won’t make any money with a business that nobody knows about.
There’s another great free tool that can help with that — Google Keyword Planner.
All you have to do is set up a Google Ad words account and you can start down the keyword rabbit hole.
Don’t worry.
You don’t have to buy any ads to use it and you don’t have to give away any credit card information.
Sign up and start searching for popular keywords to write about and power up your SEO!
#6| Google Docs — Document Creation and Collaboration
No matter what type of backyard business you’re running as a solopreneur, you’ll need to use writing software from time to time.
You might be more of a hands-on in the trenches type, not a best selling novelist like Stephen King, but you’ll still have to write proposals, memos etc.
Google Docs is one of the best free solopreneur tools for that. It has all the bells and whistles of a premium word processing program at no cost to you.
#7| Google Sheets:Workflow Organization and Data Analysis
For all of your spreadsheet needs there’s Google Docs.
It’s ideal for traditional spreadsheet applications such as inventory, bookkeeping and customer tracking.
You can use it for countless other tasks though. It’s a great option for content planning and project sharing as well.
#8| Google Drive: Centralized Cloud-Based Storage
Gone are the days of massive harddrives and external storage devices.
It’s not because business suddenly got easier and we don’t have high storage demands.
No.
These days we largely rely on cloud-based storage.
Yes you can always pay for extra cloud storage, but Google Drive gives you 75 gigabytes free to get started. That’s plenty for most small business needs, making it one of the more indespensible solopreneur tools on our list.
#9| Adobe Express: Video and Photo Editing Made Easy
Marketing a business as a solopreneur can be challenging.
You’re probably going to want to create some short videos for promotional purposes, but how do you do that?
Video editing software can be expensive and hard to use.
Simple. Adobe Express.
The free version of this program is all you’ll ever need. You can add:
- Video
- Music
- VoiceOver
- Text and stickers
The best part?
It’s so easy to use you’ll be making professional looking videos within minutes after you fire up the software for the first time.
#10 ChatGPT: Your AI Powered Personal Assistant
If there’s one item on our solopreneur tools list that’s a complete game changer for small business owners it has to be ChatGPT.
We all need help at times and someone to bounce ideas off — even a solopreneur.
If you want to run solo, that’s kind of a problem. The whole idea is to not have to worry about directing and paying for employees!
Enter ChatGPT.
This amazing AI tool can help you draft business proposals, write code for your website, answer just about any question you might have and do a whole lot more to boot.
The only thing it can’t do is make you a coffee or order you lunch. That upgrade is not far away though!
