26 best apps for entrepreneurs who strive for success (2025)

26 best apps for entrepreneurs who strive for success (2025)

26 best apps for entrepreneurs who strive for success (2025)

June 04, 2024

Best apps for entrepreneurs

With thousands of entrepreneurship apps emerging by the day, promising everything from increased productivity, mindfulness to higher performance, it’s hard to tell which ones are the best apps for entrepreneurs. In other words, it’s tricky to create a list of apps for entrepreneurs that everyone would agree they tick all the boxes.

With this in mind, we went above and beyond with our research to put together a list of must-have apps for seasoned and rookie entrepreneurs alike.

Top apps for entrepreneurs in 2025

The secret to entrepreneurial success is being dedicated, motivated, and organized. Luckily in today’s world, we have an app for everything. Therefore, we are listing you the best apps for entrepreneurs that will help you achieve your goals, divided into several categories to make it easier for you to find what you need.

Sales and marketing entrepreneurship apps

Buffer can make managing your social media marketing much easier and less daunting. The software allows you to share your posts across multiple social networks. You can also use Buffer to schedule content so that it is posted at the best moment for your followers to see it. Additionally, Buffer is an Enterprise League member, which means you have a chance to catch a great deal from Buffer on our B2B collaboration platform as well. 

Square Accepting credit and debit card payments in person with Square is definitely a breeze. All you need is your smartphone and a tiny reader, which Square will send you when you sign up. You can accept both standard and chip cards, which simplifies the sales process. If you make sales at a countertop or in a store, you can also upgrade to Square Stand.

Copper is one of the best apps each entrepreneur should have in 2023. This CRM software takes pride in its full integration to Google Suite so managing contacts and tracking deals across platforms is easier. It also features quick sales reports and sales projections so decision making is a lot easier. The best thing is they have a high level of security that keeps your data safe from any attacks.

Work management

Any.Do is one of the best apps for entrepreneurs mostly because it helps you stay organized and get more done. With its straightforward interface, you can add tasks either verbally or manually and may even share tasks with your contacts if you’re connected to your Facebook account.

You can also create an alert and highlight it to give it priority over other chores. Additionally, you can add additional notes and save them in a personal or business folder. Any.Do also supports syncing with multiple devices to ensure that you are constantly on top of your game.

Trello makes project management enjoyable and simple. You can work with other team members and visualize what has to be done using the app. Depending on what works best for your team, you can organize tasks into cards, lists, or boards.

Moreover, it contains numerous tools that allow you to view which projects are in progress, who is working on them, and what their status is. You can also give projects to staff, set deadlines, and categorize activities based on priority. It’s a simple yet effective approach to managing all of your tasks in a single intuitive, user-friendly mobile application.

Evernote is your small notebook for penning your thoughts that has a freeware version for the Web, iOS, and Android. With Evernote, you can organize your data across all of your devices. Sync files, save web pages, take images, make to-do lists, and record audio reminders using this app. 

Todoist is a task management tool like many others, but one feature that puts it in the best apps for entrepreneurs is the ability to observe real-time progress and trends in productivity. There are eight levels of Todoist Karma that can be unlocked as you advance.

Scoro it’s a comprehensive solution that combines a lot of the features that entrepreneurs look for in a project management tool. It has a real-time KPI dashboard, shared team calendar, meeting scheduling, contact management, time tracking, billing, detailed reports on project progress/finances, quoting, and invoice with pre-set templates.

The web and app interface is designed very well and has a relatively quick learning curve. Plus, all of the integrations that Scoro allows really help in saving you a ton of time and increasing productivity.

Content creation

Canva –  You need to create social media content, a doc, web design, infographic, promo poster, or something else? Canva is the best entrepreneur app for the job. Tons of ready-to-do templates and social media designs, all customizable. It unlocks every part of your creativity. Although, it’s fair to say the free version is kind of limiting.

Freepik – With a huge stock of high-quality photos, vectors, and illustrations, Freepik is the perfect resource for creatives. You can find the best design elements for any project.

Unsplash – Want to find royalty-free pictures that don’t have an outdated, 90s like vibe? This is the right place. An awesome resource of high-quality stock photos from renowned photographers and editors.

Self-improvement entrepreneur apps

Instapaper it’s the simplest and cheaper read-it-later app to use. On the other hand, it’s packed with features and functionalities that are more in pace with the needs of the modern entrepreneur. The best thing about it is that it’s integrated with Kindle.

Audible – With our busy lives and everything going on, it’s easy to say we don’t have time to read books. However, this app makes all these excuses sound lame. Audible holds thousands of reading materials, podcasts, and other resources in their library. Expand your business knowledge on the go.

With Blinkist your hectic entrepreneur’s life doesn’t give you the excuse to not upgrade your business knowledge. With the daily responsibilities of entrepreneurs in mind, the developers of Blinkist made sure their content is easy to digest. Hence, a typical listen is somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes. The fact that they have a huge library and a plethora of topics to choose from undoubtedly makes them one of the best apps for entrepreneurs. So the next time you go jogging or are stuck in traffic, turn on your Blinkist app and soak up the knowledge.

Remote communication

Flowdock is an easy approach to collaborate with members of the team on various projects since it combines chat and email functions. The greatest thing is that the app is compatible with the majority of browsers and mobile devices, and it includes capabilities like drag-and-drop, file uploads, and activity streams.

Your team members will be notified immediately if there is a change to the project, and they will be able to comment via chat messaging.

Slack is the ultimate communication app for entrepreneurs that allows team collaboration. It brings together people and information, facilitating effective communication. Moreover, it integrates with almost all the tools and apps your organization already uses.

Hence, if remote or hybrid work is going to become ever-more popular you can use Slack to communicate daily with your team. It’s easy to create different channels for different projects and save important messages.

Through Loom, you can create short screencasts as you narrate and explain what you’re doing. Hence the reason Loom found its place on this best entrepreneur apps list. Simply download the app or add the Chrome extension and start recording your screen. The best thing about it is that the video automatically uploads on the cloud from where you can quickly share it.

Entrepreneurship apps for mental health

Pep Talk is one of the best apps for entrepreneurs that provides life-changing curated playlists of audios. They are perfect for listening every time you need a boost in motivation or need to be inspired. The app’s free with In-App purchases and you can even purchase a monthly or lifelong subscription that it’s totally worth it since you will discover thousands of international speeches and thought leaders. 

Streaks – Being successful requires focused action and discipline, which means having good daily habits will improve your life, hence your mental health. Therefore, Streaks is one of the best apps for entrepreneurs because it helps you form good habits. All you need to do is create a to-do list and every day you complete a task, your streak will be extended. On the other side, if you break the chain, your streak will reset to zero days.

Insight Timer – There are a lot of things successful people sacrifice to achieve greatness, but your mental health shouldn’t be one of them. To help you achieve that, here’s one of the best free entrepreneurs app for meditation, sleep, and yoga.

Insight Timer has live events, a wide range of meditation techniques, group meditation sessions, and a massive library of soothing music that you can choose from. You can choose from over 90,000 FREE guided meditations spread across 200 topics of interest.

Security

Dashlane is a simple solution for protecting all your data, starting from passwords to personal info. It uses unbreakable end-to-end encryption to secure user data, provides more useful extras than almost any other competitor, has a wide range of high-security features, and offers more added value than similarly priced competitors.

SplashtopSOS – Ensuring your privacy and security for remote teams has never been easier. The automatic deployment for end users is great and linking it with a forwarder makes it brandable. Furthermore, it has all functionality for all different devices for one great price compared to the competition.

Splashtop solutions are built to give your company control over securing the data while giving your team the flexibility to access it from anywhere. Features include two-factor authentication, blank screen, multi-level password security, remote connection notification, screen auto-lock, session idle timeout, logging, and much more.

Bonus entrepreneurship apps that will simplify your life

DropBox, a free cloud-based file-storage service, provides instant connectivity and allows you to share photographs, documents, and movies with any laptop or mobile device. This tool is quite useful for sharing files with your team, as it eliminates the need for back-and-forth emailing. You can easily share the most recent version with your team thanks to the version control tool.

With CamCard, you can snap a photo of your business card and have all of the information immediately imported into your phone contacts and other email accounts. You may be certain of faultless scanning due to its accuracy. The nicest aspect is that you can also sync data between devices. 

While it is customary to exchange business cards at conferences, it is also quite easy to misplace a business card and, eventually, a business opportunity! Allow this not to happen to you.

Expensify can keep your receipts when traveling so you may recover office expenditures when you return home. All you need to do is take images of your receipts with your phone’s camera and Expensify will keep a digital record chronologically. Expensify also allows you to track mileage, dining prices, and other business travel expenses.

TripIt is a must-have app for entrepreneurs as it assists you in planning your forthcoming trip. Just forward your hotel, restaurant, flight, and car rental confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com, and the information will be instantly transferred to your master itinerary, allowing you to examine all of your upcoming arrangements at once.

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10 rules for success from Jack Ma

10 rules for success from Jack Ma

10 rules for success from Jack Ma

May 28, 2024

Jack Ma rules for sucess

Jack Ma, Alibaba CEO, is the second richest man in China. Even though he grew up in an isolated country, in his adulthood, he succeeded to put his name on the map with shiny letters due to his Alibaba success.

His road to greatness accidentally started back in 1996 when he visited the U.S. for the first time. He went there on a mission to recover payment for a Chinese firm but got introduced to the internet and from here on, everything is history. His first search was “beer” which left him disappointed that no Chinese brand showed in the results. It was then and there that he decided to do something about it.

Yet, he failed to do it the first two times. However, he didn’t give up and four years later with the financial help of 17 friends, he brought the mighty Alibaba to life. By 2005 his firm had already made over $25 million, and fast forward to today, he is retiring with around $40 billion in his pockets.

Jack Ma’s top 10 rules for success

The internet was surely a trigger, but Jack Ma success has come as a result of his own rules. So in order to help you achieve your own dreams and become a winner, we made a list of his most famous 10 rules for success. Listen to Jack Ma advice and build your own empire!

Get used to failing

Jack Ma is very familiar with failure. He applied to college 3 times before they accepted him. Even KFC didn’t find him fit. Most people will quit on the first try. Probably that will be the defining moment of their life – they will stop chasing their dreams and move on to something else. Jack Ma is different, he never gives up.

Keep the dream going​

Jack Ma secret to success was to keep his dream alive no matter the cost. His favourite fictional character Alibaba inspires his story. In a meeting, he explained the phrase “Keep your dream alive” was the secret keyword that opened the door of success similar to Alibaba’s story. Now you know why his companies bare that name.

Company culture is key

He started with only 18 young people in his company to arrive at a number of more than 20,000 employees today. The key factor binding them all together is transparency and openness to criticism. They are all treated like family and even have access to interest-free loans for property down payments.

Ignore the haters

When he developed Alipay, many people were advising him that it was destined to fail. Even some of his closest friends bashed him by telling it was the worst idea ever. He put his ignore cap on and continued his way. If he listened, he wouldn’t have built a secure payment method with over a half-billion satisfied users.

Get motivated from pop culture

Jack Ma loves The Godfather, Forrest Gump, and The Bodyguard. These are the movies that he watched over and over again as he was a kid. The inspiration came from the actors and how they dealt with delivering their lines. From their acting, he realised that when people are showing their real faces and speaking from the heart, the impact will be powerful. That’s why he motivates others to stay true to themselves.

Learn to say “No”

Jack Ma is bombarded with ideas on a daily basis. He usually answers with no. As the CEO of Alibaba, he thinks if he strays elsewhere for one second from the primary mission of his company, Alibaba will be in trouble. However, if the idea is aligning with Alibaba’s goals and it represents an excellent opportunity to grow, the definite answer would be yes.

Create a strong brand name

Jack Ma choose Alibaba as the name of his company for numerous reasons. One of them, we mentioned before – his favourite fictional character. Another one would be the internet because a name that is known by many is a plus. Moreover, it begins with the first letter of the alphabet “A”, which means in directories his firm will show on the top of the page.

The customer always comes first

Jack Ma created a revolutionary business philosophy that changed the world forever. The customers comes first, then the employees and last are the shareholders. The customers are the ones to provide revenue for a company, and employees are the main drivers of innovation.

Don’t complain

Jack Ma believes that people who complain are potential clients. If you offer a solution to a particular problem, you’ve targeted a potential audience of millions. Best Jack Ma advice for young people is to stop complaining and look for answers.

Let passion be your main drive

In the beginning, when speaking with his marketing team, he explained to them to create a sales pitch not to tackle Chinese websites only, but sites located in the U.S. as well. His passion for growth has been the factor that leads to his success. He also encourages his employees to have a startup attitude, not a corporate one.

Conclusion

Jack Ma through his experience shows how any entrepreneur around the world can bring their dream to fruition. As an entrepreneur, you can learn from his hard work, philosophies, and resilience. If you use them right, your door to success will open sooner than expected.

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The ultimate guide to writing a B2B business proposal

The ultimate guide to writing a B2B business proposal

The ultimate guide to writing a B2B business proposal

May 27, 2024

Writing effective B2B proposal

You may wonder why you need to write a B2B proposal when you have a top-notch website (which you paid significant money for) with all of your products/services listed there. While this is all valuable and essential in the age of the Internet, you’ll be losing a lot of clients if you just wait for them to see your page.

In other words, you have to take an initiative and establish the relationship by sending them a tailored business proposal which will talk directly to them, and not everyone online. Many of your potential clients don’t know that you even exist. With this in mind, you have to be proactive and present yourself to them.

But what on earth is a B2B business proposal? Or better yet, how do you write one?

What is B2B business proposal?

A business proposal is a written offer from a seller to a prospective [buyer]. – source Wikipedia

In other words, it’s a document you send to your prospective clients to present them your offer. Be it a product or service, it should definitely be something of interest to them. You can’t really sell drilling machines to a marketing agency, right?

Another thing you should be aware of is that B2B proposals can be solicited as well as unsolicited. Either way, each business partnership proposal should be customised to suit the potential buyer’s needs.

What should the B2B business proposal contain?

First things first, before starting to write a proposal you should have the buyer’s requirements in mind. If in your previous conversations they have asked you about something specific, you are supposed to address the matter thoroughly.

Moreover, as with other business documents, there are certain templates to follow. However, remember to not follow them blindly, including this article. In fact, you should create a B2B proposal template that speaks in the same tone as your offer and brand. You don’t want to use Tesla’s template and end up sounding foolish.

Additionally, bear in mind that this B2B proposal is about them, not you.

Here are the three pillars of business partnership proposals:

1. Details about your company – tell them who you are and what you do. Show them why you’re the best choice for them.

2. Show expertise – Let them know that you’ve done your research and identified all their needs and pain points.

3. Present the solution and the cost of it – Explain to them how you’re going to solve their issue and how much you would charge them.

How to write a B2B proposal successfully

1. Title page – Here goes your company’s name, logo, and contact details as well as date and the name of the company the proposal is addressed to. It looks neat and properly organised.|
2. Cover letter – This is optional. Generally, it applies if you haven’t met the prospect before. The writing style should be friendly and the content should include brief information about your background and what sets you apart from the rest.
3. Table of contents – Make it easy for the client to find their way around your proposal. If it’s in digital format, make the table of contents clickable so they can navigate more easily.
4. Summary – This part should outline why you’re sending the business proposal to them and why would they want to read it. Don’t give out too many details here, you don’t want to bore them at the beginning.
5. Statement of the issue – This is the client’s issue interpreted by you. After all, you want to show them you understand their goals and objectives, and the issues they’re facing along the way.
6. The approach – This is a crucial section since you have to explain the client how you’re going to tackle and solve the problem. In other words, present them your strategy.
7. Methodology – Here you can go into specifics about the strategy. The means you will use; the deliverables they should expect from you; timeline – in essence, a step by step plan on how you intend to solve the problem. The more visual the business presentation is, the better.
8. Your qualifications – You’ve already presented yourself in brief, but here you get the chance to put the spotlight on your achievements, awards, testimonials, case studies, etc. Namely, show them your past wins so they feel like they’re in good hands with you.
9. The cost – If there’s a place in the proposal where you should be 100% detailed and accurate, this is it. Don’t even think about only giving them the total amount. What you should do is separate the products or services you offer in a table and price them accordingly. Everyone wants to know what they are paying for.
10. Terms and conditions – Any legal matters, payment schedule and methods, and other important specifics concerning both sides go in this section.
11. Signature – By adding a signature box you’re making it easier for them to accept the proposal. However, don’t forget to encourage them to reach back to you with questions or concerns.

B2B Sales Proposal Example

There are many websites offering free as well as paid templates or examples. They come in very handy if you’re not good with creating visuals or organising documents.

Conclusion

Like we said before, it’s best if you don’t copy-paste B2B proposal templates to the dot. Make it unique to your company, your offer and your client.

Another thing that matters is that you should identify the perfect way and time to deliver the proposal. Yes, you can drop it in someone’s email inbox on Saturday midnight but doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes print proposals delivered in person are the better choice. Conduct a market research to understand your clients and speak in the language they speak.

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23 insightful business risk quotes

23 insightful business risk quotes

We’ve listed 23 inspiring business risk quotes that will remind you that the reward of taking calculated risks most often outweighs the possible drawbacks.

read more

3 reasons why business pitches are important

3 reasons why business pitches are important

3 reasons why business pitches are important

May 16, 2024

3 reasons why business pitches are important

 

Whether selling an idea, or looking for more funding, business pitches play a crucial role in the daily world of business. Broadly speaking, a business pitch is the presentation of a business idea to potential investors. The purpose of a pitch is not necessarily tied to the acquisition of resources or capital, but also to finding a new partner or better support.

According to Forbes, the time of year you pitch, the specificity of your data, and the value of your pitch deck (a presentation deck that is used to pitch your idea or company to any number of audiences, generally investors) are the most important factors affecting the amount of funding a business receives. If doubting the importance of a good pitch consider the following three reasons when preparing one.

Importance of business pitches

Before delivering your pitch, specify clearly why you are doing it. Without a clear goal, the potential investors might get confused during the pitch deck presentation and you might lose your only chance of pitching your idea. Always make sure you know what and to whom you are presenting your pitch.

Securing resources

Most often, business pitches are there to convince investors to fund your business. For this purpose businesses rely on pitch decks, tools used to persuade and attract investors to fund your company. These investors can be venture capitalists or so called business angels. Take into account that most venture capitalists receive thousands of pitches a year. In order to attract the most suitable VC, you have to consider three things:

  1. Investment is risky! Most investors are looking for the highest return potential, which is at least 10 times more than the initial investment.
  2. Look for investors that specialize in your field. That can include experts, scientists, or capitalists that have previously worked or invested in your area.
  3. Seek out the perfect fit. Don’t choose the richer investor, who does not understand your startup idea, instead focus on investors that share the same values and business ethics like you. At the beginning, invest in compatibility, not profitability.

To make the most out of your business pitch, create the perfect pitch deck that includes the following sections: company vision, business problem (& solution), market analysis, competition information, the value proposition, your revenue model, the team, the financial information, and the current status and use of funds. With the right pitch deck, and suitable investor, you are sure to attract their attention and secure your funds.

Showcasing your skills

Nothing highlights the importance of a good business pitch like the preparedness and charisma of the person who delivers it. Put simply, business pitches are always delivered by people, even if they are presented in a written form. Therefore, pitching your ideas is the perfect way to showcase your skills and abilities to potential investors. A successful pitch showcases at least three of the following skills: communication, research skills, problem solving abilities, creativity and public speaking.

Communication skills refer to your persuasion, negotiation and overall verbal presentation skills. The way you talk about yourself, your business, but also the way you pose questions and listen to others are all important details when it comes to pitching. Empathy is also essential when thinking about what words to use when approaching a sensitive topic. 

A well-prepared pitch is heavily reliant on research. Think of the research as an exercise in credibility. The more evidence-based your pitch is, the more confident and persuasive you sound. Furthemore, a well-researched pitch demonstrates that you can work with multiple sources of information. Which leads us to another skill a good pitch demonstrates well: the ability to formulate and solve problems. The stakeholders need to know that you understand the pain points and can already offer some solutions. Show how you solve the problems by using every tool in your toolbox: visuals, texts, data, statistics, etc.

Solving problems is not only about analytical skills, but also about your creativity. Investors value innovation, the product of the creative mind. To be innovative you need to be willing to experiment and go beyond the boundaries of the expected. Solutions are the result of any good analysis, but the most novel and original solutions are only achieved through creativity. Finally, the most salient skill that comes across during a presentation is your ability to speak publicly. Body language, verbal skills and confidence are the three main ingredients of a good presentation.

Boosting your network

A pitch needs to be well-researched, evidence-based and adjusted for the right audience. The successful business owners know their audience well. The presentation needs to make this clear, as all the stakeholders learn who the customers are. For example, a pitch about a software company needs to focus on a younger demographic that would be using the software, instead of older people who have no access to technology.

Moreover, knowing your customers goes beyond your presentation. Use the time you research your pitch to actually interview and get to know your customers. This may refer to a full-scale interview or a field research project. In any case, use the pitch as an invitation to know more about your customers, as it will reflect on your speech. Finally, some of the customers you meet might become future partners or even investors.

Fundraising is also focused on convincing an individual or a group of people to invest in your business. This can be an angel investor or a venture capitalist. Angels are people who decide to invest on their own, which makes the investment smaller, but also riskier. The venture capitalists, on the other hand, work with money from different sources and invest it on their behalf.

When preparing the pitch, research carefully all the investors, as well as the firms and corporations they might be attached to. The amount of money they are willing to invest is important, but what is most important is whether they fit your vision and values. It can be difficult to collaborate with investors that won’t be interested in your product or marketing style in the long run. Find investors that are financially attractive, but also ones that you can see yourself trusting in.

Types of business pitches

Have a clear idea about the content and length of your pitch before delivering it. Depending on those two factors there are three types of pitches: 

  1. An elevator pitch: If the pitch is short enough to be delivered during an elevator then you have a short pitch on your hands. The purpose of this pitch is to acquire an additional meeting where more details could be discussed at length. 
  2. A live plan: Instead of a spoken presentation, a live plan relies on all of the information in a written form. The salesperson may decide to include a market summary, financial or legal data, as well as the potential business goals. If the investors are interested then they can demand a more detailed pitch.
  3. A presentation: When a meeting is secured then the salesperson is to deliver a presentation that explains in detail what the business does, its financial situation, its challenges, goals, etc.

Conclusion

If you are lacking that extra financial push to take your business to the next level, finding a fitting investor is what you are looking for. The right person to invest in your business can offer more than money, but also expertise, connections and counsel to a struggling business owner. Consider sharpening your skills, writing, honing and later delivering the perfect pitch to the right people and you might gain a lot more than anticipated.

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How to start web scraping with Go

How to start web scraping with Go

May 16, 2024

Utilizing submersible fountain pumps for improved customer satisfaction

You can write web scraping scripts in Golang and run them concurrently, improving overall scraping speed. Golang’s built-in concurrency features make this possible. Moreover, Golang ( or Go) can run on popular platforms, including Linux, macOS, and Windows, making it possible to write a web scraping script once and run it on multiple platforms.

Besides concurrency features and cross-platform compilation, Go has several advantages in web scraping. So, how do you start web scraping with Go? Keep exploring to find out!

Understand the building blocks of a website

Before you begin scraping data for various purposes, including monitoring product prices, building research datasets, or analyzing trends, you must understand a website’s structure. This means learning and understanding the basics of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

HTML defines a web page’s structure and content, while CSS defines its aesthetic. Learn the purpose of particular HTML tags and elements. Common HTML elements for web scraping include links, tables, images, and text content like headings and paragraphs. Also, explore CSS selectors to discover how you can use them to target and scrape specific HTML elements. 

Moreover, it would help if you learned how to use browser developer tools to inspect the elements of a web page. Developer tools like CSS/XPath selector queries can efficiently locate the elements containing the data you want to scrape. You can also do more with these tools, like testing selectors or debugging a web scraping script.

Set up a Golang programming environment

To scrape a website effectively with Go, you should be able to set up proxy servers with Go and a programming environment. Why proxy servers? Proxies can help you bypass anti-scraping mechanisms put in place by some websites.

You set up a Golang programming environment alongside servers to reduce the chances of encountering errors or unexpected IP blocks. 

Now, to set up a Go development environment, start by installing Go on your machine. Visit the official Go website and download the appropriate installer for your operating system (Linux, Windows, macOS). Then, install Go and type this command into the terminal to verify whether you’ve set up Go correctly. 

Command: go version 

The command would return details about the installed Go version. For example: go version go1. 18. 4 darwin/amd64

Once that’s done, choose and install an IDE (Integrated Development Environment). An IDE gives you access to tools for writing, debugging, and managing Go code, streamlining development tasks, and enhancing productivity. 

For this step-by-step process, we’ll focus on using Visual Studio Code (VS Code). VS Code is a lightweight and popular IDE. To use it, visit its website, download, and install it. Next, navigate to VS Code’s extension marketplace and install the “Go” extension.

VS Code will also prompt you to install Go tools like gopls and gocode. Accept the prompt and install the tools to enable features such as code formatting and completion. After setting up VS Code to write, run, and manage Go code, proceed to set up a project.

Set up a Go project

Create a main project folder (my-web-scraper-project) for shared resources, including settings and dependencies. Within the main project folder, create a settings.json file  and add these settings:

{ “go.useLanguageServer”: true, 

   “go.toolsEnvVars”: {“GO111MODULE”: “on”}

 }

The go.useLangaugeServer setting allows you to disable or enable the Go language server (gopls) within VS Code. Setting it to “true” ensures you can use gopls features, including code formatting, diagnostics, and completion.

Conversely, the go.toolsEnvVars allows you to control variables for Go tools like gopls. GO111MODULE, in this case, is an environment variable. Setting it to the value “on” enables Go modules to manage dependencies.

After adding the settings to the settings.json file, assess whether the Go workspace (GOPATH) is set up correctly. Run this command within the terminal to confirm this:

Command: go env GOPATH 

If the Go workspace is not set, add it to the system environment variables. If all is well, create a new folder (for example, “my- go-web-scraper” within the main project folder to host your web scraper scripts. Then, open your terminal, navigate to the folder, and initialize Go modules. Use this command:

Command: go mod init mygowebscraper

This command adds a go.mod file to manage project dependencies. Once that’s done, you are ready to write your first Go web scraping script. 

Write and run your first Go web scraping script

As mentioned, using Go for web scraping is advantageous due to its features. You won’t have to write the whole script from scratch at this phase. Go has built-in web scraping libraries and frameworks you can use to speed up the scripting process. Some popular Go web scraping libraries or frameworks include Colly, GoQuery, and Selenium.

For this tutorial, we’ll use Colly to demonstrate how you can prepare a simple Go web scraping script. 

So, head to your terminal and key in this command to install Colly. 

Command: go get github.com/gocolly/colly/v2

Navigate to the folder you’d prepared to host your web scraper and create a new Go file like first-scraper.go and add the following code to the file:

package main

import (

    “fmt”

    “github.com/gocolly/colly/v2”

)

func main() {

    // Summon a new collector

    c := colly.NewCollector()

    // Add the target URL

    targetURL := “https://example.com”

    // Set up a callback

    c.OnHTML(“h1”, func(e *colly.HTMLElement) {

        fmt.Println(“Title:”, e.Text)

    })

    err := c.Visit(targetURL)

    if err != nil {

        fmt.Println(“Error:”, err)

    }

}

You should replace the “targetURL” section with the link to the website you desire to scrape. The above script scrapes the text within the <h1> tag of the web page.

After writing the script, save and run it. The title of the web page should be printed on the console, signaling success. 

As you write Go web scraping scripts with greater capabilities, always be ethical. Respect the target website’s terms of use and the scraping limits defined in the robots.txt files. Also, avoid overloading website servers with numerous requests, as doing so may lead to legal issues.

Conclusion

Golang has a robust stand library with packages for parsing HTML/XML, handling HTTP requests, and working with regular expressions. You also have access to web scraping libraries and frameworks, which means you don’t have to rely on third-party libraries to prepare web scraping scripts.

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