As a startup, with financial challenges and man power constraints it is always smart and wise to invest in tools and applications that help run, manage and automate business activities. The following is an exhaustive list of applications that enables you to manage a whole range of business activities.

Marketing Software:

1. OSI Affiliate Software: The best software for boosting traffic and sales using referral and affiliate marketing.
2. HubSpot: The complete digital marketing automation and management tool for startups.
3. Marketo: A marketing automation and an email marketing software.
4. InfusionSoft: A simple and easy to use marketing and sales automation software.
5. SilverPop: Efficient digital marketing campaign management software for startups.
6. Act-On: An effective online marketing and lead nurturing software.

Customer Support Software:

1. Zendesk: Industry leader and one of the most trusted help desk software.
2. HappyFox: A simple, intuitive and easy to use help desk ticketing system. The subscription plans start from $9 per agent per month.
3. Deskero: A complete social help desk system that integrates with most of the social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. 4. HelpScout: HelpScout is simple and beautifully designed customer service software for any businesses that insists on a clutter free interface.
5. Desk.com: Desk is a help desk ticketing software from the house of Salesforce. A worthy alternative to Zendesk in terms of features and pricing.
6. Kayako: Kayako is one of the most trusted and one of the oldest help desk software that is still evolving to be the one of the best robust help desk software in the market.
7. Parature: Parature was recently acquired by Microsoft, is a complete customer engagement system that has a ticketing system, live chat and knowledgebase.
8. Zoho Support: Zoho support caters to the need of all enterprise businesses that needs to solve and manage their support process. With features like intelligent workflow management and SLA monitoring Zoho is worth trying out.
9. UserVoice: UserVoice is a more of a feedback management tool for B2C companies
10. Samanage: Samanage is a highly customizable help desk solution that enables you to manage IT support requests.

Live Chat:

1. Olark: simple and easy to use live chat software.
2. Zopim: feature rich live chat software at an affordable pricing.
3. SnapEngage: highly customizable live chat software.
4. Bold Chat: Bold Chat offers different plans catering to the needs of SMEs and enterprise businesses.
5. LivePerson: LivePerson is the one of the most comprehensive live chat software in terms of features.
6. Acquire: Empower your agents to resolve complex customer support issues in real time.

Customer Relationship Management Software (CRM):

1. Salesforce: SalesForce is the industry leader in CRM with flexible functionality, customization, automation, analytics, and Salesforce integrations.
2. BaseCRM: A simple and intuitively designed CRM.
3. HighRise: HighRise is a CRM from the house of 37Signals.
4. SageCRM: SageCRM is for any one who needs a highly customizable CRM solution.
5. Nimble: Nimble is social CRM simplified.

Social Media Management Software:

1. HootSuite: Helps you to manage Twitter and Facebook account in a single dashboard.
2. TweetDeck: TweetDeck is a lightweight and chrome browser based social media management app
3. Bufferapp: Helps you to schedule social media posts.
4. Klout: Klout is a social media posts scheduling and analytics tool.
5. Social Oomph: Social Oomph, a simple and feature rich social media management tool.
6. Sproutsocial: A complete social media management and analytics tool for bigger teams.
7. SpredFast: SpredFast is for any one is who so meticulous of about data analysis and reporting.
8. Marketmesuite: It is a tool that enables scheduling, managing and helps improve customer engagement.

Task Management Software:

1. Asana: Asana is a complete task management software that is easy to use and simple to setup within the Asana workspace, you can create tasks, access Kanban-style boards, monitor timelines and do tons of other things to easily manage your projects.
2. Producteev: Manage, assign and track tasks anywhere and any time with this web based and mobile task management software.
3. Wrike: Wrike is task management software for any one who needs to keep the process simple and uncluttered.
4. Wunderlist: Wunderlist is a super simple task management and tracking application that is so famous among Mac users.
5. Trello: Trello is an incredibly easy to use, card like task management application.
6. Evernote: Evernote is a simple web based note making and management software.

Project Management Software:

1. Jira: Jira is project management and task tracking software for IT and software development teams.
2. ActiveCollab:  ActiveCollab is a centralized internal communication and project management software.
3. MavenLink: MavenLink is a project management software with a robust and easy to use internal communication system for teams that rely heavily on collaboration.
4. Clarizen: Clarizen is an enterprise project management system with social media integration.
5. AtTask: AtTask is a work cycle management software that enables you to get a holistic view of the project as a whole.
6- ProofHub: ProofHub is a project management and team collaboration software that lets managers, teams, and clients stay on the same page at one centralized place without the need to juggle multiple tools.

Bug and Issue Tracking Software:

1. Exceptional: Exceptional is an online real time bug and error tracking software that helps you fixing the errors in real time.
2. BugHerd: The simplest issue tracking and project management software.
3. BugZilla: BugZilla is not a only helps track bugs but also helps managing and solving them through team collaboration.
4. Bugify: Simple Issue tracking software for small teams.
5. MantisBt: MantisBT is a free and opensource bug tracking and team collaboration software.
6. Disk Drill Clever Files: Disk Drill is a free program for Windows to recover deleted data. It will help you recover lost documents, videos, music, or photos without any problems.
It can scan and recover data from virtually any media, whether it is an internal or external hard drive, USB flash drive, iPod, memory card, etc.

Email Marketing Software:

1. MailChimp: A Simple email marketing software. More than hundreds of custom made templates to choose from.
2. CampaignMonitor: One of the most trusted email marketing campaign management software that supports responsive emails.
3. Aweber: Aweber is a customer subscription management, email marketing and auto responder software.
4. ConstantContact: With more that 400 custom email templates to chose from, ConstantContact is a simple email-marketing tool for small businesses.
5. ExactTarget: ExactTarget is a email marketing tool catering to the needs of large enterprises.

Search Engine Optimization

1. Moz: Moz is complete SEO management software from the most trusted industry leaders.
2. SEMrush: The most comprehensive and complete SEO tracking and competitor market analytics tool.
3. MajesticSEO: The one and only tool you’ll need for competitor backlink intelligence and analysis.
4. RavenTools: Raven is a digital marketing and research tool for SEO, Social and PPC advertisements.
5. Positionly: Positionly is a SEO research management, SEO tracking and competitor market analysis tool.

Accounting, Billing and Invoice Management Software:

1. ProfitBooks: An online web based accounting management software.
2. Freshbooks: A simple and easy to use online accounting, billing and invoice management software.
3. Xero: A Web based accounting software for small businesses and startups.
4. QuickBooks: QuickBooks is a accounting software that caters to the need of both small businesses and enterprises with two separate software products.
5. NutChase: NutChase is a free invoice and time management software.
6. Merrchant: A revolutionary accounting software for MSME and startups.

Video Hosting Website:

1. YouTube: YouTube is the largest video hosting website. All YouTube videos can be seamlessly integrated into your web pages. It’s free. 2. Vimeo: Vimeo is the second largest video hosting website. For any one who wants to render video on a professional level, Vimeo is the best choice.
3. Wistia: Wistia is a Professional video hosting platform for small and medium businesses.

Web Analytics:

1. Google Analytics: Probably one of the best and the most comprehensive web analytics software. It’s free.
2. Kissmetrics: The one main difference from Google Analytics is, Kissmetrics says who did what on your website or web application. 3. CrazyEgg: CrazyEgg is a heat map generating and mouse scroll tracking software for websites.
4. Clicky: A real time web analytics for your websites.
5. MixPanel: Mixpanel is a feature rich enterprise analytics software for web applications.

Appointment Management Software:

1. FrontDesk: A feature rich client and customer appointment scheduling software.
2. Reservio: An online appointment scheduling software built to support more than 50 business categories.
3. GenBook: A web based appointment management software for local businesses.
4. Appointy: Simple online scheduling software for managing appointments.

A/B testing software:

1. Google Page Experiments: A part of Google Analytics. It is simple to set up, and it is free.
2. Opitmizely: Optimizely is one-stop software for anything and every thing A/B testing. Caters to the need of enterprise businesses.
3. Visual Website Optimizer: A worthy alternative to Optimizely, Does more than A/B testing, helps with usability testing and heatmaps tracking.
4. Unbounce: Unbounce is predominantly a landing page creating software. They also have a simple A/B testing module.

Web Conferencing Software:

1. GoToMeeting: A powerful online meeting, webinar and video conferencing tool.
2. TeamViewer: Simple remote access software for customer support and webinars.
3. JoinMe: free screen sharing and online meeting software for small businesses.
4. Google+ Hangouts: A free, online video conferencing tool that has screen sharing, Multi user support, and document sharing features built in.
5. Uberconference: A simple and free to use video conferencing software.

Online Ecommerce Store Builder:

1. Shopify: A feature rich, simple and easy to set up ecommerce platform.
2. Magento Ecommerce: An enterprise level ecommerce software and platform.
3. WooCommerce:  For any one who wants to test ecommerce business by taking tiny steps then WooCommerce is the best place to start. Its free and easy to set up and manage.
4. Bigcommerce: Offers more than just a ecommerce website platform, it also provides SEO and marketing features that helps you reach out to customers easily.
5. OScommerce: With more than 4000 ecommerce plugins to chose from and a strong support community, OScommerce is definitely worth trying out.

Conclusion:

The above listed applications and tools will sure help you to manage and automate a wide range of business functions. If we have missed any business functions or their corresponding applications/software feel free to add them in the comments.

Additional Resources: