Helpful Productivity Tools

I have a weakness for checking out productivity tools and have spent WAY too much time looking at them. So fun!

Helpful Productivity Tools

Web Landing Page

There are a lot of no-code website services and I don't know most of them, but I have used ConvertKit a couple of times. It's super easy, free, and looks professionally designed (which, technically, it was!). Last I checked, it allowed you to use a custom URL for free, which is a nice benefit.

Billing and Accounting

Time tracking: I've used several of these things and I like Hourstack and Clockify (Free) because they both let you see you calendar in side-by-side display and you can drag over items from your calendar to log the time (in addition to running a timer, which is a standard feature of other ones like Timular and Tick).
Invoice presentation: Wave (Free) is awesome. Easy and fast to make standard "items" that you can add to invoices and send out. It takes care of reminders, and you CAN also use it to accept payments, if you want that. It is also easy to export the ledger at tax time.
Expense Reimbursements: I've used Expensify for my solo business (just to track the expenses for billing back to a client) and Airbase (Free) for my startup (approve expense requests in Slack! Create virtual cards for use with software subscriptions!)

Email, calendar, file storage, and CRM

In order of importance:

Google Workspace: https://accounts.google.com - Email, calendar, file storage.
Secure Password Manager: Dashlane or Proton Pass for secure passwords. Or use LastPass. Use something.
zCal(Free) or Cal.com (Free) or Calendly (Free version w limited features) for self-service calendaring. Cuts down email volume by 50%. Seriously.
Reclaim.ai - Keep personal and work calendars synched up. Also does fun auto-scheduling tasks and meetings. This is one of my favorite things ever. Thank you, Internet.
CRM: Hubspot - IMHO, the best of a crowded but not-all-that satisfactory field. I used Highrise for years and years, and there's nothing as simple and user-friendly as that anymore. Arguably, Copper and Cloze are nice in their own ways, but they all have pros and cons (one of those doesn't allow a contact to have more than one email address - who has only one email address these days?!?)
Twilio or Grasshopper (Virtual PBX): If you don't want to put your personal phone number out in the world for business. Or you can get a Google Voice number

Meetings and Messaging

Workspace Slack vs Teams: I've used both extensively and I have a strong preference for Slack. The integrations are nicer, the difference between the desktop app and the browser app is less annoying, and (this is the killer feature) you can have one-click access to multiple workspaces with different email accounts associated. <-- this doesn't sound like a problem until it is a problem, and then it is an insurmountable problem. Trust me, you want only ONE account with one email address for Teams.
Video Meetings Jitsi vs Zoom vs Google Meet: Jitsi is an open source video chat - it's free, works great, and runs in the browser without requireing any kind of sign-up. It's a good back-up to have for those occasions when someone's IT department doesn't allow Google Meet or Zoom, or whatever. At this point, everyone probably has at least a free Zoom account. Aside from the 40-minute cap on free accounts, a limitation with Zoom is that you can only have one meeting running at the one time, and sometimes, you want people to be able to get to a meeting without seeing the "host has another meeting underway" message. So I inevitably end up using Zoom for one meeting and either Jitsi or Meet for a meeting that will happen right after the Zoom one, just in case the Zoom one runs long.
Meeting Recording & Transcription Bluedot ~Otter.ai vs Rewatch~ - There are so many options for recording and transcripts. I've tried a bunch, and my favorite is Bluedot for the quality of transcripts and a very nice little AI meeting summary tool.

Document Sharing and e-Sign

DocSend lets you track who views the files you share (and then you can log views in Hubspot). Handy if you are sending around a PPT or sell sheet. You can also set up a very hand one-click NDA with a reusable link.
Roger started out as a contract app for restaurants, but they've pivoted to serve a wider sales market. I use it for agreements that are completely templated (like intern offer letters) -- they're super easy to set up in Roger. These guys are a Queens-based start-up, so show 'em some love!
Hellosign is our workhorse Docusign alternative. They're cheap, easy to get the hang of, and have nice Hubspot and Google Docs integrations.

Integrations

Integration are fun. Here are some Zapier templates: