People always ask me what I recommend as great tools for startups, and there are some things I get asked about all the time (like email marketing tools).
So, I’m publishing this page as a go-to place to see all the stuff I think is awesome and worth checking out if it matches your needs.
Keep in mind, I don’t know your business, so I can’t promise it’s the right tool for you, but I can promise it’s worth looking at and deciding for yourself.
If there’s something I haven’t mentioned, send me an email or tweet and let me know.
Email Marketing
- Drip – a full-power email marketing solution that’s super visual without being slowed down by drag and drop. Integration with lead pages is an awesome perk.
- Klaviyo comes with a huge number of ready-to-go campaigns that have been proven to work. You can’t go past Klaviyo for eCommerce businesses (or anything else that’s transactional in nature)
- ConvertKit is the perfect tool if you don’t want to mess around but want all the most important functionality. ConvertKit is the best option if you want to create linear sequences and avoid wasting time on extra features that probably aren’t going to make you any extra money.
Learn To Code
As a self-taught engineer and technical product manager, I’ve taken a load of coding courses, and from all those, I can’t recommend Wes Bos’ courses highly enough!
If you’re looking for something free and want to get started learning Javascript, you can’t beat his Javascript30 course. Another free course that helps you get comfortable using the command line, which is a huge productivity booster, is the Command Line Power User Course.
If you’re looking to get serious about Javascript and be able to build your own stuff, I’d highly recommend all his premium courses, especially:
- ES6 – which will make you a pro at all the new features of Javascript – so much better than only reading the docs
- React for Beginners – an awesome intro to React (which taught me enough on its own to build 2 production React apps)
Conversion Optimization & Experimentation
- ConversionXL – when it comes to CRO, there’s a lot to know and many opportunities to get it wrong – so I’d highly recommend investing in some good training if you’re going to take CRO and Experimentation seriously (and don’t have an experienced CRO to learn from directly. ConversionXL has probably the best in-depth blog in the CRO industry, and its courses are truly world-class.
- Optimizely – if you’re looking for world-class split testing software, you can’t beat Optimizely. I’ve used it for years, and it’s in a different league than all its competitors (unfortunately)
Hosting
- WPX Hosting – highly recommended if you’re running WordPress, their staff are super helpful for getting things done and the whole system is engineered for WordPress speed. Plus, it’s really reasonably priced (at least for now). I use this for all my WP sites and all my clients.
- Shopify – if you’re running an eCommerce site, I personally think there’s no other option worth considering.
- DigitalOcean – if you need something a little more custom for your hosting, I’d definitely recommend checking out DO. Their user experience is amazing, too!
WordPress stuff
- ThemeForest – it’s amazing how much you can achieve with a WordPress site, I’ve seen some pretty amazing MVPs built using a cleverly repurposed WordPress theme, there’s no better place to find WP themes an plugins than ThemeForest. Be careful, though; it’s addictive…
- ConvertPlus – this is the most reliable non-subscription popup manager I’ve come across. It comes with all the features you could want and is set up easily with your WordPress site (I use it on all of mine). The only downside is that it’s not amazing for your Google SiteSpeed score.
Desktop tools / Mac apps
- Backblaze – I’m a huge advocate of the need for non-sync’ing backups, Backblaze is the best offering at the moment in my opinion (I use it myself and have pushed my family to all do the same). You can read why here.
- Screenie – this thing saves me time about 50 times a day, it’s a super simply mac app that puts all your screenshots right at your fingertips! (formally called QuickShot, this is a bargain at $9.99)
- Grammarly – an awesome tool that makes it way easier to write well and engage people with your writing. I’ve used the premium version for years and can’t imagine writing without it. The free version is great, too, but the premium features help take your writing up a notch (rather than just saving you from mistakes)