How to Choose the Right Technology for Your Business
Choosing the right technology for your startup can help you increase productivity, stay organized, connect with potential customers and get an edge over your competitors.
Having a great idea is not enough to have a successful business. Many great ideas failed because other things were lacking – a solid business plan, a smart marketing strategy, a good team to put the idea into action and bring concrete results. And, most importantly, appropriate technology as a backbone of any relevant business.
Luckily for you, we have a few tips that will help you make a good decision and choose the best technology for your startup.
How to Choose the Right Technology?
When you consider a technology for your business, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
- It should give you plenty of options
- It must be able to keep up with the development of your business
- It has to be reliable and have great reviews
- It should have an active and helpful community
- It should be integrated with other technologies and systems
Another important thing to consider is how many people use that specific technology. Look for those options that allow you to make a change at any point. To be able to do that, you shouldn’t choose a technology only a few people are familiar with because you can have a problem if your developers are not familiar with it and you decide to switch to some other technology. It can also be hard to find people that know how to work with that technology or find replacements for employees that have this knowledge.
Keep Your Business Needs in Mind
The technology you need will depend on the type of your business. Before you even consider technologies you should use, you must first clearly define your product. That way, you will know what technologies you need to make that vision come true.
Create a business model and separate it into specific tasks. Test them to see which you can perform successfully as it is and where do you need to improve. Talk to your team to determine which tasks take up an unusual amount of their time. Use technology to help you become more productive and efficient in those tasks.
For example, if you determine that your employees spend a lot of time just catching up with emails, that might suggest that your current technology that you use for communication is not good enough and you need a different solution. In this case, you could use Slack or Trello for internal communication instead of using email.
Look for Open Source Solutions
You are a startup, which means that your technological solutions must allow you to implement your idea fast and have a lot of customization options. That, plus not having to build everything from scratch, is why open source solutions are good for startups.
WordPress is one of the most popular and widely used open source solutions. It has plenty of different options you can use to customize your website just as you envisioned and it is a relatively simple CMS to use.
Thanks to the number of people using WordPress, it is much easier to find solutions to any problems that may arise thanks to a very active community always ready to help. WordPress is also a great solution if you want to develop your startup using the MVP method.
On the other hand, the fact that WordPress is so widely used can sometimes make it difficult to keep up with all the changes and updates. Security can also be a problem, which is why you still need the right people with WordPress knowledge and experience to help you manage your website and keep it safe and running without a hitch.
Choose Scalable Options
While you don’t want to invest too much money in grandiose solutions which are reserved for big companies, you also need to make sure that you can scale your technologies in the future if you need to. You may not need a lot of space on a cloud at the moment, but you might need it soon enough if your product has a market.
For example, take some time to consider the best hosting provider for your business, especially if you plan to sell your product online. You need to go with a scalable option, but you should also keep speed and security in mind.
Get Advice and Support Outside
A survey from 2014 showed that 63% of small business owners feel overwhelmed by technology. Don’t let your fear of unknown keep you away from success. If you are not sure what technology is right for you and your employees aren’t familiar with some of the tech solutions that might be good for your business, consider getting outside help.
Hiring a professional in these situations can be a smarter and cheaper choice. They can also help you teach your employers how to use certain technologies by providing appropriate training and support.
Conclusion
Take the time to consider all the available options when it comes to the best technology for your startup because that can be the difference between success and failure. We are here to help you if you need IT consulting, so ask for our advice if you feel unsure what technology is right for you.
