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GETTING STARTED · QUAD CITIES

Starting a Business in the Quad Cities? Here's the Software You Actually Need.

Starting a business is exciting right up until you realize how many tools everyone says you "need." Here's the honest version — what actually matters, in what order, and where you can do it yourself versus where it's worth bringing someone in. No fluff, no upsell.

First, the foundation

Every business needs these, and it's worth getting them right before your first sale.

Register the business

In the Quad Cities you've got a choice most places don't — Iowa or Illinois. If you're on the Iowa side (Davenport, Bettendorf) you'll register with the Iowa Secretary of State; on the Illinois side (Moline, Rock Island) you'll go through the Illinois Secretary of State. Pick based on where you'll actually operate and bank. Then grab an EIN free from the IRS — you don't need to pay a service for it.

Accounting, from day one

Don't run your business out of a personal checking account and a shoebox of receipts — it'll cost you at tax time. QuickBooks is the standard; Wave is a solid free starting point if you're bootstrapping. Set this up before money starts moving.

A real business email & domain

An address like [email protected] reads amateur. Buy your domain and use Google Workspace (around $7/user/month) so you're [email protected]. You also get shared calendars and documents out of the deal.

Your storefront online

Yes — even for a "physical" or word-of-mouth business. People check you online before they call.

A website

Your customers will Google you first. For a simple brochure site, Squarespace or Wix get you online cheaply and you can do it yourself. You'll want something custom-built once the site needs to actually do things — take bookings, sync with your other tools, or handle real volume.

Google Business Profile

This free listing puts you on Google Maps and in the "near me" results — and for a local business it's often more valuable than the website itself. Claim it, fill it out completely, and ask happy customers for reviews. It's the single highest-return thing a new local business can do online.

Getting paid

However you take money, there's a tool for it:

Managing customers

Once you're juggling more than a handful of customers, a spreadsheet stops working. A CRM (customer relationship manager) keeps every lead, conversation, and follow-up in one place so nothing falls through the cracks. HubSpot has a genuinely useful free tier to start. You'll know you need one the first time you realize you forgot to follow up with someone.

If you book appointments

Service businesses live and die by scheduling. Calendly, Acuity, or Square Appointments let customers book themselves without the phone tag. Wire it to your calendar and you'll never double-book.

The part almost everyone misses: tying it all together

Here's what nobody tells you. You'll end up with a website, an accounting tool, a payment system, a CRM, and a calendar — and by default none of them talk to each other. So you re-type the same customer into four different tools, and things slip through the cracks.

The businesses that scale cleanly are the ones whose systems are connected — a new customer on the website flows into the CRM, the invoice into accounting, the appointment onto the calendar, automatically. That's integration and automation, and it's the difference between software that saves you time and software that becomes a second job.

DIY vs. when to bring someone in

Be honest about where your time is worth spending:

That last part is us.

Unlock Integrations helps Quad Cities businesses set up and connect the software that runs behind the scenes — websites, CRMs, payments, automation — so it all works as one system instead of five disconnected apps. Local, remote-friendly, and you talk to the person who actually builds it.

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