This week, one of our copywriting clients put me onto a site called startups.com. It’s a new twist on the ‘daily deals’ concept. Each day, a new set of small business tools are offered to SMEs at a discount rate.

I know lots of people are done with daily deals sites now: you only have to see our post about the TEFL Express course from Groupon to understand why customers are becoming sceptical. But it strikes me that the small business market is the ideal place for a daily deals site to really take hold: it gives us all a chance to get hold of premium tools at a reduced price, and it gives start-ups their own exposure. Some of these services – like live chat, SEO analysis and telephony – can really drain your bank account.

My first purchase was a pack of 1,000 vectors from Vectorain worth $900. The zip file cost me just $39 (that’s about £25 after PayPal converted it to British money). OK, it’s not an essential purchase by any means, but vector art comes in very handy for technical authoring work – particularly when I’m creating a user manual. The content is often very dry and lacking in visual interest, and nobody wants to look at pages and pages of text. The quality of the artwork on vector art sites inevitably varies, but I think that’s a pretty good deal nonetheless.

If you want to have a look at startups.com, please consider using our referral link. We’ll get a few pounds towards our next purchase if you do. Thanks! Also, let us know your experience of startups.com in the comments below.