Three Free Things Every New Startup Should Do

Do you remember when you used to be able to go to the school nurse and get three for free?  Never mind.

Here are three things that every new startup should do when they first start out. It actually shocks me when I get into serious discussions with startup founders who have a pitch deck, a website, a social media presence, but neglect these three free things.

CrunchBase

Regardless of how you feel about Silicon Valley the biggest source for startups on the planet is CrunchBase. This data base of startups, entrepreneurs, founders, venture capitalists, angel investors, incubators, accelerators, and other startup related people in resources is amazing.

Creating a profile is free.  The profiles have to be approved but that process usually takes less than 24 hours. Once approved though your profile as an individual and as your company has a place on CrunchBase.

This is where all the significant news and milestones is compiled “for the record”. When you have news of new top level executives, a funding round, a pivot etc you can add those entries to your CrunchBase profile.

CrunchBase is free. It’s a service of AOL (since the TechCrunch sale to AOL in 2010).  Really every semi-serious startup needs a CrunchBase profile.

Angel.co

We give the Angel List (angel.co) a hard time because 90% of their trending news is based in the Valley, 5% in New York and the rest everywhere else. We do report on companies on the list form everywhere else. But again, like CrunchBase it’s free.

Angel.co does a great job of showing what’s hot and what’s not, and it’s actually not the founders of angel.co’s fault that startups “everywhere else” don’t trend. It’s not a matter of what they think, it’a all about traction and how many people endorse you, give you references, invest in you and follow you.

Naturally with the startup ecosystem in the valley they have more startups on the list, and hence trend better.

Regardless of the trending though you really need to register, again it’s free.

 

FounderSync

FounderSync is a startup themselves and based in Cleveland. It’s another great free resource for startup founders.

Once you sign up for FounderSync you can network with other founders across the country. It’s also not exclusive like FounderDating, and being that they’re from “everywhere else” they encourage startups from “everywhere else” to join the site.

Collaborate with founders, find your technical founder, get recommendations for developers, designers, make new friends and network network network.

So on our road trip if we meet you, do office hours with you, or judge a contest that you’re part of, please make sure you’ve done these three things.

 

Linkage:

Crunchbase

Angel.co

Foundersync

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