Building a successful business empire needs more than just your thinking. You need the input of experts and other successful people who have made it in your industry.
The internet provides an excellent starting point in your quest for free expert insight on the several challenges you face as a start-up. A good number of entrepreneurs, business investors, and bloggers share their opinions and tips on their blogs/websites, and it’s only from these blogs that you can (freely and on a daily basis) get the very information on how to drive your start-up to the top.
However, figuring out the most insightful and relevant blogs can be a huge challenge, given the thousands that exist today. Here’s a list of the must-read blogs for start-ups that you will find imperative for your daily dose of business advice and inspiration. These blogs have helped thousands of start-up owners take their businesses to the next level.
1. Shopify
If you are interested in e-commerce and insight on building a brand online, then you’ll find Shopify quite helpful.
Must Read: Referral Marketing 101: 7 Tactics to Launch Your Own Referral Campaign
2. Buffer
At buffer, you will be impressed with what Kevan and other members of the team have in store for you in terms of social media marketing.
Must Read; Referral Marketing 101: 7 Tactics to Launch Your Own Referral Campaign
3. Sixteen Ventures
Here Lincoln, an expert in customer acquisition, conversion rates and building/marketing a SaaS product shows some tips on building better systems and user-flows for your clients.
Must read: CAC cost is the key to scaling your company
4. Unbounce
Unbounce discusses how to build converting landing pages and how to use landing pages efficiently, straight from their expert online marketers.
Must Read: How to write the highest converting AdWords ads, ever
5. CoElevate
Coelevate by VP, Brian is a blog by Brian Balfour that focuses on business growth.
Must Read: How to drive insights for growth
6. Tomasz Tunguz
Get inspired by someone with more experience in start-ups, Tomasz Tunguz.
Must read: The compounding returns of content marketing
7. Andrew Chen
Here is one of the most resourceful experts in growth hacking. You’ll find most of his posts quite technical but useful and great reads.
Must read: This is the Product Death Cycle. Why it happens, and how to break out of it
8. Harvard Business Review
Get some daily inspiration and advice from Harvard Business Review which takes a different but exceptional approach to the business world in general.
Must Read: How to Spend the Last 10 Minutes of Your Day
9. OkDork
Noah Kagan teaches you some tips on data-driven marketing for your startup.
Must Read: How to grow your blog to 100,000 visitors in less than a year
10. Moz
The co-founder of Moz, Rand gives you some fantastic actionable content you need for the success of your start-up, especially when it comes to search engine optimization.
Must read: Local SEO advanced competitive analysis
11. Joel.is
Also one of the co-founders of Buffer, Joel Gascoigne take you through a few lessons on a non-traditional way of growing a business, just like he did.
Must read: 3 reasons you shouldn’t outsource your startup and what to do instead
12. Seth’s Blog
Learn more about start-up success from the legendary Seth Godin.
Must read: Telling a story on the label
13. KISSmetrics
KISSmetrics is also among the SaaS companies that value content marketing, use their expertise, advice and tips to your advantage.
Must read: How to Use the Psychology of Color to Increase Website Conversions
14. Social Triggers
This is a blog by Derek Halpern that revolves around the psychology of building and growing your business.
Must read: The Perfect Testimonial (use this to boost your sales conversions today)
15. Zapier
Zapier is a blog about productivity or as they say; work smarter, not harder.
Must read: How to Scale Yourself and Get More Done Than You Thought Possible
16. Derek Sivers
An engaging blog with a different take on building/growing your business, some valuable stuff in there.
Must read: The Meaning of Life
17. WP Curve
Alex McClafferty and Dan Norris share with you what they had to do to get where they are, which is basically an authority site/company for the world’s most use CMS, WordPress.
Must read: 13 startup founders share what keeps them awake at night
18. Vero
An email marketing powerhouse, and as we all know “the money is in your list”.
Must read: The ultimate lifecycle email marketing guide
19. For Entrepreneurs
The VC at Matrix Partners takes you through a few things you have to learn about start-ups and their successes.
Must read: Accelerate your startup: Tuning the engine
20. Less Accounting
A great resource when it comes to accounting which can be a big expense for startups especially since budgets are tight when starting out.
Must read: Small business tax tips
21. ConversionXL
What we’re all after, better conversion rates. The experts at ConversionXL can turn you into a conversion rate expert if you just stick by them and keep absorbing their valuable content.
Must read: How to write copy people actually read
22. Copyhackers
Get to learn more about copywriting tips from a great team of experienced copywriters. Copy makes a huge difference on websites, it has a big impact on conversions and should definitely not be left to chance.
Must read: How to write a kickstarter pitch
23. Copyblogger
Another copywriting/blogging resource, extremely important since marketing in general is shifting more and more towards inbound marketing where copy/content is a priority.
Must read: The best way to create hit content in record time
24. Quicksprout
Also the co-founder of Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, Neil Patel is a serial-entrepreneur with a few successful startups and he goes in details and shares as much as he can in terms of how he grew his businesses. From getting traffic to increasing conversions, Neil Patel is a real genius.
Must read: Ultimate guides
25. SaaStr
Here Jason Lemkin shows you as a SaaS company owner how you can get up to $100M in ARR, coming from someone who’s done it before, his tips are crucial.
Must read: How to sell to SMBs and still get to $100M ARR
26. OnStartups
Get a chance to hear from the HubSpot founder. HubSpot basically pioneered inbound marketing, learning from the founder can cause no harm.
Must-read post: Do fewer things better
27. Clarity
At clarity, you get advice straight from successful entrepreneurs who were in your position before. They also have a service worth checking out, you can have a 1-on-1 phone call with experts in many different fields on a pay-per-minute model.
Must read. Insanity: The secret of entrepreneurship
28. Crazy Egg
Actionable marketing advice on a successful marketing from industry leaders including Neil Patel who pitches in from time to time with some exclusive content.
Must read: 16 pricing page tips
29. Freshbooks
Apart from exceptional small business/startup accounting tips, you get a lot more information on how to grow your small business in today’s competitive market.
Must read: How to handle scope creep – 5 scripts you can use now
30. Smart Passive Income
Here Pat Flynn puts forth and implements a variety of tests on business growth and online marketing strategies you can put in to play.
Must read: From course concept to $141,659 in sales in 6 months
31. Startup Professionals
Martin Zwilling shows you a variety of tips on customer success, productivity and more.
Must read: 8 battle strategies every startup business needs
32. Kabbage
Kabbage’s blog is more focused towards small businesses but provides tons of valuable information in terms of increasing productivity, the hiring process, dealing with hard clients and more.
Must read: 7 strategies for turning unpaid client bills into cash
33. Intercom
Learn everything from design, product strategy to business and customer success.
Must read: The only competitor that matters
34. OpenView Labs
Expert advice on growing a software product including actionable advice and interviews from today’s most powerful software founders.
Must read: How to motivate your sales team
35. Chaotic Flow
Joel York has more than 20-experience in SaaS sales and is more than willing to share it with you.
Must read: Aligning SaaS customer acquisition
36. Wider Funnel
This blog covers practical insights on real-world optimization tests and findings for online sales funnels.
Must read: Checkout Funnel: Is the shortest path always best?
37. Work Awesome
Work Awesome teaches you some tricks and provides valuable insight on how to be more productive both at work and in life.
Must read: 4 keys to lasting productivity
38. Steve Blank
Steve Blank is an entrepreneur recognized for coming up with customer development, this is where he shows you how to do it.
Must read: There are 4 types of startups
39. Close.io
Close.io is an authority blog when it comes to building SaaS Sales Strategies, a must-read for anyone involved or inspired by SaaS products.
Must Read: 5 pieces of wisdom that will change the way you sell SaaS
40. Predictable Revenue
Here Aaron Ross who is predictable revenue’s founder shares with you some tips and tricks on how to make it big.
Must read: How to find a sales marketing niche
And lastly…
41. Both Sides of the Table
Get a lot of lessons on how to become a successful start-up founder.
Must read: Do more with less
It’s not easy to get your start-up off the ground and elevate it to the next big thing, but you can get some help, advice and inspiration from those who’ve been there before. Reading the 41 blogs mentioned above daily will not only help you get some answers but will inspire you to get your business off the ground.
Great list! And thanks for including the Close.io blog in here 🙂
Great list. Another blog I would recommend is VC-List.com