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The 10 Hottest Startup Web Tools

With so many new services, the challenge today comes in choosing the best web apps in the market, and one piece of information every business operator wants to know is: what are other savvy businesses using?
By 

Co-founder and CEO, BestVendor

Co-founder and CEO, BestVendor
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Here's one big difference between building a company today versus ten years ago: now it can all be based in the cloud.

That's largely thanks to Web business applications, which have multiplied over the last decade and continue to pop up every day. For startups and small businesses, this has been great news since most apps are inexpensive or free and offer powerful, turn-key capabilities.

But with so many new services, the challenge today comes in choosing the best web apps in the market, and one piece of information every business operator wants to know is: what are other savvy businesses using?

To find out, our team at Bestvendor recently surveyed 550 startup leaders -- mostly executive management or marketing folks at companies with 10 or fewer employees -- regarding the web services they use for accounting, web analytics, productivity, design, and a range of other functions. Here are the 10 most popular, according to them. The full results are available on our business tools and hacks blog.

10. Hootsuite -- 18%(01 of10)
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For social media management, 18 percent use Hootsuite and 8 percent use TweetDeck. Another 18 percent listed Facebook, reflecting the social media giant's growing role in business.HootSuite is a social media dashboard. The product allows users to monitor keywords, manage multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Ping.fm and WordPress profiles and schedule messages. It also offers tools for measuring social media campaigns.
9. PayPal -- 27%(02 of10)
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When it comes to money, 27 percent use PayPal for payment processing, followed by 7 percent who use Authorize.net.PayPal allows users to send money to anyone with an e-mail address, pay online for goods and services, and receive money for items a user sells.
8. Basecamp -- 29%(03 of10)
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For project management, Basecamp leads the way with 29 percent, followed by desktop program MS Project with 8 percent.Basecamp is a project management and collaboration tool that provides a simple way to manage to-dos, files, messages, schedules, and company milestones.
7. MailChimp -- 30%(04 of10)
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For e-mail marketing, 30 percent use Mailchimp, followed by 11 percent with Constant Contact.Mailchimp allows users to design, send, and track HTML e-mail campaigns.
6. Evernote -- 33%(05 of10)
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33 percent of surveyors use Evernote for note-taking, followed by 10 percent who use Google Docs, and a number of holdouts who still rely on pen and paper.Evernote--a free app--not only lets users store notes, it can also clip web articles, and even creates electronic versions of paper documents. It's offered as a desktop application, mobile application and web service.
5. Git -- 35%(06 of10)
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Among developer types, 35 percent use Git for revision control followed by 22 percent who rely on SVN.Git is a system used by developers throughout the product development process, partly because of its emphasis on speed.
4. Dropbox -- 39%(07 of10)
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Startups love Dropbox, with 39 percent using it for storage and backup, followed by Amazon which is used by 10 percent.Dropbox is a free service that lets users store and easily share photos, documents, and videos from anywhere.
3. Google Apps -- 57%(08 of10)
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Google Apps was the favorite among 57 percent of surveyors saying they rely on it for company e-mail, followed by 15 percent who use Outlook.The Google Application Suite also includes a calendar, contacts and the very popular Google documents.
2. Salesforce.com -- 59%(09 of10)
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For those using CRM, Salesforce.com came out on top with 59 percent. The next most used service, Sugar CRM, is used by 6 percent.Beyond being an enterprise CRM software solution, Salesforce.com also sells other web-hosted applications, including contact management and web-based customer service.
1. Google Analytics -- 70%(10 of10)
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Google Analytics led the pack with 70 percent of surveyors naming it as their web analytics tool -- a huge lead over the next most used services, Omniture and Webtrends at 2 percent each.Among Google Analytics uses is the ability to measure advertising ROI and tracking Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications.

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