1. Closed-Loop Reporting System (CLR)

The most significant advantage a competitor has over your tech startup is tenure in the marketplace benchmarked by months or years of active audience engagement. If you don’t properly market your products or services, you don’t stand a chance. Unfortunately, many tech startups don’t prioritize marketing as the vital sales tool that it is. They also make the mistake of delegating product or service marketing to someone who lacks the proper skills and experience.

As a tech-minded leader, you know better than anyone — data is the lynchpin to your success. A closed-loop reporting system will aggregate, analyze, and circulate essential data about your target audience and sales cycle between all members of your sales and marketing teams. The reporting system dredges up deep-level information about who your target audience is, what they need, where they spend time, how to reach them, and when to make a sales move; everything you need to develop a calculated sales strategy and — better yet — a strong presence in the market. Here’s what your closed-loop reporting system should look like:

1. Customer Relationship Management Software: (e.g., Salesforce) A sales-focused solution that manages information about the customer, including contact information and a complete history of every interaction a customer has.

2. Marketing Automation Software: (e.g., HubSpot) A marketing-focused solution that monitors each prospect as they go through the buyer's journey to learn more about their behaviors and the context behind their purchasing decisions. This software tracks everything from website visits and email opens to read blogs and filled out online forms to reveal which marketing campaigns are working and which are wasting precious dollars.

Of course, there’s far more to setting up and implementing this system. Here is a complete beginners guide to help get you started.

3. Technical Training Program

You might not think of a “program” as a tool, but as technology grows more complex, a comprehensive training solution will be crucial to your survival. Why?

• Technology startups are only as good as the people running them.

• Technology is evolving faster than our skills. Without ongoing training, your team will eventually fail to innovate, and your product quality will suffer.

• The tech industry is projected to see a deficit of 4.3 million skilled technical workers by 2030. In other words, the tech talent pool is about to become dangerously overfished, making qualified, talented candidates white whales of the industry. If you want the best and brightest, your safest bet is to cultivate them from within.

• The tech sector has the highest turnover rate in the market, clocking in at 13.2 percent! According to research, a comprehensive training program could convince 93 percent of your workforce to stay with your company longer than planned.

• Companies that offer training programs see profit margins 24 percent higher than those who do not provide training.

Here’s the caveat; with the digital transformation movement in full swing, your entire workforce needs technical training. Below are just some of the courses and certifications that your technical and non-technical teams should be considering right now: