Business Recommendations
We created this resource page to easily list recommended services, products, and companies that we have personally used in the past and found very valuable. Whether you already run a startup or are just in the early stages of starting up your company, this page has some great products and services all in one place. They can help you start off on the right foot as they are products we have tried in the past and would recommend them to everyone.
Accounting
Xero: Xero is one of the leading accounting and bookkeeping platforms for small businesses. They provide a browser and smartphone app for easy access to your accounts. Xero also offers a 30-day trial so if you don’t like it, you have nothing to lose. It is easy to cancel from within your online dashboard.
It’s great for logging expenses, sending online invoices and even for payroll in large companies! Explore Xero!
Analytics
Segment: If you’re running a website or app, you’ll end up with multiple different analytics packages, mailing list managers, support systems and databases – and keeping them in sync will be almost impossible. Segment transformed the way I run my website, by letting me install one piece of code, from which I could set up and co-ordinate every other piece of software I use, from Mailchimp to Google Analytics to Intercom. Highly recommended. Segment.
Social Media Management
Buffer: Social media for business can be tricky – co-ordinating posts across multiple accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn), finding the right hashtags, using the right image dimensions. Buffer is an incredibly popular social media management tool that makes finding, scheduling and co-ordinating content much easier. It’s aptly-named ‘Awesome’ plan is just $10 and is great for individuals or smaller businesses. Buffer.
Sales Management
Pipedrive: We’ve all missed emails or forgotten to reply. You can’t afford that happening in your sales pipeline. Pipedrive helps you to manage the sales process (or another business process such as media outreach, marketing) efficiently and minimises the chance for error.
Pipedrive.
Task Management
Trello: Simple, easy to use task management system that doesn’t create too much overhead. You can use Trello for pretty much anything from task management to shopping lists to bug tracking. I use it every day as part of my business to track small tasks, large strategic goals, customer feedback and more Trello.
Team Communications
Slack: Slack is amazing. Chat with team-mates or freelancers, set up individual or group channels, upload files, write commands, integrate with pretty much everything. And it’s basically free. Slack.
Hosting
Dreamhost: Although we are now running on AWS servers, when we first started we used Dreamhost for our web hosting needs. They offer very competitive rates, great servers, 99.9% uptime and have very good customer support, including live chat.
I have been using them now for almost 10 years for my other websites and can’t complain about their products, especially since all their servers are now running on SSD! You can get 25% off Dreamhost today with our unique code!
Educational resources list