161 Completely Free Resources for Digital Entrepreneurs

 

 

Running an online business can be overwhelming.

Your ‘to-do’ list never ends, urgent things pop up every day, and you never get round to doing those important things you know you should be doing.

Luckily, there are ways to stop the overwhelm.

You can get back in control and grow your business even faster than before.

There are now thousands of tools and guides available to help you improve every aspect of your business – and your life.

And the best part is, most of these tools are completely free!

The problem is figuring out which ones are good.

The last thing you want to do is waste your time on things that don’t work.

So we’ve done the hard work for you.

We’ve scoured the internet to bring together the best resources we could find. Together, they cover all the important areas of your business.

Browse the full list or jump straight to a section that’s most relevant to you.

[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL RESOURCE LIST AS A SPREADSHEET]

 

Self-Management

 

A successful business starts with a successful you. Use these resources to become the very best version of yourself.

 

1.      12 Morning and Evening Routines That Will Set Up Each Day for Success

2.      4 Greatest Quotes of All Time - YouTube

3.      6 Stoic Rituals That Will Make You Happy

4.      Amanda Palmer: The art of asking | TED Talk

5.      Cognitive Journaling: A Systematic Method to Overcome Negative Beliefs | by Richard Ragnarson, MD, Psychiatrist | Better Humans | Medium

6.      Create a Personal Mission Statement: Your Step by Step Guide

7.      Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory | TED Talk

8.      How to Consistently Act From Your Deepest “Why” and Optimize Your Time | by Benjamin Hardy, PhD | Thrive Global | Medium

9.      How to Get Rich: Every Episode

10.   How to Master Critical Thinking by Using a Strategy for Critical Reading

11.   Intrinsic Values Test | Discover What Your Most Important Values Are | ClearerThinking.org

12.   Judson Brewer: A simple way to break a bad habit | TED Talk

13.   Lessons from Keith Rabois Essay 3: How to be an Effective Executive

14.   Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work | TED Talk

15.   Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work | TED Talk

16.   The Life Assessment Checklist

17.   THE MIND OF KOBE BRYANT - THE CHAMPION - YouTube

18.   THE MINDSET OF A WINNER | Kobe Bryant Champions Advice - YouTube

19.   The Time Management Tips Collection

20.   Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do | TED Talk

21.   Wayne Dyer - How To Attract Exactly What You Want

22.   What Shape are You? - Made of Metaphors

 

Strategy & Culture

 

Strategy is all about your “why”, and the choices you make to deliver on it. Culture is what you need to bring others along your journey.

These resources with help you get crystal clear on your business’s overall direction, and how to get great people to join you.

 

1.      7 Business Models of the Next Decade

2.      A First-Principles Approach to Growth | Incipia

3.      A Taxonomy of Moats | Reaction Wheel

4.      Advantage Flywheels – FutureBlind

5.      All about Network Effects - Andreessen Horowitz

6.      All Revenue is Not Created Equal: The Keys to the 10X Revenue Club

7.      Andrew Grove, "Strategic Inflection Points" - 1996 MIT Industry Leaders Program Lecture - YouTube

8.      Better Brainstorming

9.      Crafting Strategy

10.   Culture (Brian Chesky, Alfred Lin) - YouTube

11.   Culture Eats Strategy: Nucor's Ken Iverson on Building a Different Kind of Company

12.   Deming's 14-Point Philosophy - Strategy Skills from MindTools.com

13.   Flywheel Effect: Why Positive Feedback Loops are a Meta-Competitive Advantage

14.   How to be Strategic

15.   How to Present a Strategy in 6 Slides | by Shea Cole | The Innovation | Medium

16.   Lean Transformation Roadmap - 8 Comprehensive Steps

17.   Mind the Moat, a 7 Powers Review – Florent Crivello

18.   Mission Statement Builder

19.   Strategy vs. Tactics: Why the Difference Matters

20.   The Dangerous Seduction of the Lifetime Value (LTV) Formula | Above the Crowd | By Bill Gurley

21.   The First Question to Ask of Any Strategy

22.   The Network Effects Manual: 13 Different Network Effects (and counting)

23.   To Build a Strong Culture, Create Rules That Are Unique to Your Company

24.   What Is a Business Model? 54 Successful Types of Business Models You Need to Know - FourWeekMBA

25.   What the “Best Companies to Work For” Do Differently

 

Sales, Marketing and Pricing

 

Revenue is the oxygen of every business in the world.

So, your approach to sales and marketing can be the difference between failure and success.

Use these guides to understand the basic principles that can drive a 10x difference to your top line.

 

1.      10 Things I’ve Learned About Customer Development - Cindy Alvarez | Blog

2.      10 Ways You Need to Change How You Think and Talk to Succeed at Sales | First Round Review

3.      100 of the most powerful marketing words.

4.      100+ Cold Email Templates to Kickstart your Sales campaigns

5.      13 places to find Beautiful Free Illustrations | by Ahmed Sulaiman | Prototypr

6.      14 Sales Follow-up Email Templates to Steal for Your Next Cold Email

7.      15 Cold Email Templates To Generate More Leads

8.      16 Email Outreach Templates for Every Situation

9.      17 Sales Email Templates + Examples & Best Practices

10.   17 tips for great copywriting

11.   72 Cold Email Templates That Win Customers - Starter Story

12.   All Things Sales! 16 Mini-Lessons for Startup Founders - Andreessen Horowitz

13.   Beautiful Free Photos for Everyone | Barnimages

14.   Best Sales Tools: The Complete List (2020 Update)

15.   Carrd - Simple, free, fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything

16.   Cold Email Academy by Mailshake

17.   Complete Guide to Copywriting in 2020

18.   Content Marketing Certification Course

19.   Coolors - The super fast color schemes generator!

20.   Email Address Verification Service | Kickbox

21.   Email List Verification - Validity

22.   Email Marketing Certification Course

23.   Facebook Advertising Decoded in 15 Minutes | by James Chadwick | Better Marketing | Medium

24.   Find email addresses in seconds • Hunter (Email Hunter)

25.   Fontjoy - Generate font pairings in one click

26.   Free Vector Illustrations to Class Up Your Design | Icons8 Illustrations

27.   How repositioning a product allows you to 8x its price

28.   How to Build a High-Ticket Sales Funnel: A Marketing Makeover of Allgravy.io | Growth Tools

29.   How to create an amazing “About Us” page (tactics from a professional About Page writer)

30.   How to organize your early-stage SaaS marketing organization

31.   How to Sell Anything: An Introductory Guide

32.   How To Set The Right Price Every Time - Neuromarketing

33.   How to Uncover Your Unique Value Proposition

34.   How to write emails that get opened with Ramit Sethi - YouTube

35.   How to write your landing page

36.   It’s Price Before Product. Period. | First Round Review

37.   Juicy SEO Tools You Will Love | Mangools

38.   Keyword Tool (FREE) ᐈ#1 Google Keyword Planner Alternative

39.   LinkedIn Organic

40.   Marketing Examples

41.   My guide to brand positioning

42.   My step-by-step guide to landing pages that convert

43.   Newsletters spam test by mail-tester.com

44.   Not Sure How To Price Your Work? Try This Formula. | by Linda M. Lopeke | For The Interested | Medium

45.   Organize Your Marketing In 1 Place - CoSchedule Marketing Suite

46.   PicMonkey Photo Editor and Graphic Design Maker

47.   Pitch Deck Template - by BaseTemplates

48.   Power Thesaurus

49.   Pricing Experiments You Might Not Know, But Can Learn From

50.   Remove Background from Image – remove.bg

51.   Rewriting landing pages with a pro copywriter

52.   SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters — For Entrepreneurs

53.   Sales for Beginners: The Best Articles and Expert Resources

54.   Sequoia - Pricing Your Product

55.   SocialOomph - The Best Social Media and Blog Post Scheduling Service - SocialOomph

56.   Super — From Notion to Website in minutes

57.   Swipe File | Swipe File Examples From Top Copywriters & Marketers (Free)

58.   Swipe-Worthy » Swipe File Archive » Marketing & Copywriting Examples

59.   The 39 Best Pieces of Sales Advice You’ll Hear This Year | First Round Review

60.   The 44 Most Highly-Rated Sales Books of All Time

61.   The 45 Best Sales Tools: What You Need for 2020

62.   The Art of Sales: Mastering the Selling Process

63.   The Best Pitch Deck Examples | Pitch Deck Hunt

64.   The Cold Email Masterclass

65.   The Pocket Guide to Cold Email Outreach

66.   The psychology of selling. — Honey Copy

67.   The Sales Manager's Guide to Performance Metrics | First Round Review

68.   The Three-Hour Brand Sprint. GV’s Simple Recipe For Getting Started… | by Jake Knapp | GV Library

69.   The Ultimate Guide to Sales Metrics: What to Track, How to Track It, & Why

70.   Tweepi

71.   Understanding the Job - YouTube

72.   What Is Market Segmentation And Why It Matters - FourWeekMBA

73.   What to Tweet?

 

Management & Communication

 

Managing others effectively is a critical skill for every entrepreneur, whether or not they have employees.

Every business needs to get the most out of its suppliers, partners, service providers, investors and customers.

And with the world moving more remote, the ability to write clearly is more important than ever.

These are the best resources on the internet to help you level up.

 

1.      12 Reasons Your Presentation Sucks (and how to fix it)

2.      20 Secrets To Create Memorable, Persuasive & Compelling Presentations

3.      30 Legendary Startup Pitch Decks and What You Can Learn From Them | Piktochart

4.      700+ Power Words That Will Boost Your Conversions

5.      A Founder's Guide to Writing Well — 8 Writing Tips

6.      Amy Cuddy: Your body language may shape who you are | TED Talk

7.      Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash

8.      Coaching and Feedback Tools for Leaders (Ed Batista)

9.      Hemingway Editor

10.   Hit the Mark: Make Complex Ideas Understandable | Stanford Graduate School of Business

11.   How to Persuade People to Change Their Behavior

12.   How To Speak by Patrick Winston - YouTube

13.   How to Tell a Business Story Using the McKinsey Situation-Complication-Resolution (SCR) Framework

14.   How to write an essay well

15.   Icebreaker | Over 300 Free Icebreaker Questions

16.   Master the Art of Storytelling With These Tips from Pixar, IDEO and More | First Round Review

17.   Mighty Networks | Community Platform & Online Course Platform

18.   Persuasive Phrases: 9 Lines That Will Get People to Commit | by Michael Thompson | Better Marketing | Medium

19.   Simon Sinek: Why good leaders make you feel safe | TED Talk

20.   The 25 best icebreaker questions for team-building at work - Know Your Team | Blog

21.   The Art of Persuasion Hasn’t Changed in 2,000 Years

22.   The Dilbert Blog: The Day You Became A Better Writer

23.   This Is How To Change Someone’s Mind: 6 Secrets From Research

24.   Write to Express, Not to Impress. 18 quick fixes to sharpen your writing | by Ali Mese | The Startup | Medium

25.   Your Writing Can Go Viral Regularly with Only 200 Words | Tim Denning

 

Process, Operations and Hiring

 

Every entrepreneur who wants to scale eventually needs more of two things – people and processes.

Use these resources to build the right systems efficiently, so your business growth isn’t limited by your own capacity.

 

1.      40 Favorite Interview Questions from Some of the Sharpest Folks We Know | First Round Review

2.      How to Delegate Work So It Actually Gets Done | by Dave Bailey | The Founder Coach

3.      How to Operate (Keith Rabois) - YouTube

4.      Notes on: High Output Management. This post features my notes and… | by fernandoorta | CEOeducation | Medium

5.      Part #1 — 0 to $640M: Non-obvious Lessons Learned Building BrightRoll | by Tod Sacerdoti | Medium

6.      Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) - From MindTools.com

7.      Process Street | Checklist, Workflow and SOP Software

8.      Quality and effort | Seth's Blog

9.      re:Work

10.   Some notes on Scrum - DEV

11.   Startup Playbook

12.   Textio | Augmented writing for supercharged hiring

13.   The Lean Transformation Model in Knowledge Work

14.   The Secret to a Great Planning Process — Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite | First Round Review

15.   Top Takeaways from Andy Grove’s High Output Management | by Ian Tien | Medium

16.   With Goals, FAST Beats SMART