My bootstrapping tools
© quapan
Thought I'd take a moment this post to mention some key bootstrapping tools online.
Many regular readers know that in addition to editing this blog including tips, resources, interviews and news for bootstrappers, I'm also a bootstrapping entrepreneur working on a new interactive blogging network called PostRanger.com.
The idea of this new network or tool is to enable users to create and share free posts on a variety of topics with links back to their own on line profile or blog. (More details here.)
While trying to build both brand and user-ship for the new venture and traffic and future interview prospects for this one, I've relied on a couple of tools.
Here's a list including what I think each does best:
• Linkedin-A network for business connections, I've recently been on a mission to boost my connections in this department since I think it's probably the best way to meet other like-minded business people and entrepreneurs to discuss exchange of resources etc.
• MyBlogLog-A social network now owned by Yahoo! though I joined it back when it was independently run discovering it through VC Brad Feld who also used it on his blog. (I've got accounts for this blog, PostRanger and my other job in the newspaper business) Though widely touted as a way to find out who is reading your blog and who reads the blogs you read, I've found it most useful as a tool for introducing your blog to others and having them introduce their blogs to you.
• Yahoo! Groups-It may seem somewhat old school to say so, but I've found Yahoo!'s old fashioned Group tool pretty useful both for uniting people who want to discuss projects of common interest and to make regular group members aware of key posts, especially with the system's new Text-Rich Editor feature. (Join our bootstrapper group today!)
• LeadVine-This new community, which we recently profiled here at BootStrapMe, is a unique tool in that it allows folks who might regularly come across sales leads or human capital in their field of expertise, profit from that knowledge at no cost using simple referrals and might, in this sense, create a model for new referrals businesses that could be started at little or no cost.
• MySpace-The mother of all social networks, though being gained on by Facebook (and probably others), I build a profile page here for BootStrapMe and will probably do more along this line because of the sheer volume of readers that can be attracted to your website. Drawbacks include anti-phishing tools that are also knocking down the community's effectiveness as a traffic builder for outside sites.
Here are some other tools that in some cases I am less familiar with but most of them remain free. If you've got suggestions for some I've missed, please list them below in the comment section.