Tools I Can’t Live Without
Because life’s too short to put up with crappy ones.
Some of my friends have asked me what tools and apps I use, so I thought I’d list them (it beats mass emails!). The following are the tools I have enjoyed using after scouring review sites, signing up for untold numbers of web apps, and putting them through their paces. NOTE: These reviews and recommendations are my own opinions. I do not get paid any royalties or receive any promotional consideration for anything I write here.
Update — Appear.in is no longer available. I removed this section.
Update — ExpressionEngine (March 23, 2017): Added ExpressionEngine, an industrial-strength content management system for the web.
Update — Google Meet (March 20, 2017): Meet.Google.com — an excellent, intuitive, and responsive video conferencing tool. Removed my Keyport review and put it into its own post. Added Startup Hitlist section.
Update — Project Management (October 31, 2016): TeamGantt.com — for this Halloween, working with a team has never been more of a treat.
Update — Communications (March 30, 2016): Talky.io — The easiest screensharing or group videochat tool you’ll ever use.
Update — Productivity (September 22, 2015): Run a startup? You need StartupStash.com then. It’s a free site with oodles or tools sorted by category. Attractive design + instant value add = yes, please! Thanks to Spareaminute.com (like ProductHunt for websites).
Update — Productivity (Oct. 3, 2014) Added Bitly — a clever way to shorten URLs and know who clicks on them!
Update — Productivity (July 30, 2014) Point and Dragdis — two web apps that help you share and save content from around the web — all without having to use email.
Update: Uberconference now lets you share your screen during a call! No need to use a separate tool like Join.me if you’re already on the call.
Update: Added Slack and Sqwiggle (no longer in business) to the Communications section. Check ‘em out today!
STARTUP Hitlist
If you’re a startup, here are more tools than you can shake a stick at. To avoid getting overwhelmed, try looking only for tools you need right now.
- http://growthsupply.com/free — You’ve got to check out this list of over 400 free resources, categorized, and curated just for you.
- http://startupstash.com/
- https://medium.com/product-hunt/28-tools-to-help-you-launch-your-startup-on-a-small-budget-7d5383997bbd#.rdu70ztku
WEBSITE TOOLS
Need a robust website that can basically do anything? Look no further than ExpressionEngine, an industrial-strength content management system. It’s Wordpress on steroids. Small companies typically go from Wordpress or Squarespace to something more powerful; EE is that “something more powerful.” Need ecommerce capabilities? It’s got that. Need modules? Those are built-in. Need to create more complex sites? Done.
COMMUNICATIONS
Google Meet — Google Meet is an all-grown-up Google Hangouts. Chances are, you have a Gmail address. If you’re a G Suite member (meaning you have either a paid G Suite Business, Education, or Enterprise account), Google Meet is now available for your use. It’s dead simple to use. Simply schedule a meeting using Google Calendar. By default, G Suite will provide a Google Meet link for your attendees to use.
Talky.io — Sometimes, you just need to quickly share your screen with a colleague and have a quick chat to go over an idea. Now, there are many tools out there that I absolutely love using (appear.in and uberconference.com below), but Talky is simple and singularly focused on making remote meetings easier. It basically enables you to do three tasks: 1) share your screen, 2) hold a video chat via webcam, 3) chat. That’s it! Nothing to download, and it lets you choose a room title whenever you need one, like talky.io/gettothechoppah. Best of all, it’s free! Check it out!
Mobile App: Available on iOS here.
Bottom line: it’s like appear.in, but better because it allows you to share your screen.
Uberconference — Say goodbye to wondering who’s joined your conference call, who’s talking, and a number of other typical pain points the Uberconference team summarizes in this very funny, and clever video. Plus, you can share your screen with everyone during the call. It sophisticatedly lets you select which app’s viewport you want to share. Great UI and UX = a tool that actually makes you want to take more conference calls.
Slack.com — A slick, easy to use, and powerful team communication tool. Native Android and iOS apps plus a really good web version. Powerful integrations like Github, BitBucket, Mailchimp, Google Drive, Google Hangouts, Trello, Asana, and many more.
Mini-review: Just this past weekend, an ad hoc team of developers and I used Slack as our chat tool for working together (and remotely). Seamlessly started a Hangouts right from within Slack and shared documents and links between Slack and Asana. There’s a more complete review here by MacDrifter.
- GingerHQ — internal collaboration and communication tool
- Convo — Intranet/communication tool. Con: only lets you signup if you have a custom (work) domain; sorry, no Gmail addresses.
- Unison — social intranet tool. Requires a work email (no Gmail or Yahoo email addresses). Con: only lets you signup if you have a custom (work) domain; sorry, no Gmail addresses.
- Join.me — instant, easy to use screen sharing. Send out a link and the rest of the participants can see your screen in real-time after downloading a small plugin which lets them hold their own presentation as well!
PRODUCTIVITY
- TeamGantt.com — I’ve tried more project and task management tools than I care to remember. In my experience, I’ve learned there is no one perfect tool for every team. Every team is different, which means the way they work is different, which means the tool they use will likely be very different from the tool another team uses. That being said, I have found that TeamGantt has done something unusual- they’ve struck a solid balance between task-based needs and project-based needs. Plus, TeamGantt is the one tool I keep coming back to, time and time again. It caters to the needs of the individual contributor who just cares about what they need to do as well as the project manager, who wants to be able to assign responsibility while still keeping a higher level view of the work needing to be done. I’ve now used TeamGantt on two consulting projects and both teams have loved it. Try it out.
- StartupStash.com — This is a veritable treasure trove of tools, all categorized for your convenience. If you run a startup, this site probably has the tools you need.
- Bitly—I need to apologize to the Bitly team for neglecting to mention them for so long (sorry!). Bitly is a free service that shortens URLs — perfect for keeping within the 150 character tweet limit. It also makes it super easy for people who want to copy the URL you shared for their own purposes. In short, it’s just darn useful. Bitly not only allows you to shorten a long URL, but also lets you customize to a more friendly version, so https://medium.com/@chriscchan/tools-i-cant-live-without-fe94f4851969 becomes http://bit.ly/Z2OIyA or http://bit.ly/toolsicantlivewithout. But there’s more! Bitly shows you how many people clicked on your link (for free) and even more with their paid plan, which starts at $995/mo. The latter may be a little steep for the solopreneur, but might make sense for a startup wanting to increase their lead generation, evaluate their content strategy, or simply understand their audience.
- Point — If Delicious, Twitter, Medium, and Google Hangouts had a baby, Point would be its name. Share links without having to use email (yay!), highlight content for all of your TLDR friends, and have a private IM with them — all in your Chrome browser. Point is dead simple to use and features one of the best onboarding user experiences I’ve ever seen. Hat tip to my friend Kyle van Pelt (@kylevanpelt) for sharing this tool with me!
- Dragdis —Point’s more visual cousin. Think of it as Pinterest and Evernote’s lovechild. I use Dragdis to save videos, images, and other visual content quickly within my browser, whereas I use Point to easily share quick text-centric content like articles due to Point’s built-in highlighting capabilities.
- Evernote — take notes to your heart’s content, and they are synchronized to the cloud. Free.
- Google Keep (Android only) — Great for quick notes, and it syncs with your Google account so you have access to your notes even if you’re away from your phone. Free.
- Dropbox — store all your files here and share them with your colleagues. Yup, free.
- Jiffy (Android only) — beautiful time-tracking for tasks. Are you a contractor who needs to track your time to get paid? Use this. Free (or paid).
- Swype — enables you to use a continuous motion to input words as opposed to hen-pecking them one at a time (iPhone users can now enjoy this app). I have tried other alternatives like SwiftKey, but I like Swype because its performance is better under heavy loads than SwiftKey, which tended to slow down and turn unresponsive.
SOCIAL NETWORKS
- LinkedIn — If you’re a professional, you need a LinkedIn profile. It’s a defacto online resume. Many professionals use this to do research on their competition and connections. I find that I go here before going to Google if I know the name of the company or individual I want to research.
- About.me — Think of this as a more visual resume that provides you with an opportunity to show more of your personality.
- Twitter — A social communication tool which limits you to 140 character entries. It’s a sublime medium for conveying thoughts pared down to their essentials, and for discovering new and interesting content.
- Bufferapp — Schedule your tweets for optimal visibility.
- HootSuite — Maintain multiple Twitter accounts, hashtag lists, Twitter lists, etc.
WEATHER
- Yahoo! Weather App — a weather app so beautiful you’ll forget you’re using an Android device.
- Eye in Sky (Android only) — skinnable, themeable beautiful weather app.
- 1Weather (Android only) — Beautiful, animated, multi-themed weather app.
SYSTEM
- Nova Launcher (Android only) — Free version available; pay only if you like it. Because default launchers are sometimes ugly. Great features, great price, lots of themes.
- SpeedTest — See if you’re getting the internet speed you’re paying for.
- TeslaLED — The only flashlight app you’ll ever need.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
I’ve reviewed many project management apps and have not found one that works the way I would like it to (yet). If you have one, chances are I’ve tried it. Still, I’m open to suggestions. Trello is what I use for now.
- Trello — Flexible kanban-based project management tool; beautiful and powerful. Free. I use it to: Save articles for later viewing, reference, manage projects, collaborate with teammates, and store ideas. Native iOS and Android apps available.
Trello’s so awesome, I thought I needed to give it a mini-review.
Trello is a very visually-oriented, flexible application which can be used for managing projects, mind mapping, making to-do lists, or categorizing articles. It’s a modern take on the Japanese kanban system, which was originally designed for lean and Just In Time (JIT) manufacturing. Trello’s take on kanban consists of three layers: a board, a list, and the cards on that list.
For example, you might create a board entitled, “Writing”, start a list within that board called “Blogs”, and create a card containing your Medium credentials. You can supercharge each card with checklists, attached files, and even assign team members to them.
Trello’s one of my favorites because it is more visual than Evernote, which I primarily use for making long-hand notes.
Free. Web app, and native iOS and Android apps.
CRM
- Nimble CRM — Of all the CRMs I’ve evaluated, Nimble reigns supreme. Why? It’s the only one that makes me feel like I’m not doing data entry. Nimble pulls in all my social streams (LinkedIn, Twitter, Gmail, and Facebook) and keeps me up to date with what my contacts are doing. It helps me cultivate my personal and professional relationships, identify engagement opportunities, and manage my deals pipeline. Plus, they have one of the most responsive, respectful, and flat-out awesome customer-centric teams I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with for any product in any category— ever.
- Base CRM — Sleek and powerful. If I could merge two products, I would merge Nimble’s social integration and tickler system with Base’s native app integration, design aesthetic, and powerful reporting. If you’re in sales and need reporting, Base is for you.
- MailChimp — Whether you’re a non-profit, startup, or individual, MailChimp is one of the best ways to send bulk email. MailChimp, based in Atlanta, GA, provides design templates, user subscription management, and analytics to let you know how many people have opened your email and clicked on your links. Overall, it’s a great (and free) alternative to mass mailing folks in Outlook or Gmail.
- Yesware — ESP for email. Tells you when—and if— someone opened your email, where they opened it, what device they opened it on, and if they opened the attachments you sent them. Perfect for a variety of situations when you need to know if the recipient of your email actually did anything with your missive.
Writing
And of course, Medium. Thanks to Ev and the rest of the Medium team for making us such a beautiful tool to read, write, and build community!
If you liked this post, please feel free to hit the “Recommend” button below. I would love to hear what tools you can’t live without, so please feel free to comment!
Check out my essay, “Don’t Piss Off Your Users” to find out what tools didn’t make the cut.
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