This page links some of my recommended resources.
Some are free, some are paid.1Please see my obligatory FTC Disclosure as well.
These are all things I have personally used or implemented for clients and decided “hey, that’s pretty cool, I should tell others about that”.
If you have your own resources that you like, send me a message and I’ll take a look.
Business Apps and Systems
I also have a complete guide to the essential apps for modern businesses.
- WP Engine for managed WordPress website hosting. Includes daily backups, 24/7 live chat support, free Genesis themes and more. This site is hosted with them.
- WP Rocket for speeding up WordPress in the background.
- Amazon Web Services for basically everything else. You can host domains, route DNS, easily deploy/scale web apps and more. Google Cloud is a strong competitor.
- ActiveCampaign for email marketing and a basic CRM. High deliverability, good onboarding/support, and easy to use once you get used to the structure. CRM is very basic compared to Pipedrive and SalesForce but it gets the job done.
- Google Drive for cloud storage. I used to recommend Dropbox but Google Drive outpaces in terms of value for money.
- Google Workspace (formerly Google Apps and GSuite) for your office apps and video conferencing via Google Meet.
- Calendly for hassle-free scheduling and meetings. No more “are you free on…” email chains.
- Notion as a knowledge/systems management system and company wiki. It acts as your internal wiki where all your SOPs and more can go. It took me a while to switch over from the more traditional Confluence setup but Notion’s feature set including Notion AI has pulled it far ahead of its competitors.
- Asana for project management. Great for teams that don’t have their workflow built into a CRM or for non-technical teams that don’t need something as complex as Jira.
- Slack for team communications, mastermind groups, client groups and more.
- Canva for graphics. Paid accounts are scarily inexpensive for teams and you get access to a web-first graphics app, collaboration options, stock photos and more. I haven’t had a need for any Adobe or Affinity software since.
Personal Apps
- Things for task management and personal project management.
- Bear for handling journals, personal processes, documents, records etc. I used to recommend Evernote but they are having trouble with their billing system so I couldn’t renew my subscription 🤷♂️.
- Mimestream for email. I’ve used this since the beta version and it’s great. Only works with Google email accounts and provides access to keyboard shortcuts, multi-account access, a unified inbox and more.
- Screenflow for recording screen tutorials. Also has a very powerful built-in timeline editor.
- SetApp is a monthly subscription of applications that is invaluable for anyone who uses a Mac. I’ll have an article on this at some point, but some of my favourites right now include Path Finder, BusyCal, Ulysses and Bartender.
- Sublime Text for general text notes and coding. I have heard good things about Visual Studio Code but have not used it as extensively.
- Please see my obligatory FTC Disclosure as well.