5 Work From Home Tools Every Startup Founder Needs
Working from home is the new normal. 70% of professionals work from home at least once a week (via GreatWorkLife). In more ways than we have yet to realise, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyone’s day-to-day lives. But it needn’t have made working from home difficult. Here are our top 5 work from home tools that we recommend for startup founders.
Despite being pushed into the work from home experience as a preventive safety measure with little or no prep time, we not only adapted quickly, but became comfortable with this new way to live. Some of us are even thriving in this new environment as remote workers.
The key to success in the next normal is agility. Businesses that can adapt to changing workplace dynamics will not only survive, but thrive. Overall, new remote workers seem to be settling in with ease. One of the reasons for this seamless transition from a physical to a digital world is the growth of collaborative tools. Most of them existed before the pandemic but we never realised how helpful and productive they were. In 2021, within the confines of our home is where these tools have truly taken centre stage.
As a startup in this new environment, it is important to adapt to new Objectives and Key Results (OKR), remote work tools, such as project management software. There are many essential and accessible remote working tools that businesses use to catch up with the changing trends.
There are a lot of lists on the internet that cover online collaborative tools for remote teams to undertake individual and collaborative work smoothly. Here are 5 tools that we’ve tested out and continue to use at 7startup for our remote and hybrid teams, driving seamless integration and growth without wasting resources.
1. Asana
This is one of the top project management tools and one of our favourite work from home tools. Asana, a digital workspace, allows users to assign tasks to other team members, add followers to projects and monitor deadlines. It’s incredibly useful to make to-do lists or maintain a calendar for strategic planning. More specifically, Asana keeps track of who is responsible for what task. It tracks all the information related to tasks and milestones, including execution steps, due dates, etc. Tracking work in Asana enables conversations and documents to be centralised. Therefore team members can work seamlessly. It eliminates inefficiencies with task switching or searching for information in scattered locations. Unfortunately, this is usually the cause of confusion and wasted time within teams.
2. Canva 
This free graphic design online platform allows you to design social media posts, digital advertisements, creative videos, and even Zoom backgrounds! One of the most adaptable, freemium work from home tools around, it’s extremely simple to use and offers hundreds of templates for all creative endeavours. Remote teams can easily collaborate using Canva. Moreover, you can add team members to the main account for a secure and creative group environment. Additionally, Canva also allows the creation of a brand kit to maintain brand standards for all posts, irrespective of who creates it. Alternatively, you can use the Canva mobile app to edit on the go. Canva Pro is a paid premium version of Canva with added features including a 30-member team account, 75 million images, animated graphics, and audio, and video files.
3. Loom
For those who like to send videos instead of emails, Loom is one of the best work from home tools for you. Loom records your screen and you talking at the same time. It’s primarily used for software demonstration. However, it is also perfect for remote teams that are building or designing things together. It makes it easy to communicate with team members when everyone is spread across the globe and cannot get together in-person for a document review in one location. Loom’s strength is its extremely fast processing and sharing screen recording videos. The Loom chrome plugin is our preferred choice for recording. This therefore avoids a system slow-down or crash with numerous apps working in the background.
4. OneDrive
OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud-based online storage solution. It lets remote team members collaborate through easy file sharing using OneDrive. There are some serious competitors for OneDrive in the market but OneDrive lets you back up specific locations from your computer to the cloud. If this feature is turned on, you can automatically keep files stored on the desktop, in the documents folder, and photos in your pictures folder on your OneDrive, effectively giving you a reliable automatic backup of your most critical files. And simultaneously allow for sharing the files with everyone in the team. For Microsoft 365 plans, Personal Vault will cover all of your files, whereas the OneDrive-only plans, will only protect three files. As well as Personal Vault, which gives you the ability to lock certain files, you can set expiration dates and password-protect links you share with others.
5. Tability OKR SaaS Tool
One of our favourites, the Tability OKR SaaS Tool is for remote teams to manage highly complex work while enabling autonomy. The OKR tool works the best when combined with 7startup’s consulting and OKR methodology. The 7startup consulting helps startups and scaleups set up an Objectives and Key Research (OKR) system across the organisation, and the tool allows transparency to track all objectives and their progress across the company to the last leaf. The supreme UX outperforms any enterprise app. This consulting + SaaS tool methodology will deliver cost savings and add value to scaleups and VCs. We empower you with the capability and the OKR tool to scale, inherit the methodology to match your mindset and culture to aspire to the next level. Talk to us to get your organisation OKR ready to grow like Google!
As a founder it can be daunting in to implement a framework for your remote team members. This is why startup founders think it is worth the investment to drive efficiency amongst your dispersed teams. Fully remote teams and hybrid teams require a seamless and organised collaboration flow to remain productive. Replacing disparate systems for employees with a digital replacement will result in a connected and collaborative team.
In 2021, the change that we are witnessing, in terms of how we live and work, a well-designed OKR system is crucial. With the digitisation of practically every aspect of our lives, our management tools should also adapt to these waves of changes in order to rise above it.
Amit Khanna, 7startup Founder
Amit has 18 years of experience in the industry and an MBA. He supports entrepreneurs with every aspect of their business including concept and product development, investor presentations, and fundraising. Amit & 7startup assist startups in the pre due-diligence process and help connect them to our vast network of investors. Reach out to us today and see if we’re a fit!
