5 Websites we find helpful for our startup business

Image from Foundr magazine website

When you decide to take the step and start your own business, it can be difficult to find resources or information on how to start your business.  There are so many questions that you need to ask.  How do I set-up my business?  What platform do I use to build my website?  What app or software can I use to build and scale my business? What do I do next?  What resources are out there to help me find the answers to these questions?

Here are several websites that we find helpful for our startup business.

Foundr – This magazine website is great as it provides entrepreneurs with resources to learn how to build and grow a successful business.  There are some great interviews with people such as Richard Branson, Joel Gascoigne (CEO of Buffer), Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma and Arianna Huffington to name a few.  The site also offers a great free tools guide which entrepreneurs are using that can help your startup business.  

GrowthHackers – This is a community where people can learn and share ethical online marketing techniques that drive effective, scalable and sustainable growth.  What we like most about this site is that when you enter the ‘Trending’ section you can search for articles on a topic that interests you like marketing, Instagram, SEO or analytics to name a few. 

Entrepreneur – This site is designed for entrepreneurs.  Here you will find articles that can teach an entrepreneur to how to start, run and grow a business.  There are so many topics that it is better used when you know what to looking for.

TechCrunch – This site is great in finding out about tech startups.  We use this site to find tools and to gain insights on tech trends.  With so many tech tools and apps being developed you need a site like this to keep track. 

Social Media Examiner – This site provides great tips for business and marketers on how to build social media presence.  What we like most about this site is that it provides a weekly wrap up of the changes that have occurred on social media sites.  It also provides case studies and research reports.

These are only some of the websites that we use as resources to help grow our business.  Do you use any of these websites?  Which website do you find useful in helping your business grow?

How to add business Gmail addresses to signup forms on Squarespace

Image of kaizoku Alliance's sign up service form page

A problem we had to fix on our Squarespace website was adding multiple Gmail address to our forms.  How do you add multiple Gmail addresses when you are the only Gmail user on Google Apps for Work?  It took us a while to find the solution and it was a really simple. 

If you have the personal Squarespace service, then you need to connect Google Apps for Work before you even attempt the solution.  You will need to follow the steps suggested in our article ‘How we were able to solve the problem of connecting Gmail to Squarespace’. 

Once you have connected Gmail to Squarespace, you need to complete the following steps:

• Login to your Google Apps for Work account and go straight to Admin section
• Click on ‘User’ and then click on the name of the ‘Active User’ that you want to set up the Gmail address for
• When their profile comes up click on ‘Account’
• Go to the section that says ‘Aliases’ and click on ‘Add an alias’
• Type in the Gmail alias or Gmail aliases that you want the person to have e.g. Sales@ABCcompany.com and/or Info@ABCcompany.com

Then head back to your Squarespace account

• Go to the form that you want to add the Gmail account and go to ‘Settings’ and add the Gmail address that you want the form to go to e.g. Sales@ABCcompany.com
• Save your changes
• Test your form by filling it in and then sending it

The form should appear in your Gmail address - Sales@ABCcompany.com

For better emailing campaigns you should connect the form to your MailChimp account.  When you add MailChimp to the form, it sends the information to the emailing list that you have set up for it.  (MailChimp is the partner of choice for your Squarespace website).

We hope this solution makes setting up multiple Gmail addresses for your business simple for you.  Do you use multiple email addresses for your business?  Is this the way you setup multiple Gmail addresses for your website?