The best Mac setup and apps to work in or run a startup
Last updated: July 3, 2024
Working in and running a startup can be quite a challenge, particularly with limited budget. At Fitrockr, we often get asked what software and technologies we rely on to master our daily tasks and challenges. Here you go, this is the setup at Fitrockr!
Laptop
Let’s start with the most important piece, the hardware. Do not invest in Desktop computers as they will limit your flexibility. Instead, purchase a laptop, particularly a Macbook Pro. If you need more screen estate, add a Samsung or LG external monitor which you can get at a reasonable price.
But why purchase an expensive Macbook, you may ask? The answer is very simpel. It gives you everything you need to focus on your business instead of managing hardware. A Macbook is an extremely reliable companion with great performance that does not decrease over time. It comes with a firewall and disk encryption which ensures basic security. If ever something breaks or does not work anymore, just go to any Apple store and get help — where ever you are in the world. Such a service plan would come at a hefty price tag for a Windows laptop.
Last but not least, think about your employees. You expect high performance and high quality work? Then equip them with high performance and high quality tools. Would you hire an expensive handyman who comes with a plastic screwdriver?
The Essential
Microsoft got this right! OMG, we are impressed how much they got it right!
This is the foundation of your business and you cannot go wrong with it. Of course there are better solutions in each category but you will nowhere find anything as good as this solution bundled for the price tag. Stop wasting time searching, sign up for “Office 365 Business” to get all the important business apps that you need:
- Email (Exchange) address including hosting
- Email: Outlook
- Documents: Word
- Calculation: Excel
- Presentation: PowerPoint
- Collaboration & Video Conferencing: Teams
- Cloud File Storage and Sharing: OneDrive & Sharepoint
Outlook (Microsoft 365)
There are many great email apps out there but this one represents the global standard and it is included in the Microsoft 365 package.
A great free alternative you may want to investigate is Spark.
Office Apps
Word, Excel, PowerPoint (Microsoft 365)
This is a no brainer as there is no real alternative. This is the global standard and you want to make sure that whatever you produce is fully compatible to the tools used by your clients. There is nothing more unprofessional than sending a presentation to a client who cannot open it in PowerPoint.
Collaboration & Video Conferencing
Teams (Microsoft 365)
This one was love at second sight. We were using Slack and we loved it, still do. However, Slack comes at an extra price and Teams is included in the Microsoft package. Furthermore, Teams has improved so drastically over the last months that there is no more objective reason to justify an additional expense to use Slack.
Teams works just great, it is reliable and it has everything built in from communication, video conferencing, collaboration and file sharing.
Additionally, it is one of Microsoft’s strategic apps which means that we will see more features coming soon.
Cloud File Storage and Sharing
OneDrive (Microsoft 365)
While working on your laptop, you want to be sure that your data is saved and stored, ideally versioned to revert changes you may no longer want. This is what OneDrive does. Install it on your Laptop and all your files will be saved to the cloud while you work. Accidentially deleted a file? Made changes you no longer want? Hardware crashes or your entire laptop gets lost? No problem, just download your files or any previous version from the cloud.
Calendar
Outlook has a built in calendar which is great for scheduling and managing events. It does the job! But is it a great calendar app that we love? No!
A great calendar app is Fantastical 2. Think of it as the Mac OS calendar app on steroids. If you have the extra budget, you should check out Fantastical 2.
Calendar
Have you ever felt the need to see a calendar when clicking on the date/time icon in the mac status bar? If yes, then this is the right app for.
Dato replaces the Mac date/time in the status bar with enhanced information such as week numbers, calendar, events and timezones.
Notes
Apple Notes (free)
Notes taking and notes management can be a science in itself and you may think of Evernote as the best notes solution. It may be but it comes at an extra cost which will be unnecessary unless you have a very specific case that only Evernote can fulfil. If you belong to the 99,9% of users that just take notes, we recommend to stick to the free solution of either Microsoft OneNote or Apple Notes.
Team Task Management
Managing tasks within and across teams goes easy with Trello and its Kanban boards. We think this is one of the main advantages. People tend to overdo on task management and make it too complicated which often ends up that it is not used at all. Trello is so easy to use that you will actually use it.
If you do not need the premium features, you can even go all free with it.
A great alternative is Asana which comes for free for small organizations.
Personal & Team Task Management
Superlist is an all-in-one task management tool for individuals and teams. You can create lists, tasks and notes in an easy to use interface. Lists can be shared amongst teams and tasks can be assigned to individual team members.
Personal Task Management
There are hundreds of tools out there for personal task management. Things is one of the best. It comes with an insane amount of functionality, it is extremely easy to use and it offers the best task overview compared to its competitors.
If you do not want to spend extra bucks on a task management tool, we recommend to use Microsoft Todo. It has less functionality but it is free.
Password Management
Apple’s keychain does a good job in saving passwords across your Apple devices. If you need something more advanced, you should look into 1Password.
Screenshots
Taking, editing and sharing screenshots is a frequent task that can be extremely cumbersome with the wrong app. We are the biggest fans of Cleanshot X which comes with tons of features (screenshots, scrolling screenshots, text recognition, video and gif creation, etc.) and unbeaten usability. It is worth every penny.
If you want a free version with similar but less functionality, check out Shottr.
Window Management
Mac OS does not offer proper window management functionality. Minimizing, maximizing or split-screening windows is a pain on a Mac. Magnet changes this shortcoming and adds this functionality to your Mac.
Software Mockups & Wireframing
Wireframing software has never been easier since we used Balsamiq. Its simplicity makes it extremely powerful as anyone can visualise software functionality within minutes.
Graphic Design
If you need to produce or edit images beyond simple screenshots, you need a proper graphic design software. If graphic design is the core of your business, you may want to stick to Adobe Photoshop and related products. All others can save lots of dollars by going with Affinity Photo. It looks, feels and works like Adobe Photoshop and it can even read, edit or produce Photoshop files. Affinity Photo is a fantastic Photoshop alternative at a much cheaper price.
Process Charts
Diagrams (free)
If you need to draw diagrams, flow charts, org charts, software architectures, etc. you may immediately think of Microsoft Visio. We are unsure whether Visio is available for Mac or will ever be. But why use an expensive tool when you can have it all for free? Diagrams is a free alternative that does a great job.
Video Conversion
Handbrake (free)
Handbrake is a free tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.
Coding
IntelliJ IDEA (free)
IntelliJ IDEA is an integrated development environment written in Java for developing software. It is developed by JetBrains, and is available as an Apache 2 Licensed community edition, and in a proprietary commercial edition. Both can be used for commercial development.
Great alternatives are Visual Studio Code or Webstorm.
Zip and Archiving
You need to decompress or compress folders and files? Keka does the job perfectly well for any file format.
PDF File Size Optimizer
Exporting a presentation as pdf or scanning a few pages often ends up in terribly large pdf files. This is where PDFOptim comes into play. It reduces pdf files while preserving the quality.
API Development
Postman (free)
If your business involves API development or testing, then you will love Postman. It allows you to quickly and easily send REST, SOAP, and GraphQL requests directly within Postman.
Encryption
Encrypto (free)
Encrypto takes any file or folder and adds AES-256 encryption to it. With encryption, you know your file is incredibly secure and that only the right person can access it.
Calculator
Numi (free)
Numy is a calculator app that allows to describe tasks the natural ways to get instantly an accurate answer.
File Transfer
Wormhole (free)
Wormhole lets you share files with end-to-end encryption and a link that automatically expires. So you can keep what you share private and make sure your stuff doesn’t stay online forever.
For files up to 5 GB, Wormhole stores your files on our servers for 24 hours.
For files larger than 5 GB, Wormhole uses peer-to-peer transfer to send your files directly from your browser to the recipient. So you’ll need to keep the page open until the recipient downloads the files.
File Transfer
Sharedrop (free)
Sharedrop works like Apple AirDrop but for all devices. It is a great file transfer tool to share files between devices on the same network. Just open the site on both devices to transfer files back and forth.
Music Converter
Spotify music converter for downloading and converting songs from Spotify to MP3 at lossless audio quality.
News & RSS
News Explorer syncs your RSS, JSON, Atom and Mastodon feed subscriptions, folder setup, news items, read statuses and favorites across all your Apple devices. You’ll always see exactly the same data on all your devices, be it an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple Watch or an Apple TV. Synchronization is based on iCloud. So there is no need to login or to sign up into any other service. It just works out of the box.
Helper
This app is one of our favorites. It allows you to access a folder (e.g. downloads, screenshots, etc.), clipboard and quick note taking functionality with a hot key. We use it at least a hundred times a day and it has made our work so much faster.
Helper
The Mac OS spotlight search is a fantastic search tool that goes beyond simple searching. If you want to take it even a step further, check out Alfred. Alfred is a great app which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. You can search your Mac and the web, and you can configure custom actions to control your laptop.
Helper
The Mac menu bar can become cluttered very fast. Bartender lets you organise your menu bar, configure keyboard shortcuts for accessing individual apps via menu bar icons.
Helper
Just hold the ⌘-Key a bit longer to get a list of all active short cuts of the current application. It’s as simple as that.
Helper
Select any text on the screen, even if part of an image, and the text will be copied to your clipboard and can be used as editable text. This is a very handy tool to select text from a scanned document or an image.
An alternative tool is Cleanshot X that provides text recognition and screen-shooting features at the same time.
Helper
aText is a text template, text shortcut, text macro, text automation, text expansion tool. The app accelerates typing in any application by replacing abbreviations with frequently used phrases you define, for instance “thx” and “br” automatically expand to “thanks” and “best regards”.
Mac OS has a similar build-in feature which only works in apps supporting it. aText however, works in any app.
Helper
Pure Paste lets you paste as plain text by default or with a hotkey across all applications. It sits in the menu bar and clears formatting (fonts, colors, bold, links, tables, etc.) from the text you copy. However, it does not touch unrelated content like files, images, etc. It also ignores content copied from password managers.
Helper
TidyCal is your hub for scheduling meetings professionally and efficiently, eliminating the hassle of back-and-forth emails so you can get back to work.
It allows you to connect your calenders (Google, Office365, etc.) to integrate with your personal booking page. Users can then choose from your page at which available time they would like to meet you.
An alternative tool is Calendly that provides identical functionality but at a higher price.
Helper
MSG files are often generated by the PC version of Microsoft Outlook. This proprietary format is easily read on other PCs, but it is unrecognisable on Macs — even if you are using Microsoft Outlook for Mac or Apple Mail.
MSG Viewer for Outlook works like magic by converting the unrecognisable format into the email that your friend or coworker intended to send you.
With this program, you’ll be able to open all of those MSG files seamlessly in your Mac email clients. Batch processing and conversion of Outlook MSG contacts (.vcf) is also supported.
Helper
Karabiner (free)
Karabiner is a powerful and stable keyboard customizer for macOS. It lets you customize your keyboard to your needs such as changing function keys or remapping keys.
Helper
ChatGPT (free)
ChatGPT is a free-to-use AI system. Use it for engaging conversations, gain insights, automate tasks, and witness the future of AI, all in one place. We recommend the ChatGPT desktop app as it allows to start chats with a simple shortcut.
Security
Intego Virus Scanner (free)
Keeps your computer free of malware such as Mac viruses, Windows viruses, Unix viruses, Microsoft Word and Excel macro viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, adware, hacking tools, dialers, keyloggers, and scareware (fake security programs).
Security
Mac Firewall (free)
A firewall can protect your Mac from unwanted contact initiated by other computers when you’re connected to the internet or a network. A Mac comes with a built-in firewall that does the job.
Security
Mac FileVault Disk Encryption (free)
If you have a Mac with Apple silicon or an Apple T2 Security Chip, your data is encrypted automatically. Turning on FileVault provides an extra layer of security by keeping someone from decrypting or getting access to your data without entering your login password. If you use a Mac that doesn’t have Apple silicon or the T2 chip, you need to turn on FileVault to encrypt your data.
Keyboard
The Macbook built-in keyboard is great but the Keychron K2 (Version 2) Mechanical Keyboard takes typing experience to a new level.
Mouse
Working 8+ hrs every day at your laptop? Get your stressed hand and arm a little treat and use the Logitech Ergo Series Lift for Mac. It is the best ergonomic mouse on the market.
Mousepad
Extended mouse pads are helpful for work, graphic design, and PC gaming. These mouse pads are large enough to go under both your mouse and keyboard with room to spare, giving you tons of space to move your wireless mouse without sliding off the edge.
We do not have a particular product recommendation. Any pad that you like will do.
Conference Speakerphone
Whether speaking freely on one-to-one calls and also moving about the room freely or even conducting meetings with several people — for Skype/Zoom/Teams conferences, standard conference calls or simple calls through — to presentations and talks of all types — PHONUM is ideally suited for all types of discussions, meetings and presentations thanks to its highly developed and precise microphone technology and intelligent downfire speaker. Distance is not a problem anymore.
Mute Button
Never hear or say “you’re on mute” again. MuteMe works with Zoom, Webex, Teams, Skype, Google Meet and much much more. The physical mute button allows to easily mute and unmute your microphone with a single touch of a button. The light indicator always shows you whether you are mute or unmute.
Desk Air Cooler
Working at home or in an office without AC? Get yourself a personal portable air cooler. Evapolar is an ultraportable evaporative air cooler that is easy to carry using a handle on the body. A water tank allows you to enjoy the coolness for up to 9 hours. It can be powered by a power bank, a laptop, or a power socket.
This is surely not an overall guide to all tools out there but it represents the setup at Fitrockr which works extremely well for us. We hope that we may have inspired you or pointed you to some new tools.
About FITROCKR
FITROCKR is a Health Solutions platform that provides wearable data research, patient monitoring and fitness challenges functionality.
One last thing…
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