TechCrunch Disrupt, where dozens of new startups go to demo their product to investors and media, came to a close with a melting pot of some amazing new tools and services.
If you had the chance to watch any of the live pitches on the Disrupt stream, you would have seen some of them. I wrapped up my last day there with a pocket full of new business cards and an inbox full of beta invites. Needless to say, I am extremely excited.
Of the hundreds of new startups in Startup Alley, I had the chance to filter out the ho-hum’s and discover some new and useful tools. Small business solutions stood out the most.
Below are the five top new small business tools surely to help you save time and money.
1. Rewardli
Rewardli lets small businesses tap the buying power of their social graph by offering better deals on the products and services they need most.
With 60 vendors and counting from Expedia, GoDaddy, and Priceline, Rewardli is the best way to earn cash back on the services and products small businesses buy anyway.
The browser extension adds even more opportunity to get cash back. Once installed, the user is notified when the site they are visiting is a participating vendor. The savings show up as a drop down menu that quickly dissolves to show the site. Clicking on the drop down brings you to that deal for instant cash back.
Participants can even create their own groups to increase their buying power and ultimately their savings. The more people a user invites into the platform the more they save. It’s win-win for all.
2. Trello
Trello makes project collaboration simple and way more enjoyable. It is a web page where you make a lot of lists.
It solves the problem of tracking what people are working on in one clean interface.
Similar team collaboration tools are too developer focused and confusing. Trello was built for any type of workflow, from being a business-focused tool to even acting as a personal list manager app. Any small business can enjoy its simplicity.
3. GoInstant
GoInstant brings you, your customer, and your product together instantly giving you the time to focus on what’s important. For sales and customer support this product is awesome. It’s a chance to let your product sell itself.
For Sales, GoInstant helps with faster conversions, quicker on-boarding, more sales, and better educated customers. For Customer Support, it solves the problem of lengthy customer support phone calls.
How?
It changes the web-sharing landscape by delivering collaborative web-browsing experiences without all the compliment technical set up. It allows multiple users to browse together on one shared session.
4. SizeUp
SizeUp is a free business intelligence tool created to help small businesses grow. It shows businesses how to make more money, outperform their competition, and find the best places to advertise.
Similar to the type of data that big corporations use and pay for, SizeUp offers the same demographic, industry, geographic, business, transportation, and cost-of-business data at no charge.
5. CardFlick
This is a fun one. Open CardFlick with Facebook to automatically import your contact details. Card designs allow you to customize your own. ‘Flick’ your business card to someone else. No more “can I get your number”. Simply open up the app and flick.
Similar to Bump (only this app actually works) Flick works using proximity. When close to another user, the app sends a request to that person who can then choose to accept or reject your card. The best part, it’s cloud-sync’d, so even if you delete the app to reinstall it all your contacts remain untouched.
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Did you follow TechCrunch Disrupt at all? What were some of your favorites?