DRIVE STARTUPS We Present Latest Startup News, Tips & Inspiration
Today there are too many tools to choose from, which got me wondering, what tools do CEOs actually use every day? What tools could they not live without?
I’ve interviewed over 700 CEOs as part of my podcast, The Top Entrepreneurs, and have summarized the top answers below when I asked each CEO: “What is your favorite online tool?”
Here’s the list:
1. Hotjar
CEO of ROIworks George Revutsky and Burgabox innovator Chuck Sillari use Hotjar to better understand their web and mobile site visitors. The all-in-one solution shows you heatmaps of all your traffic. Each visit to your website is also recorded in video-like form so you can see where visitors scroll, click and move around in real time.
Hear how BurgaBox’s CEO uses Hotjar at 18:24 below:
Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play or SoundCloud
2. HostGator
If you aren’t a techie, starting a website can seem daunting. Many startup founders launched the first version of their sites using the WordPress install module in HostGator after they purchased their domain.
Related: 15 Useful Tech Tools for Your Business
3. Acuity Scheduling
I use this to book all my interviews, and my guests Mercuris CEO Manuel Opitz, Obamacare consultant Michael Chapman and ecommerce entrepreneur Chad Rubin agree that Acuity Scheduling is fantastic for controlling your calendar and booking efficiently.
Listen to Opitz share the feature he loves most about Acuity at 17:55 below:
4. Slack
The messaging software Slack is perhaps the most often mentioned tool in my interviews. Recommendations come across a broad range of industries, including Chau Nguyen from restaurant hiring site Hirewire and Mathilde Collin, CEO of FrontApp, an external message manager.
Hear how Collin uses FrontApp and Slack together at 22:33 below:
5. Freshbooks
Michael Mogill, CEO of Crisp Video Group, uses Freshbooks to quickly send invoices to clients. He likes the feature where Freshbooks will auto-remind clients to pay so that he doesn’t have to be the bad guy.
Vincenzo Ruggiero, CEO of Prospect.io talks about how he uses Freshbooks at 18:20 below:
6. Grammerly
Tomer Levy, founder of Logz.io, wants to avoid ever sending an email with an embarrassing typo, so he uses Grammerly to automatically check all his writing for spelling and grammar mistakes.
7. CapShare.com
Hornet App has many investors and founders and shared that they rely on CapShare to issue stock and manage equity in one place without getting bogged down in spreadsheets and paperwork.
8. Metamask
Crypto entrepreneur Eric Tang uses Metamask as a digital wallet for managing his crypto tokens and other cryptocurrencies.
9. Klipfolio
CEOs shared a combination of tools for creating dashboards to always have their key KPIs handy. Klipfolio was most used and recommended for its modular capabilities and extensive integrations. Google Analytics, Grow and Geckoboard were also favorites.
10. Calendly
Douglas Lusted, co-founder of Linkett, and Anant Kale of AppZen use Calendly, a tool similar to Acuity Scheduling, to make booking meetings and calendar management simple and straightforward.
11. Asana
In the age of distributed companies and teams, project management software often takes the place of in-office meetings. Serial entrepreneur Karan Chaudhry has utilized Asana for building businesses and successful exits.
Related: 25 Creative Ways to Promote Your App For Free
12. Trello
ContentSquare CEO Jonathan Cherki, marketing technologist Scott Brinker and VR master Peter Kortenhoeven all swore by Trello for daily task management and product development.
13. LastPass
Anthony Di Iorio, who founded Decentral, Jaxx and Ethereum, understands the importance of security and encryption in the digital age. He uses LastPass because it allows him to manage a complex and diverse collection of passwords and stay secure.
14. The Top Inbox
Following up with emails in your inbox is mentally draining. Laurent Le Moal, who led Paypal’s expansion into Europe, relies on The Top Inbox to track email opens, schedule emails and set auto-followups from inside his Gmail for Business account.
15. Hubspot
CEOs are in a constant battle to build a pipeline, manage their leads and close deals. Award-winning journalist and Biluu founder Peter Aronson uses the Hubspot CRM to generate leads, close deals, and manage his sources and pipeline.
16. SocialRank.com
Eduardo Gonzalez has been hired by Tai Lopez and Gary Vaynerchuk to help grow their Instagram accounts, and he could not have done it without SocialRank.com, which analyzes followers and helps build a plan for finding more.
17. IFTTT
The magic automation software IFTTT can be used for social media, personal to-do lists or smart devices in your home. Amarpreet Kalkat, of consumer data company Frrole, swears by it.
18. Zapier
Another automation platform powering the backend of more businesses than you’d expect is Zapier. While building a business teaching kids to code, Piper CEO Tommy Gibbons has been using Zapier to automate tasks to save time.
Related: The 25 Best U.S. Cities for Tech Startups
19. Yesware
From mail merges to tracking and scheduling, Yesware is an industry solution for sales leaders and CEOs like Darian Shirazi of business-to-business intelligence and data company Radius.
20. Ahrefs
Ahrefs offers a suite of tools to improve your search traffic, research competitors and monitor a specific niche. Truebill founder Yahya Mokhtarzada and Matt Kepnes, of the popular travel site nomadicmatt.com, have used it to each carve out their own corner of the internet.
21. HelpScout
On his way to bootstrapping his SaaS company, KickOffLabs, to $75,000 monthly recurring revenue and over 1,000 customers, CEO Josh Ledgard relied on HelpScout to power his support team and provide great customer service.
22. ChartMogul
CEO of Reply.io Oleg Campbell uses ChartMogul to quickly create unit economic reports so he can spot trends in his customer base. He also uses it for cohort analysis and other financial and retention metrics.
23. BuzzSumo
Sujan Patel of WebProfits appreciates that all companies need to market with original content. He uses BuzzSumo to analyze what content performs best and find the key influencers to promote his content.
24. Skype
Entrepreneur Scott Duffy speaks around the world and has a global audience, so he needs Skype. Since Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 million more than six years ago, it is still the go-to solution for international communications and video chat, despite increased pressure from companies like Zoom.
25. TopTal
Hiring freelancers is my number one piece of advice for entrepreneurs just getting started. You’ll save money and maintain flexibility. Johnny Reinsch of Qwil echoes this sentiment and has used TopTal to grow his development resources fast.
26. Stripe
First PayPal revolutionized the world of online payments. Next, Stripe came in and built an even more complete toolkit for online business. Now, Hummingbird VC Dominik Vacikar and many more recommend it for running your business.
27. DuoLingo
Luke Stronach, who runs a farmland fund, uses DuoLingo to teach himself new languages in a fun and engaging way. The Pittsburgh-based company is expanding into a more comprehensive education suite.
28. Lever
When you raise $8.5 million like Craig McLuckie of Heptio, you have to hire fast. McLuckie recommends Lever to streamline the hiring process and simplify the tracking of applicants.
29. Kajabi
Online courses and membership sites continue to proliferate and serve as a way for entrepreneurs to scale their knowledge. If you’re not going to put it on a platform like Udemy, then use Kajabi to maintain sole ownership of the revenues.
30. LeanStack
LeanStack is a one-page business plan template created by Ash Maurya that helps you deconstruct your idea into its key assumptions using nine basic building blocks. Lifelong entrepreneur and CEO of Hatchbuck, Don Breckenridge, recommends more entrepreneurs utilize it.
31. Canary
Gavin Zuchlinski, who founded No. four tool Acuity, uses Canary as an all-in-one solution for home security and privacy.
To see what tools all 700 CEOs are using along with their 2016 revenues, customer counts and more business intelligence data, check out this database.
Source link
