Early on your business, you’re most likely still at your day job or you might be removed from your co-founders and you’re going to have to rely more and more on remote communication and virtual project management. Even for partners in the same office, often times a lot of work takes place at home, on the go and you want to have a central location to organize all of your brainstorming sessions, to-do lists, and goals and milestones.

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3 Best Free Project Managent Solutions for Startups

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, virtual project management doesn’t take place in a 3d environment as this 90s depiction represents. Project management does, however, allow you to interact with co-founders and employees in a web-based environment where all data is shared and exchanged freely allowing you to make decisions to help your company start earning revenue.

I’ve used the majority of these project management solutions, and while I will admit there’s not “best” solution, these are some pretty great options, and the best way to find out if you’re the right fit is to take the free trials, and see if the solutions will work for you.

Basecamp

Basecamp comes from the 37signals guys notorious for providing innovative ways to communicate in virtual worlds in the most simplified way possible. Their BasecampHQ project manager is the essential of minimalism and falls just in line with the GTD (Getting Things Done) principle and gives you just the right tools to accomplish your goals in your company. They offer accounts for larger companies going up to $100/month, but they do offer a free version that I definitely suggest you check out. You can only have 1 project, but for testing purposes, this is perfect (and actually kind of addicting, too!).

In addition to the essentials, they include an email tracking system that allows you to log all email chains and conversations between clients, employees, and customers. You can also use email as a means to add and discuss content within the system. Simply reply to emails from the Basecamp system and the comment is added to Basecamp, all from your email. Personally I’ve found this to be the biggest advantage to Basecamp, seeing that I hate going on web-interfaces, I’m glad I can get my work done from my iPhone or Blackberry without having to log on.

5pmweb

This is one of the best designed, easiest to navigate project management suite I’ve seen in awhile. It blazes past the competition when it comes to flow-charting and gantt charts and has a wonderful simple, fun, interface that allows you to easily organize projects, tasks, memos, and employees.

While they are actually one of the newer project management suites on the block, 5pmweb definitely holds its own when it comes to deliver features. Just like Basecamp, they have integrated email compatibility so you don’t have to constantly log into the web interface as well as great timelines for project management, RSS integration, and a beautiful dual-pane interface that is reminiscent of dual monitors. I personally really enjoy the simplicity and ease of use of 5pmweb, and even though I’m currently using Basecamp, I am leaning hard on switching to 5pmweb due to their great feature package. They offer a free 14-day trial and then their plans begin at only $14/month (or $2.80 per user).

Goplan.info

This is actually a project management suite that I was referred to by some friends on Delicious. And upon never hearing about them I had some initial second-thoughts, but after trying out the service I was very impressed. As you can tell from the screenshots, they have a lot of similarities with Basecamp in the UI, but that’s where the similarities stop. Goplan is has the capabilities to take on the needs of an advanced project management suite with their developer API as well as ticket tracking for bugs and such.

One of the best features was the ability to talk to team members through their inline chat program. While I also thought Facebook chat would be nothing special, I find myself using Facebook chat all the time, and it’s the same with Goplan. For some reason, the ease of use and instant-nature of chat is great a project management feature. Another cool feature (coming soon) is the addition of instant messaging alerts when items change in the dashboard. Like all project management suites, Goplan emails you when there is an update to the system, and with this instant-messaging notification, the connectivity and ease of use will increase dramatically. Goplan offers free accounts for up to 2 projects and plans starting as low as $10/monht.

Maximize Shareholder Value

No matter how big your company is, the goal is to maximize shareholder value. Whether your company is Dell, and you have a billion dollar market cap or you run an internet music startup, like Grooveshark, your goal is to deliver the best return on investment for your investors. To do this, you have to produce the lowest burn rate possible, and deliver the best returns. While I won’t go into how you can maximize your revenues on this post, I’ll go over how you can cover your costs best and bring in the most value while spending the least amount of cash.

Cash Flow is King

Cash flow is king in a startup. Understanding how cash flow operates is essential, so we’ll first cover exactly what cash flow is, and how you can maximize it. Whenever you have money coming into the company or you have money coming out of the company, you are spending cash. There are different levels of cash and different levels of liquidity and urgency that different types of cash carry. If you’re spending money on a credit card, the urgency isn’t the same as leaving $50 cash on a business lunch. When spending money on a credit card, if it’s a charge card, you have 30 days (or until the end of the month) before you have to pay back that money. If it’s a typical revolving credit line, you have until the end of the month to pay off the minimum balance, and essentially forever before you have to pay down the entire principle, so credit cards provide you an advantage when it comes to maximizing cash flow.

When you pay for expenses with cash or from your debit card, you’re basically throwing away your money. When starting a new company, bootstrapping is essential, and you need to learn to maximize every dollar you have. So throwing down cash on purchases is like putting your company 1 month in the hole. Never make a purchase with cash or debit that you could be making with a credit card.

Bootstrapping Rule #1: Get the Best Credit Cards

Now that you know you should always be using a credit card, you need to make sure you have the best credit card. All good bootstrappers know that your purchases on credit cards should be contributing to the overall benefit of your business. Good credit cards to own include cards that give you bonuses on Airline travel, Gas rebates, and business-purchases bonuses (like using your card at Fedex for shipping). Good credit cards can net you an extra 3% in bonuses, and they definitely stack up quickly. Imagine you’re spending $10k per month on business expenses, that’s an extra $300 per month you could be contributing to gas or it’s an extra airline ticket to San Francisco to raise money. Here are some great business credit cards:

CitiBusiness Card
0% APR on Purchases AND Balance Transfers for 12 months*

Amex Platinum Business
0% Intro APR for Purchases for 12 months.

Citi American Airlines Advantage
Earn 25k miles after first $750 in spending

Pay Your Employees First

When it comes time to pay your bills, always make sure to pay your employees first. This is a simliar rule to planning for your retirement. They say to always take 20% of your income, and automatically deposit it into a retirement account. This same principle applies to building your startup business. Your employees are the lifeblood of your company, and you need to make sure they’re healthy and motivated to keep working.

Your employees are the lifeblood of your company, so when it comes down to payday, make sure you postpone those credit card payment and pay your employees, because if you don’t have any employees you can’t generate any revenue, and all your bills don’t get paid.

When starting a business, it’s important to realize how to best spend your money, and bootstrapping is key. When you have to spend money, spend money on the right expenses, and when you spend money, spend smart money, and that’s credit. Never use cash or debit cards when you can use credit cards.