It’s a new year and if you’re like me, you’re launching a new business! That’s right, Social Glu is making its first foray into web app building and as you might imagine, it’s plenty hopping busy around here.
While I can’t yet say what the app is, I thought I’d share with you some of the free or low-cost tools that can help you, too, launch your very own shiny new business. Since my focus is on the marketing and communications side of things, that’s primarily what this list includes. Of course, there’s a bunch of other stuff to do too like business licences and tax dudes and dev environments, but we’ll save those for another post (or two).
- Name: The first thing you’ll need is a name for your product and or business. It’s getting harder and harder to find an available name (especially one that has vowels!) I happen to love naming things and find the best way to come up with them is good old-fashioned brainstorming, a notebook, some friends and maybe a drink or two to get the creative juices flowing. However, if you are stuck, there are sites out there to help like Company Name Generator (which also runs a quick check on if the URL is available), Dot-o-mator (“Web 2.0″-sounding names!) and Crazy Namer (it’s true…they are pretty crazy.)
- Website: Once you’ve thought of some good names, it’s time to see if they are available. Domain registration sites like GoDaddy, Network Solutions and Pear let you check availability quickly and for free, and their hosting fees are relatively inexpensive. Google being Google, they too offer domain hosting. You might have to be creative with the URL name (adding “app” at the end of your product name for example) but in general, it’s probably best to stick with a .com domain if you can. Other domain names like .biz and .net are fine and usually more readily available, but for now, .com still seems to be the respected industry standard.
My advice is to buy any available domain you’re even considering, as it is better to own it then not. When you do purchase a domain, consider buying it for two years rather than one — it’s not much more expensive and one less thing you’ll have to worry about just as your new business is taking off.
