This week we chat with Tracy Osborn (@tracymakes) as we discuss 15 of the top tools we use to run our businesses. As a followup to a previous, popular tweet, we thought we’d give an update on what tools we continue to use today, as well as share some of the new tools we have started to use.
While tools are necessary for founders, it’s important to find a good balance between good-enough and perfect when it comes to evaluating which tools to use. As Tracy says in the show, “It’s a good lesson for founders because they often want to build something the ‘right way’ from the start. Many times there are tradeoffs and sometimes you have to use the tool that has constraints so that you can work faster. It might not be perfect, but it gets the job done.”
Are you using any of the tools we mention in the show or have a tool you think we should use? Let us know in the comments!
The top 15 tools we cover
- 6:04 #1 Calendly vs YouCanBook.me
- 7:45 #2 Slack: how and why we use it
- 12:20 #3 How we use Notion for permanent documentation
- 16:21 #4 Google Drive vs Dropbox for Business
- 18:42 #5 LastPass for Business
- 20:05 #6 Dasharoo
- 21:57 #7 Squadcast.fm & Castos.fm to run this podcast
- 23.57 #8 Drip & RightMessage for email marketing
- 25:15 #9 Trello for personal business (vs other task management tools)
- 26:57 #10 Squarespace for websites
- 30:35 #11 Voxer push to talk audio vs text messaging
- 32:52 #12 Keynote for conference talks and eBook PDFs
- 36:02 #13 Tweetbot vs Twitter.com
- 38:08 #14 Buffer
- 39:29 #15 Submittable and Pipedrive
- 42:20 BONUS: FrontApp for email collaboration
Links from the show
- Tracy Osborn | tracyosborn.com
- Tracy Osborn on Twitter
- Rob’s tweet on tools used | Twitter
- Calendly
- YouCanBook.me
- Discord
- Discourse
- Basecamp
- Notion
- Dasharoo
- Lastpass
- Sunrise KPI
- Trello
- Establishing a High-Performance Productivity Stack with Tracy Osborn | MicroConf on Air
- Squarespace
- Voxer
- Guides: 18 Things SaaS Founders Should Know | Startups For the Rest of Us
- Zencaster
- Squadcast
- Castos
- Drip
- RightMessage
- Tweetbot
- [Buffer](https://buffer.com/?)
- Submittable
- Pipedrive
- FrontApp
- Helpscout
- Boomerang
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I wanted to mention a couple tools for consideration.
1. Document360 (https://document360.io) – great tool for a knowledge base, but we also use it for internal policy and procedure documents. Build on GIT, you get a great way to publish articles and see version history with version compares. Also, built on Markdown, which I love.
2. RingCentral (https://www.ringcentral.com) – Most business owners will need some level of an IVR. RingCentral comes with Zoom built into the platform, so you get a phone system and great tool for video and audio conferencing.
Not really a “tool”, but i highly recomend using Macbook Pro. You basically get a machine that you can do just about anything. Keynote for presentations or automations to build a web commercial. Built in tools to screen record and capture screen shots. Really great tools for content development built right into the laptop.
All the best,
Jason