Ultimate Startup Software Stack
Introducing FoundersMarket, a curated set of awesome products and services for startups.
Introducing…FoundersMarket by Foundersuite.com
Building a minimal viable product is relatively easy; you need developers’ tools, an analytics program to track usage, and some space in the cloud for hosting.
In contrast, building a startup is hard; suddenly, you must deal with things like hiring, accounting, payroll, corporate reporting duties and so much more. There are tools for each task, but with literally thousands of products on the market, the selection process is confusing and time-consuming.
Foundersuite is here to help. We have assembled a veritable “best of” list of software products. Even better, we have negotiated amazing deals and discounts for you.
Our goal in building this list was not to go broad, but rather to curate a highly-focused list of awesome tools and services. Most are products we use ourselves; others have been recommended and vouched for by startup friends we trust.
Consider this a “v1.0”…the first step toward giving you the right tools for your business at the best possible prices.
And of course, we’d love to hear from you — what products do you use and love? What can you absolutely not live without?
If we get enough requests for a certain product, we’ll try to swing you a sweet deal or discount in the process.
Enough chatter. With are pleased to present…drumroll…the FoundersMarket collection of 24 awesome tools for startups — all of them available within Foundersuite at killer discounts.
Brief summaries, and our reason for including, below. Thanks and let us know how we’re doing!
Nathan Beckord
Stripe: we use Stripe as the payment processor for Foundersuite’s Pro and Team subscription plans. It was easy to setup and is very reliable. The support is excellent and fees are reasonable.
Strikingly: we periodically put on events like StartupBD.com and FundingV2.com. As CEO, I want to quickly put up a good-looking site without bothering my engineers. Strikingly makes this easy to do.
eShares: managing your cap table is easy when it’s you and a founder, but it’s an expensive nightmare when you have investors, advisors, employees, etc. eShares streamlines this process.
Gusto: when you start hiring, the associated paperwork and compliance duties are a huge pain and distraction. Gusto makes managing employee payroll and contractor payments easy. I especially love their UI.
InVision: my designer turned me on to these guys. They make awesome prototyping software. As CEO, I can go in and view the mockups for our new products, and add my comments throughout. Super powerful, even for non-design-types like me.
Hired: finding engineers is really hard, especially here in the Bay Area. In addition to hunting through our personal networks and on AngelList, Hired delivers quality results.
Gooten: funny name, but great service. We order all our startup swag through these guys, and they are fast and affordable. Speaking of swag, come get a Foundersuite beer cozie and meet us at StartupGrind, SUP-X, SFNewTech, or SXSW.
Backblaze: I’ve known CEO Gleb for many years, and he’s solid. Good guy, good company, good product. Never lose data again!
Zendesk: awesome customer support has become a competitive weapon, and these guys pioneered the model. Also, they have a cool, non-Silicon Valley founding story — I’m reading their book “Startupland” as we speak.
Intercom: this is a very cool product. We use it mainly to onboard and interact with registered users (you’ve probably received a few friendly messages from Helga :) but it’s also great for customer feedback and support.
Bench: my friend Christofer of Zerply turned me on to these guys. It’s a group of human bookkeepers that you interact with using nicely-designed software. They make it easy to capture expenses and revenue, and to create clean financial statements. They also do tax returns.
WeWork: WeWork is taking the startup world by storm. In 2015, they opened up 40 new co-working and startup office spaces, and added 25k members. Their 2016 plans are equally ambitious. If there’s not a WeWork near you now, there will be soon — but get on it early, as space fills up almost instantly.
New Haircut: we’ve been friends with these folks for years now, and they do great work. If you’re ready to get an awesome, professional pitch deck made, they’re your guys. They also do branding, mobile apps, and more.
Outsite: more friends from way back. They’re taking the sharing economy model and applying it to awesome startup company retreats. We haven’t yet taken an all-hands company retreat yet, but it’s on the docket for 2016. Where shall we go?
SV/SG: these guys are taking a unique approach to solving one of the most-asked questions of all: “where can I find a technical co-founder?” Their model sells you a fractional CTO, with a dev team behind him/her. Clever.
Foundershield: after we raised our seed round, I was reminded by our investors that I was required to buy Directors and Officers or “D&O” insurance. It’s still kind of a backward industry, but Foundershield makes it easy to get a quote and pull the trigger.
Wonder: another clever concept that can really help startups, Wonder provides expert, crowd-sourced, on-demand research for really cheap. Use it to find the market size for your pitch deck, or to build a contact list of customer targets. The possibilities are endless.
Support Ninja: another crowd-sourced play, Support Ninja lets you outsource your customer support, lead-gen, content moderation, or back-office support duties to an offshore team that is affordable and reliable.
Switch: I met these folks when we were on a judges panel at a Google for Entrepreneurs event. Their product is beautiful, and gives you a powerful business phone system that works with all your devices and productivity tools.
Hellosign: I stumbled across this product in the ultimate “viral” way…because documents kept arriving in my inbox that I needed to sign using HelloSign. Another simple, easy-to-use, and nice-UI product.
OpStarts: before launching Foundersuite, I spent several years consulting to startups, and building financial models was our bread-and-butter work. OpStarts takes this process out of Excel and puts it online in the form of powerful forecasting and planning software.
Meld: one of the first things you need to do after raising capital is to get an independent 409a valuation to set the strike price for your employee stock options. It’s a bit of a pain, and it can get expensive, but Meld makes it affordable through a monthly “subscription model.”
Founders Network: running a startup can be a lonely, challenging experience; let’s face it — you need mentors and a peer support group, but and not everyone can get into YCombinator. Founders Network is a “peer mentorship model” of founders helping founders. I’ve been a member for years.
Speakeasy: how much time do you spend on conference calls? I spend a lot, and it’s often a huge pain (I’m sure you’ve seen this video?). Speakeasy makes it simple. I like that it integrates with your calendar, and it calls you when the call starts — no PIN needed.
All of of the products above feature killer deals and discounts, available within FoundersMarket. To get your deal, just login (or create an account) at Foundersuite.com. It’s free, it’s awesome, and it will save you a sh*t-ton of money. :)
Enjoy!
