For new businesses, having a startup dashboard is incredibly important. It can help you increase team buy-in on key goals by giving your team a centralized place to pull up metrics. Plus, by organizing all the tools your business needs in one dashboard, you’ll increase productivity and stay organized. Colleagues can easily find all links under one interface.
It can be tempting to overdo the startup dashboard. When you’re just getting started, it’s easy to feel overloaded with tools and information. By keeping a simple, straightforward dashboard, you can minimize distractions and feel comfortable knowing everything is in one place.
Link for Work allows companies to share everything with a single link. Create a simple and secure dashboard through which you can share links to the many tools, apps, and documents that help you operate your startup. You and your team can avoid the headache of searching for links, with everything organized in one spot.
Who Needs Startup Dashboards?
As you’re creating your startup dashboard, think about who will be using it. Do you need separate dashboards for each user, or will everyone work from the same interface? There are four key divisions of a business that will use the dashboard: CEOs and founders, marketing, sales, and operations. You might have one dashboard with separate folders or entirely separate dashboards for each.
For CEOs and founders, a high-level view is key. They’ll need access to metrics from each department in order to track company growth and progress towards goals. CEOs often track customer retention, total customers, conversions from leads to wins, annual recurring revenue (ARR), and AAR per account.
For marketing teams, tracking campaigns and messaging is key. Their dashboard needs to provide fast access to marketing spend, campaign performance, lead generation, and statistics on spending compared to customer acquisition. They will also need to access A/B testing results.
Sales teams’ startup dashboards are more metric-focused, needing quick access to information on new accounts, ARR, sales funnels, and opportunities won. In comparison, operations teams’ focus will be on the health of the business - from operating cash flow to budgets and revenue. Their focus should be on reviewing stats to keep costs down and sales comparatively high.
Decide on the Key Data for Your Business
While every business is different, much of the data we track is the same: finance, marketing, and customer data. It’s important to define what that includes at the start.
Work with your team, decide what metrics are business-critical and which are optional. Some may be important, but not critical. It’s the critical metrics that should be included in your startup dashboard.
Next, decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs), which may be a single metric or multiple ones combined. Your KPIs should directly relate to the business goals you’ve already set for yourself. If they don’t, they aren’t important performance indicators. They should also be measurable and clear. Any important KPI should use past information to help you plan for the future.
Finally, decide on the tools you’ll use to track metrics and KPIs. Will you use Google Sheets, Docs, and Slides or Microsoft Office? What SaaS apps will you use to collect metrics and measure KPIs? Where will you host your startup dashboard? Link for Work makes it easy to create a dashboard and share links securely within your team.
Avoid bogging yourself down with too many tools and metrics. Be selective when deciding metrics and KPIs to track. Focus on the ones that will truly turn the dial. Limit tools to the ones you’ll actually use. For example, you shouldn’t have to check off a task in multiple apps.
Keep Your Startup Dashboard Simple
Tons of apps, metrics, and KPIs will seem important. However, it is possible to have too much information - and too much information leads to burnout. According to Gallup, 7,500 employees found that 44% felt burnt out due to information overload.
Avoid burnout by limiting information and keeping your startup dashboard simple. Include only the links to the most important sites and apps - this will help you stay focused on the key metrics that you’ve determined are business-critical. With those tools that you do keep, automate them where possible. Use their full power so they work for you, not the other way around.
Don’t waste your time on expensive, overcomplicated dashboards. As a startup business, budget is important. By narrowing your focus down to the truly important aspects of your business, you’ll save money and headaches.
As a business owner, the last thing you have time for is sharing links and dealing with employee questions that could be answered using self-help resources. With Link for Work, you can create a streamlined startup dashboard that everyone can access using a single link. It’s simple and straightforward, so you can focus on what matters.
Even with limiting information, you’ll likely still have plenty of links to sort through. Keep your dashboard organized into categories and add images and descriptions. By taking these steps, you’ll ensure that you and your team can easily find what you need in seconds, minimizing wasted search time.
Create single-purpose dashboards for each of your teams - sales, marketing, operations, and CEOs - and share them via separate links. Or, simply organize your dashboard into categories so everyone can work from one interface. You have control over what employees can access inside.
Simplify Your Startup Dashboard With Link for Work
The Link for Work interface is secure, so you never have to worry about the public accessing your most prized information. You can give access to as many team members as needed, so your Link for Work dashboard can grow with your business.
As your business grows, organize and adjust your startup dashboard easily. Add links by pasting the URL, or use Link for Work’s catalog of common links. No matter how you choose to create your startup dashboard, you’ll save time and money while increasing productivity.
