Powwownow's Business App Guide: Lessons in Running a Business From Your Smartphone

The days of having to stay tied to a desk are long-gone. Now, with the aid of a Smartphone, aspiring entrepreneurs and fledgling CEOs can be more productive and business savvy than ever before. From pitching your new ideas to ultimately selling your products, you needn't be alone at any step along the way. There are organisational apps, conference call iPhone apps, accountancy devices, and even point-of-sale tools. Below we discuss five of our favourites:

Prosper

Got a business idea but little or no capital? Prosper is a new type of peer lending service which brings individual lenders and small business borrowers together. Each loanee creates a profile, describes what the loan will be used for, and what interest rate they are able to pay. Lenders indicate how much they are offering, at what rates, and who they want to offer funds to. So your loan may come from multiple sources, or a single person. Alternatively, if you already have a group of investors you already know, such as friends and family, Prosper manages the transaction's lifecycle for you. Regardless of whom you borrow from, Prosper takes a small percentage for managing each loan. For the entrepreneur looking for alternative financing, peer lending can be a great solution. The only downside, however, is that everyone knows your business, literally and figuratively.

Evernote

Another "personal database," Evernote lets you organise your life and your business. A variety of templates let you manage and track a lot of business-related items, such as inventory, invoices, items sold, and expenses. You can enter information into the Evernote database any which way--by snapping a photo, taking a screenshot, or inputting text. Evernote will then process and index the information, and make it searchable. Evernote also automatically syncs its mobile, desktop, and web apps.

Square

Selling products is crucial to many small businesses but that doesn't mean you have to set up an elaborate e-commerce website or go out and buy a new cash register. Instead, let your smartphone do the heavy lifting. This Simple, elegant app for your Android, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch comes with a pocket-sized credit card reader that plugs into your phone's audio jack, allowing you then to take card payments instantly; an absolutely genius app and possibly one of the most innovative on the market. Both the app and the credit card reader are completely free, but Square does take 2.75 percent of every sale you make.

Powwownow

We are very proud indeed of our own app; the foremost audio conferencing tool on the market. An extension of our free service, the Powwownow app allows you to dial in to a conference call from anywhere in the world whilst only paying a local rate thanks to our unique geo-locating technology. The app also acts as a scheduler to ensure as you're company grows you never miss that important meeting, wherever you are in the world.    

MightyMeeting

In MightyMeeting you can save your PowerPoint presentations to the cloud and then access them from anywhere, using your smartphone (or laptop). You can store and play presentations and videos, and even connect your phone to a bigger screen for a better presentation. The MightyMeeting basic app is free, but the Pro version which affords you more cloud space (5GB instead of 100MB) and longer presentations (120 slides instead of 60 slides) starts at US$5 a month.

It goes without saying that it's very difficult to run a business solely from your phone, but these apps will certainly make life a whole lot easier. In the past five years alone apps have revolutionised the way people work, and Powwownow for one, are extremely excited about what's to come.

About Powwownow:

Powwownow (http://www.powwownow.co.uk/) was founded in the UK in 2004, offering customers low-cost conference calling facilities with the ethos of no booking, no billing, no fuss. The customer does not need to book a conference room and never receives a bill from Powwownow. They only pay the cost of their own call, which is added to their standard telecoms bill. The company now operates in 15 countries worldwide including the US and major European markets and recently acquired web conferencing and business collaboration providers, Yuuguu. Turnover for 2011 is predicted to reach £10m.

Find out more about Powwownow by visiting the Powwownow Facebook page and following @Powwownow on Twitter.

Powwownow employs 49 people and is based in Richmond and Manchester.