14 Fantastic Free Entrepreneur Resources You Need.

So you’ve decided to be an entrepreneur huh?

If you’ve got all the experience you need, then congrats and good luck!

If you haven’t, then in addition to my good wishes, I’ve curated 15 free entrepreneur resources across 5 categories to help make your entrepreneurial journey as smooth as possible. 

I initially wanted to make this tabular for a quick in and out, you know? However, I decided this would need more than a quick in and out… so yay, you might end up reading for longer 😉

Learning Resources

1. YouTube University:

I can’t talk about free learning resources without mentioning YouTube University. 

If you’re wondering “When did YouTube have a university?”– that’s not what I mean exactly.

That’s just what my friends and I call YouTube in general. With all the free information, educational and otherwise, it just may be the biggest unofficial university, in my opinion. 

If you’re looking to jump on the entrepreneur train and you have little to zero experience and knowledge running a business… then I’d recommend jumping on YouTube. I mean, why not? It’s free after all.

2. Khan Academy:

As someone who uses Khan Academy, I can wholeheartedly vouch for the learning experience. 

They’ve got instructional videos, interactive exercises, and even quizzes so you can check to see how well you’re learning.

They also cover everything from the normal school stuff to life skills (this is where you’ll find entrepreneurship). If you also decide to go to business school later on, they’ve got test preparation modules to help set you up.

Don’t just take my word for it, go check it out!

3. HubSpot Academy:

I learned quite a bit from HubSpot Academy, and here’s what I think of it. 

If YouTube University is where you go to get your B. A in business/entrepreneurship, then HubSpot Academy is where you go for your master’s.

Rather than randomly searching on YouTube, you get free courses curated for your learning purpose and skillset.

This is where you go when you decide you want to learn content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, etc. 

It’s completely free and you get certificates when you complete certain courses.

4. Google Digital Garage:

Personally, I haven’t tried this resource yet. However it’s on my to-do list, and the reviews are good.

Like HubSpot Academy, they get more specific and give you recognized certificates when you finish certain courses.

Plus, if you’re going digital, you will most likely deal with Google a lot. It may be worth checking them out since, as I said, they’re completely free.

Productivity Tools

1. Trello:

You’ll find Trello especially useful if you intend to have your small team or outsource, think of it as a way to manage your business.

You can have virtual meetings, manage tasks, onboard new team members, and a whole lot more.

The whole tool isn’t free like the learning resources I previously mentioned, but they have an amazing free tier that allows you to do a lot and is sufficient for beginners.

2. Toggl:

Once you become an entrepreneur, the odds are you’re going to find time a very rare resource.

That’s where Toggl saves the day. This tool lets you effectively track time.

Okay, that’s vague. Let me clarify.

With Toggl, you can do stuff like;

• tracking exactly how long your team spends on their tasks, for recording accurate weekly timesheets and “time bills”.
• tracking project hours to know the actual time your projects consume and bill your clients accurately. 

3. Evernote:

If you’re anything like me, a very busy mother who often forgets her thoughts because there’s so much to do, you’d need Evernote.

It has a free plan that’s limited to 50 notes. It’s not much but it’s enough to capture ideas as they come. You can always delete the notes when you’re done with those ideas. 

That’s all I’ll say about productivity tools for now. I did mention a few more tools in this table, feel free to check it out.

Marketing Resources

1. Mailerlite:

You might see people mention Mailchimp which is a good email marketing software, but as someone who has used both, on the free version you’ll find Mailerlite to be a bit more feature-rich and less restrictive than Mailchimp. 

You may already know this, but just in case you didn’t, email marketing is an important aspect of any business. It’s one of the easier ways to stay in your customer’s memories.

On Mailerlite’s free plan, you can keep 1000 subscribers and send 12,000 monthly emails… that’s about 12 emails a month to each subscriber… for free!

2. Google Analytics:

If there was a competition for the most important things in businesses, I’m pretty sure data would be in the top 3.

Data is how you know the “when”, “where”, “how,”, and “why”.

• When to improve 
• Where to improve
• How to improve 
• Why you should improve

The most popular way of monitoring this data is using Google Analytics. In the business world, this is a very familiar term. I’m surprised they’ve managed to keep this tool free for this long.

3. Canva:

For Canva, I have nothing but praise. 

I can’t tell you how many times Canva has saved me the trouble of learning advanced graphic design courses.

Want to make simple representations? Think Canva. 

Want to create flyers? Think Canva

Social media posts? Canva is your go-to.

You can do all this on a feature-rich free plan too.

4. Buffer:

If this was 8 months ago, I’d be recommending Hootsuite. 

They’re not bad, quite the contrary. However, this list was meant to provide you the most value for little to no money… more like no money, lol.

And if we’re staying true to this article, then Buffer wins this Recommendation battle. You get fewer restrictions than Hootsuite.

Sorry, I just realized I didn’t even say what these do. They’re social media management tools.

Buffer lets you manage 3 social media accounts at once, schedule 10 posts for specific times, and track performance.

Finance and Accounting Tools

1. Wave:

You can consider this as your free accounting intern.

I say “free intern” because there’s a lot an accounting officer can do that this can’t. 

However, if you just need a way to create invoices, record financial transactions, process payments, and you know, do basic accounting stuff yourself without spending money, then Wave is the way to go.

2. Zoho Expense:

If Wave is for your invoices and basic accounting activities, then Zoho Expense would be your go-to for Expense management.

There are a lot of features on the free plan that I would keep you here for a while if I wanted to explain, so I’ll just keep things short by recommending Zoho Expense if you’re looking to manage your expenses and travels for free.

3. Odoo:

If you run or intend to run a physical business or a product-sale type of business, then you’ll need a way to manage your inventory. 

Both Odoo and Inflow inventory are tools designed to help manage your inventory, especially if you run a physical business or a product sales/shop-style business.

However, while Inflow inventory is quite expensive, Odoo allows you to pick one app/service from their catalog and use it without limitations (they offer a whole lot of business-related services, inventory being one of them).

The good thing is, with Odoo you can easily scale at any point without worrying about moving to another service.

Bonus

I couldn’t fit this in a category so I decided to offer it as bonus information. Alongside the tools I mentioned, I find listening to public speakers helps keep me motivated and disciplined.

Some of these speakers run a mentorship program, others share a lot of beautiful and inspirational knowledge on social media. 

Below, I shared the names of some speakers who share business-related advice and knowledge on social media. Feel free to check them out.

• Vusi Thembekwayo
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Marie Forleo
• Simon Sinek
• Mel Robbins
• Tony Robbins
• Grant Cardone
• Dan Lok
• Robin Sharma
• Tai Lopez

These people can be found on Instagram and YouTube. Some of them offer mentorship programs, but since I haven’t been in any of those, I can’t vouch for the programs. 

The information you’ll get for free on their social media is enough. 

About Dan Lok, I’d be careful about paying for anything from him. He gives useful business information and tips on YouTube, but I heard he got into big trouble a while back and was called out for misleading people about his mentorship program.

You could also listen in on my podcast, A (Mostly) Stay-at-Home Mom, where I share weekly tips for busy moms earning or looking to earn a side income. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and my homepage!