Google’s Startup Solution: How G Suite Makes Your Business More Productive 8 Apr 2019

Timing, perseverance and 10 years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success. — Biz Stone.

Founding a startup can be like building a boat while you’re at sea. It can take years before you fix the leaks, right yourself, and reach profitability. Then, after all that, 9 out of 10 startups fail.

Companies like Google know your struggle. To make your work easier, Google provides a range of applications for new businesses. Helping to streamline your workflow, they can remove admin and busywork, leaving you more time for strategy.

Not only are Google apps cheap solutions, they’re highly scalable and secure. Discover the best apps and how to use them below.

Where Did Google Apps Come From?

To many, Google means “search engine.” However, the company does much, much more.

Google began in 1998. Its early success arrived from a technical breakthrough, the PageRank algorithm, which sorts web pages based on importance. Google also benefited from word-of-mouth publicity and a simple interface. As the company grew, the humble startup expanded its list of products and services.

Google’s growth soon became exponential. The search engine and advertising company is now part of the conglomerate Alphabet Inc., which has too many extra arms to name. It includes hundreds of different companies, services, products, and failed experiments. Included among its products are a variety of business apps.

When did Google start releasing apps specifically for business? These apps, also known as G Suite, launched in August 2006. At that time, the market on office-related apps was led by Microsoft Office. Dominant in the market since its release in 1988, Office came as standard on many personal computers. Currently, it continues to have billions of users worldwide. With such stiff competition, how did the Google apps business survive?

Google Offers Simplicity, Security, Affordability

For the record, Google does not release user figures or specific revenue for its products. Because of this policy, we don’t know for sure their level of success. What we do know, according to Google, is that Google apps became popular quickly. Some early adopters of the apps included Procter & Gamble and Salesforce.

Around 2009, the app suite graduated from beta, or testing mode. A few years later, Google used user feedback to reiterate product development. The apps transformed beyond a fun few extras for Gmail users into a robust tool for enterprises.

The first thing to love about G Suite business apps is that they are extremely simple. However, being easy-to-use also means they lack a few functions. To compensate for this simplicity, the Google Apps Marketplace, added in 2010, allows third parties to develop add-ons. Add-ons allow users to customize the G Suite apps to their particular needs.

The second thing to love is a huge amount of storage. When the G Suite apps first came out, the cost of digital storage was $1 per gigabyte. To get 15 gigabytes of free storage, or 30 gigabytes in the business subscription, was a business model that attracted would-be users.

While simplicity and ample storage are excellent features, not all Google apps have been equally adored. The Google+ service, a social network, will wrap up in April 2019. Although Google heavily promoted the app as a competitor to Facebook, it ultimately failed to find users.

Despite the Google+ failure, and more than a few winners, all the Google apps for businesses have a few things in common.

Common Features of G Suite: Cheap, Secure, Private, Simple

While each of these apps is great in isolation, together they are an unmatchable force for startups:

• G Suite is cheap. For $5-10 per month, you can get a simple and powerful business-led group of services.
  
• Why is paying for G Suite a good thing? Why not go with a free product? Data privacy. Because you’re paying, Google doesn’t collect, scan, or use your data in any way for advertising revenue. For the record, Alphabet Inc. still gets most of its money from search engine users. Therefore, with a business subscription, there are no display ads, recommendations, spam, or other distractions.
  
• Google prides itself on data security. Google won’t own or sell your big startup idea. With scores of data centers around the world, it has world-beating security systems. It’s also lightning-fast in upload and download times.
• Fitting in with Google’s long-term design philosophy, G Suite is simple, attractive, and easy to use. Apps such as Google Docs are constantly saving your progress, second by second. You won’t ever need to press a Save button. If you’re looking to complete more complex tasks, a range of add-ons and plugins are available in Google Marketplace.
• Set up in G Suite takes only a few minutes, which is great for the entrepreneur with limited time.
• Are you having trouble finding an important email? Was it in a document or a spreadsheet? Your entire suite of apps is “Googleable” with what Google calls the “unified search experience.” Search in one place, and results from all your apps show up. These results are just as fast and accurate as you’ve come to expect from the world’s largest search engine.
• Customer support is available 24/7.

If you need any more reassurance, you should know G Suite is now a mainstream service. Three million businesses are paying for G Suite, and 70 million more are using G Suite for Education.

Let’s delve into G Suite a little further and find out more about some of its key apps and their benefits.

Key Apps and Their Features

Below is a list of the G Suite apps you’re most likely to use and their most prominent features:

Gmail

Gmail is an online email service. It works with most devices and supports sending multimedia files. You can also get customized email ([email protected]) and add up to 30 individual addresses on one account. With top-of-the-line security, privacy, and no ads on the paid business service, you can’t go wrong. If you’re currently an Outlook devotee or another mail service user, Gmail incorporates easy migration tools to keep your contacts.

Hangouts

Primarily a video conferencing app, Hangouts also supports calls, instant messaging, and voicemail. It syncs with your phone contacts so that you can search for your business contacts using only a phone number or email address. You can also have up to 25 people on a single call, therefore, it’s great for hosting a small webinar or a big team meeting.

Calendar

Google Calendar is highly customizable and shareable with the rest of your team. Calendar’s features to schedule meetings eliminate the back-and-forth of emails and invites. It also has a great “Find a time” option to automate the arduous process of finding free time on individual calendars.

Drive

A storage app, Drive gives you 30 gigabytes of storage in the cloud. It’s easy to use and collaborative, meaning files and folders can easily be shared between team members. With a few add-ons, you can even turn it into a PDF converter or a music player.

Docs

Docs is a word processor with voice-to-type, a “suggest mode,” and the ability to “tag” your collaborators. You can also make conference calls using an add-on.

Other productivity apps include a spreadsheet app called Sheets, a presentation app named Slides, and an app for online surveys entitled Forms.

What Are the Alternatives?

If you’re not a Google groupie, then you could try the main competitor, Microsoft’s Office365. However, the market for office suites has grown over the last decade. Popular competitors include Kolab, Libre Office, Open Office, and many more. While the surge in app development has meant no lack of available options, few have the capital and knowledge to build a product quite as comprehensive as G Suite or Office365.

Find the Right Tools to Build Your Startup

G Suite is a simple and cheap tool for collaborating with coworkers on a variety of document formats. It’s fast, searchable, and hosted on Google’s extensive secure-server network.

If you’re doing something more complicated or technical than word processing or spreadsheets, you might prefer a product tailored to your specific needs. In most cases, however, G Suite will be just what most businesses need. Once you’ve got your office suite figured out, are you ready to review your hiring process?

If you’re a startup and you’re looking to do hiring correctly, you need assurance through a background check. Trusted Employees has a variety of simple, fast, and secure services that meet a variety of needs. Contact a sales rep today to find out how we can best serve your organization.