5 Must-Have Technologies for Entrepreneurs in 2025

Garegin Grigoryan
7 hours ago
3 min read

Summary:

A Practical Guide to Affordable Tools That Actually Help You Run and Grow Your Business

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When it comes to building trust with new users, nothing does the job quite like a great review. But most early-stage startups waste this goldmine. They let testimonials live quietly in app stores, inboxes, or Slack screenshots—when they could be building the backbone of a marketing engine.

If you’ve launched a product and have even one glowing piece of user feedback, you already have what you need to build credibility, validate product-market fit, and ease the doubts of your next 100 customers.

Here’s how to do it—without sounding forced or inauthentic.

🗣 Step 1: Extract the good stuff

Start with an internal audit. Pull up:

App store reviews
Support ticket compliments
DMs on social media
Slack or Discord praise
Exit survey feedback

Then, look for language that reflects key concerns of future buyers: “This saved me 3 hours a week,” or “I didn’t expect it to be so easy to use.” This kind of specificity builds what psychologists call social proof—people trust people like them.

According to a 2024 Nielsen study, 92% of consumers trust peer recommendations over advertising.

Step 2: Categorize by objection type

Every potential customer has unspoken objections. Your job is to match testimonials to those.

Objection Type	Example Quote
“I don’t have time”	“Setup took less than 5 minutes—so intuitive!”
“Is it worth the price?”	“I made back the cost in the first week.”
“Will this work for me?”	“As a solo founder, this tool’s a lifesaver.”

When you label quotes like this, they become strategic sales tools—not just fluff.

Step 3: Repurpose everywhere

Your startup’s best stories come from users. So weave these reviews into:

Your website hero section
Paid ads (“Real people. Real results.”)
Cold outreach emails (“Don’t take our word for it…”)
Fundraising decks
Onboarding flows

One startup that nailed this? Loom. In their early days, they built an entire section on their homepage filled with one-sentence quotes from remote teams. The message: we’re useful, we’re used, and we’re loved.

As marketing expert Ann Handley says, “Make the customer the hero of your story.”

Stats to Keep in Mind

91% of 18–34-year-olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (BrightLocal)
Featuring 5+ reviews can increase conversions by up to 270% (Spiegel Research Center)
Products with as few as five reviews are 270% more likely to be purchased than products with none (Spiegel)

Bonus: Use AI to Enhance Testimonials

Tools like Copy.ai or Jasper can help rephrase long or awkward reviews into polished copy—without changing the intent. Just don’t make them sound like a robot wrote it.

And yes, don’t fake reviews. It’s unethical, and FTC penalties for fake testimonials are real. See this FTC enforcement case.

Just launched your new business and need resources to ace direct marketing at lower costs with higher ROI?

Check out Salesfully’s course, Mastering Sales Fundamentals for Long-Term Success, designed to help you attract new customers efficiently and affordably.

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