With the help of the Internet, social media and crowdfunding startups and small businesses sprout overnight. Not all startups and its entrepreneurs make it, but having the right info based on the right research (and avoiding mistakes like the plague) helps. No matter what type of startup you’re planning or are currently building, we’re confident that these 20+ cheatsheets and inforgraphics hand-picked for startup entrepreneurs will be able to help.

The pictures you see here are cropped, so do click on the links to check out the cheatsheet or infographics in its entirety. Some of them are much longer and have a ton of useful information that will put you on the path to success.

You may also be interested in the following:

• Cheatsheets & Infographics for Photographers
• Cheatsheets & Infographics for Graphic Designers
• Cheatsheets & Infographics for Bloggers
• Cheatsheets & Infographics for Social Media Marketers

Evolution Of An Entrepreneur

What’s Your Startup Style

10 Rules for a Great Startup Idea

Startups Exposed

Crafting A Killer Investor Pitch

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding Statistics and Trends

Why Startups Fail

Mapping Tech Startups

10 Crucial Consumer Trends For 2013

Tips For Young Entrepreneurs

14 Tips To Starting Up Your Own Company

Does Crowdfunding Really Work?

Entrepreneurs In The Cloud

Inside The Mind Of A Startup Entrepreneur

7 Innovative Ways To Finance A Startup Business

Kickstarter: The Science Of Crowdfunding

The 7 Stages Of Small Business Success

Famous Entrepreneurs

Top Startup Cities In US

How To Pick A Startup Funding Strategy

Small Business Facts

Reinvention Of Small Business

Editor’s note: This is a contributed post by Vladimir Gendelman who has years of web and print design experience. He works for CompanyFolders.com, an online printing company offering custom presentation folders and other marketing media. Follow him on Google+.

The reports of the death of print have been greatly exaggerated. Although web design has advanced by leaps and bounds over the years, there are still some things that flyers, presentation folders and brochures can do that technology has yet to properly replicate for the Web.

(Image Source: DigitalDesigns1.net)

Just because print design has the leg up on web design (in a few areas) this doesn’t mean that one is necessarily better than the other. Quite the opposite is true; it takes both a print and web presence working together to create a brand identity with maximum impact so don’t move everything to the Web and cut print out completely.

Recommended Reading: Promoting Yourself Via Print: Ideas, Tips And Examples

At their best, print media can actually help to promote your online identity. And with the proliferation of QR codes and NFC technology, you can now create print that literally connects the audience to your web designs. Here are 11 things print design can do but web design can’t.

1. Uniquely shaped canvas

No matter how creative your web design ideas may be, you are always limited to a rectangular-shaped canvas to account for rectangular-shaped screens. Meanwhile, print designs can be die cut into nearly any shape, giving you greater design flexibility. A unique shape is often unexpected and helps make your printed media stand out.

(Image Source: behance)

2. Texture and touchability

Print designs are meant to be touched, so the way your design feels can have a major impact on how your audience perceives it. A positive sensory experience can lead to a stronger connection to your audience.

(Image Source: Chon Shoaff)

Embossing, die cutting and spot coating give your print media an engaging tactile sensation. Even the thickness and texture of the stock can leave a positive impression.

3. Shiny special effects

Print designs can capture the light in a variety of ways. Spot coating can make certain elements glossy, while foil stamping and metallic ink can be used to create shiny, reflective designs that are impossible to replicate on a computer screen.

(Image Source: Loose Collective)

4. Full accessibility

The only way to access web content is through the use of a computer, smartphone, tablet or other internet-ready device. This requires your audience to own one of these devices (as well as an internet connection and power supply) in order to view your design. Print does not.

Meanwhile, print designs do not fall back on any other factor apart from direct human interaction (pick it up and read it) and this can happen at any time and any place, allowing them to reach any audience in any situation.

5. Visual consistency

A web-based design may look great on your screen but terrible on another, the color may be different, the user may use technologies you didn’t anticipate, or even pick the browser you wish they would use i.e. IE. There are too many factors to consider.

However if you bank on print, it allows direct control over the finished product with greater visual consistency, since all copies are made with the same materials and reviewed for variations in quality.

6. Harder to ignore

It’s easier for an audience to ignore a web design because they can simply close their browser, hit the back button or even click a link and jump to a new website. In comparison, print media must be physically thrown away, and due to the green movement that has taken over the world, something on print will have a higher chance of sticking around in homes, clinics and offices.

There’s also a greater chance that someone might stumble upon your marketing collateral later on (when there is less competition for their attention) and become engaged with your design.

7. 3D design possibilities

A web design can only exist as an image on a screen, so any sense of three-dimensional design is merely an optical illusion. Meanwhile, print media is an actual three-dimensional object, so many print effects (just right under 3D printing) have an actual, physical presence.

(Image Source: Katarzyna Krakowian)

For example, embossing is a common imprint method that creates a raised relief effect in the stock, allowing a design element to literally jump out at the audience.

8. Less stress on the eyes

Many audiences still prefer to read information on a piece of paper instead of a backlit computer screen because it creates less of a strain on their eyes and vision. Too much time in front of a screen can cause a variety of health hazards that have to do with sight, and possibly posture.

Printed materials allow your audience to read long passages of information with less or without discomfort. Even if science may not support this, your audience is more inclined to approach longer content on print that on screen.

9. Easier to scan for information

Since web designs have to be viewed on a screen, there is a limit to how much information can be displayed at once. This contributes to the study of navigation which is important to retain your visitors, and keep them coing back.

With print designs, the audience can view an entire page at one time, making it easier for them to quickly scan the document for the information they need.

10. More authority

Anyone can create a web presence using free website building tools, templates and hosting services, and many websites out there lead to malware, spyware and scam offers. As such, web designs don’t always carry the same level of authority, authencity and credibility that print designs do.

Because print media requires an investment of time, work and money to produce, it conveys a greater level of legitimacy to the audience.

11. Can be written on

Many people like to highlight sections of copy or write notes directly onto print media because it allows them to easily retrieve information (like a contact’s phone number) at a later time.

(Image Source: Printwand)

Although there are programs that can do the same for a web design, they are not widely used and require a greater level of work than simply jotting down a quick note. Also, when the audience sees their own handwriting on a piece of printed media, it creates a sense of familiarity and trust.

Can you think of some other advantages that print design has over web design? Do you disagree and think web design is always the superior of the two? Leave us your answer in the comments!

Here’s the situation: you got back from an awesome vacation and want to organize your vacation photos but you have literally hundreds of photos to go through, renaming them, converting or compressing them and more. What if we told you that you don’t have to do everything single task on one file at a time.

On the Mac OS, there are built-in features to automate Folder Actions to help save time and reduce repetitive tasks. If you work on Windows, you can do the same with this tool called Folder Actions. Best of all, you can even carry out user-defined actions. Here is a walkthrough of the features of Folder Actions.

Recommended Reading: Automating Task In Mac With Folder Actions [QuickTip]

Getting Started

You can get started by downloading the software here. Don’t worry about how simple the site looks. The lack of a complicated design doesn’t diminish the purpose the site is there to serve.

Once you are done installing it, open Folder Actions and look for the ‘+‘ icon on the top left. Click on it to bring up a window where you can browse for the folder that you wish to use Folder Actions on.

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Available Preset Actions

Once you have located your folder of files, here are some of the things you can do to the batch of files.

Rename Files: Renames files that are added into the folder. There is no batch rename support for now.

Convert Image Files: All your images can be converted to a different image format such as jpg, png, tif, gif and bmp with customized quality.

Convert Video Files: As for videos, conversions into MP4 iPhone, MP4 iPod, MP4 Blackberry, MP4 PSP, 3GP Mobile, FLV, AVI and MPEG are supported.

Convert Audio Files: You can convert your audio or video files into an audio format like mp3, wav and etc.

Compress or Decompress Files: Easily compress files into your chosen compress formats and automatically decompress any added compressed files in the folder. File formats supported for compression are .zip, .7z, .gzip, .tar. File formats supported for decompression are .zip, .7z, .rar, .arj.

User-Defined Actions

Apart from these preset actions you can enable more features through .bat files, or third-party scripts. For instance, here is an example where you can use an external script called Ghostscript to convert JPG files to PDF.

Advantages & Limitations

The good news is the tool is light on resources, even when converting/processing images or videos in the background. The software also has a very simple layout, and doesn’t require an Internet connection to work.

However, the number of things this tool can run is rather limited. Although you can solve that with the user-defined actions, not everyone is comfortable running .bat format files and scripts – a user-friendly UI would be better. Another thing is that while you can run two actions on the same folder (using the sub-folder feature), you will be prompted with an error message "File is in use" every time.

Conclusion

As you can see, users who have to do a lot of repetitive tasks on their laptop may find use for Folder Actions even though they will have to first find the script for that action. But don’t let that stop you from trying out the tool. Let us know how you like or dislike the app in the comments section.

For business or service-providing websites, it is very important to have a livechat sales or support chat for the user’s convenience. Live chat helps convert more visitors into customers, gives your business happier customers, provides much needed support for users and makes your service or business more professional.

With this in mind, let me introduce to you a free service to provide live chat on your website or app: Offerchat.

Offerchat differs from other live chat providers by allowing you to assign your own agents in unlimited amounts, hire remote agents when needed, unlimited websites and domains, unlimited installations and much more.

Getting Started with Offerchat

Sign up for a free account with Offerchat with your email, domain name and password.

After signing up and logging in, you will get a small notice on your Offerchat dashboard prompting you to install the Javascript code on your website.

Copy the Javascript code and paste it into your HTML document, WordPress page, or a file which you can upload or publish to your website. If you are installing Offerchat on a single page with HTML, be sure to paste the code in between the two "header" tags.

For a step by step guide on how to install it click here.

Account Dashboard and Other Features

The Offerchat account dashboard is the main "hub" for your live chat and also your account information. Let's take a look at what the Offerchat dashboard does for you:  

Chat History

Whether it be the history of the chats you or your many agents were involved in, you can view the history, the visitor, the agent information, the time stamps, custom dates and times, and more.

Full Analytics

Analytics and daily reports come built into Offerchat. You can simply view a full-fledged analytic report and data dashboard easily. The viewing experience and settings are similiar to Google Analytics and Piwik which is a big plus.

Live Chat Agents

What is a live chat system without the agents? With Offerchat you can instantly assign agents to your live chat with a simple form. You can also choose what permissions they have, what websites they are in charge of, the user will only be able to access and execute a given role on the assigned websites.

Instant Live Chat Viewing

Offerchat allows you to instantly view the current and live chats happening right there and then, no matter which agent is conducting the chat.

Chat Settings

Offerchat also brings to you a wide range of customizable options:

• Customize and save the default opening responses that agents can click and instantly send to the customer or visitor.
• Customize an offline message for inactive periods, and set time triggers for system to recognize inactivity.
• Set and enable chat triggers; the system will automatically send proactive chats or custom messages to pre-qualified leads.

Advantages

• Easy registration process.
• Simple and easy live chat integration.
• Complete analytics for your live chats and visitors.
• Hire (unlimited) agents to chat with customers when you're not in the office.
• Fast customer service (as the inquiries come in).
• Use canned responses to help agents answer more questions in less time.
• Offerchat integrates with any IM client that supports XMPP or Jabber.

Disadvantages

• Does not sync with online chat services like Google Hangouts.
• Cannot add agents from synced accounts.
• No individual agent profiles with bios or social links.