Toolstacks
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Tool Stacks of Highly Effective Startups and People
Includes software and non-software tools, e.g. workflows, management frameworks. #connectordoc #curatedlist .
Contribute at the top of “Inbox ” section or Real Startups’ Toolstacks section!
Inbox Misc Uncategorized #toFile 2
Info source 3
Real Startups’ Toolstacks 5
Ideaflow (Seed+ stage) 5
Romain Paulus (Stealth) 6
Final 6
Dark 7
Fragments 7
New parts of Shadi’s stack 7
M W’s stack (Seed stage ops): 7
Tools by Category 7
Cap Table Management 7
Collaboration 7
Recruiting 8
Good Retained Recruiting Services 8
Making Homepages 8
Making Pitch Decks 9
Design 9
Development 9
Debugging 9
Ergonomics 9
Other Electronic Hardware 9
Personal ToolStacks 10
Toolstacks to Support Neurodiversity 11
Non-software tools, e.g. management frameworks. 12
Inbox Misc Uncategorized #toFile
Corey Nobile (ODS)
stack
- roam research (notes, long form)
- neo4j (customer, investor, team, etc database)
- notion (company intranet)
- superhuman (email)
- apify (scraping)
- hemingway (copy analysis)
- super (notion websites)
- https://synosearch.com/ (AI search for good research literature)
Adam Reis
Rippling for HR/IT management, Carta, loads of GSuite (HIPAA compliant, so we put lots of stuff there that other companies might put in email/slack), Notion (although very redundant with how we use gdocs right now - haven’t quite figured this out), Trello (thinking of switching to Linear or Asana soon), Metabase for BI (just setting up now), going to set up Lever or Ashby as a recruiting ATS/CRM in the coming weeks, HIPAA compliant Zoom, Slack, Nick and I use Superhuman,
That’s the short version; let me know if you have any questions about how we use specific tools!
Brandon T
the company used: definitely notion for org knowledge store (onboarding, design specs (explained from a figma/sketch file), roadmapping, general writings, RFCs, GTM, etc. etc.). we used clubhouse (jira alternative), metabase, slack, carta, amplitude, segment, loom, probably some other tools i'm forgetting about
David Ernst
I use Google Docs/Sheets heavily, don’t use Notion, Carta, or linear.app currently
New parts of Shadi’s stack:
Monday.com for team task management, Atom teletype for pair programming, Pastel for leaving design feedback on live pages.
Anthony (Namebase)
Hey! Sure, we stopped using notion like 18mos ago since the web UI got prohibitively slow when we started to have bigger / more complicated docs. We're forced to port everything to Google docs then, which we still use. Maybe they've fixed their perf issues now but back then it was not tolerable
For code pairing we'll ssh into a server with a tmux session, which achieves this --^, but there are some issues (no multiple cursors) so it doesn't quite solve the problem. High barrier to get started too
Info source
https://founderkit.com/
https://capiche.com/
Capiche is a repository of information and discussions about the software we use to get things done. Instead of relying on agenda-driven sales, marketing, and customer success teams, we can rely on each other.
What split inboxes do you use in Superhuman?
#book The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building Kindle Edition
Tags:, hire, services, Hires, &, services, that, you, should, put, extra, effort, towards, in, hiring/securing
Lawyer
Bank account (Mercury recommended by AbstractOps (over Chase, SVB, First Republic, etc.)
Services that are more or less commoditized
Bookkeeper, payroll, designer (Fiverr and Upwork offer great contracted design services)
Landing page not super important early on
Tags:, interviewing
Engr
http://codingchallenge.jacobcole.net/
Interview Flow from Binc
Chief of Staff
#todo #private Interview Guide for Chief of Staff
Tags:, chromeExtension
Tabs Outliner
1Tab
Quick Tabs (search/switch tabs)
Hunter: Find email addresses in seconds
GSuite Tricks
When to make emails like [email protected] users instead of groups on GSuite – reason if you want to be able to send an email from hiring and it's a group it's not elegant to do that . Similarly want to be able to send emails from:
Support
Sales
Info
It’s not necessary to make [email protected] a user because if the chief of staff changes, you can just setup email forwarding or an auto-responder & be sure to cc [email protected] on anything worth archiving which would forward to [email protected]
Make [email protected] a user not a group
Preventing read receipts in Superhuman
Command + K → Image settings → block all tracking pixels
https://www.insynchq.com good tool for syncing/backing up locally personal and work google drive #tool. Also w/e support chat platform they use is slick
Drip campaign tools
https://www.persistiq.com/
https://vocus.io/ <> mike’s friend
https://www.streak.com/ – now fairly expensive
Mailchimp +1 ~JM
Real Startups’ Toolstacks
Ideaflow (Seed+ stage)
Slack, Figma+Sketch, G-Suite, Zoom, namecheap.com (not great UI), name.com (slightly better, but still imperfect UI, more expensive)
GetCloudApp.com (gif capture), Screen.so (really good remote collaboration shared mouse), Superhuman for email, Dropbox Paper for some random side tasks (often used big/small, urgent/non-urgent table for task prioritization), 1Password, SimpleNote (for quick plain text knowledge capture/scratchpad synced with phone), InSync for syncing google drive, Otter.ai for incredibly good voice transcription for meeting notes, Speechify - incredibly good text-to-speech for turning articles/books into audio content (can convert from a picture), Voice Record Pro for low-space audio recording, Keyboard Maestro for recording and executing key strokes
Magic Virtual Assistant service (used to send NDAs, pay parking tickets and simple tasks. Only somewhat competent, but cheap & mostly but not perfectly reliable on basic things)
DocuSign for legal document templates, sending out employment contracts, etc. (Hellosign may have better UI)
Gusto (payroll), Zenefits (benefits; fyi Blueshield Platinum Healthcare is good for things like acupuncture). Independent remote accountant (Los Gatos/UKB) , QuickBooks. Silicon Valley Bank (decent interest rate, UX is clunky, recommended First Republic). Brex credit cards (has receipt tracking/good UX), not using Brex cash as of 6/2020 (not great interest rate). WSGR + Gunderson law firm (possibly rec. Gunderson or others over WSGR). GivingTrax for donation matching & tracking
Linear.app for Eng task management, Notion for specs. React, Typescript, VSCode/IntelliJ IDE, Logrocket, Firestore + AWS/MySQL, Github. Vercel for deployments
Medium for blog
Logging
Matomo - for user analytics, moved off of google analytics
Sentry - Errors
Thistle.co for healthy meal delivery. Mealsquares.com, Owyn (Tumeric “Mylk” - protein/meal shakes).
Jarvis standing desk (with FluidStance balance board & Sidekick rolling locking cushioned file cabinet, exercise ball for sitting), Roost portable laptop stand
Tile for finding things (laptop, car keys, backpack)
Accelerators: StartX (Applied/accepted as non-Stanford founder. Turned down YC)
FoundersPledge - supportive community
Leadership/Employee Development: Nonviolent Communications/CLG (Conscious Leadership Group)
First Round Mentors, StartX Mentors. MIT VMS (Venture Mentoring Services) Mentors
Management
- nvctranslator.com - Translate Any Text into NVC – Nonviolent Communication
-
Learning NVC
-
Learning CLG (Conscious Leadership Group) Principles
Romain Paulus (Stealth)
We're using Notion for our docs, although we used Quip until last month, I forgot why we switched.
We use Carta for stock grants too.
Azure for cloud infrastructure and deployment.
Github for codebase management.
Mailchimp for newsletters.
That's about it for now, but we'll keep adding more as we progress in the startup.
Final
Internal Comms
Slack, GSuite
Customer Support
Zendesk, Intercom (eventually dropped)
Customer/Potential Customer Comms
Mailchimp, Twitter
Ops
Gusto, Metabase
Dark
Internal Comms
Slack, GSuite
Ops
Gusto, Segment, Heap, Brex
Customer Comms
Mailchimp, Mailgun, Twitter, Slack
Fragments
New parts of Shadi’s stack
Monday.com for team task management, Atom teletype for pair programming, Pastel for leaving design feedback on live pages.
https://mocharymethod.org/
M W’s stack (Seed stage ops):
pocket evernote zoom grammarly adblock lastpass docsend vocus (later:) hubspot.
Tools by Category
Cap Table Management
Carta (also does 409A) – $6k+ / yr
https://captable.io/
https://pulley.com/
Collaboration
Screen.so - Really good remote mouse pairing/double mouse controlling from the screen hero guys
Notion.so - For team wiki (some UX complaints, but is useful to have even if you have G-Suite)
Standard Stuff:
Slack
G-Suite - Google drive, gmail, etc for enterprise
Figma - For design. Lacks certain drawing features, like magic wand, so you still need sketch and/or photoshop on the side
Airtable - FYI, good for dashboard for presentation purposes & visual links between shared tags
Recruiting
Post on http://hiringlist.jacobcole.net/
Small Co
Lever.co – not needed if hiring through your network (#ats applicant tracking system)
Or Greenhouse.io #ats
Triplebyte – was good a few years ago, may suck now
Good for after the first few hires:
Up and Coming: Dover https://www.dover.io/ –
Maybe https://www.turing.com/ #remote?
Good Retained Recruiting Services
Generally don’t recommend retained recruiting services for early stage – really #doubledown on going through your network
ParkerRemick.com (esp. For executive recruiting / later stage but can also do principal engineer. #expensive. $100k for 6 mo search for 1 hire. Less for add-on hires)
https://www.bincsearch.com/ – worked well for some people to find principal engineers. Varies depending on quality of your recruiter there. ~$20k/mo.
Making Homepages
As of Jun 2020, Webflow.com is best for no-code or semi-no-code editing
Webpage screen capture #tool: Full Page Screen Capture
Making Pitch Decks
Google Sheets
Beautiful.ai
Design
Looka - Awesome automatic logo generator with AI
Invision App - For sharing moodboards. Google docs also works ok for this
Figma - For design. Lacks certain drawing features, like magic wand, so you still need sketch and/or photoshop on the side
Photopea - browser based graphics editor (strong parity with Photoshop)
Development
Vercel.com (Formerly Zeit) - Allows you to easily make PHP-style webpages with JavaScript and generally fixes a lot of modern issues with frontend development
Retool.com -
Debugging
Logrocket - Logs the exact state of the application in a user session
Cloud App - Really quickly create and share quick gifs of what’s on your screen and/or screenshots with a link
Ergonomics
Buy 10+ reehut or other yoga blocks for ergonomics (can prop up laptop for video calls, prop up your elbows for using your phone and do many other things)
Roost portable laptop stand
Tags:, t, extended, monitor, arm, with, VESA, mounts
Tags:, t, Jacob’s, reconfigurable, iPad, case,, airpod, keychain, case
Ergodocs EZ split keyboard on mounted with rubberbands to metal vertical kinesis freestyle keyboard (tent) kit to make it vertical.
Rsiwiki.jacobcole.net
Other Electronic Hardware
Anker charging brick #t lookup on amazon & donglehub for newer macbook
Personal ToolStacks
Danish
My current stack is as follows
Obsidian: super fast note taking / research / “zettelkasten” SideKick (new browser: faster shortcuts / separation between “work apps” and general web browsing… automatic memory-saving/tab-killing. auto ad-block etc… allowing me to get rid of all the electron apps from my desktop )
1. Obsidian
2. SideKick
3. Todoist for fast todos everywhere. 4. Maybe a few times a week: notion for managing blocks related to projects/project management (esp. Timelines!).
Ilya Gulko
“I am so grateful that I am going to bed at the perfect time for me, falling asleep easily, sleeping restfully and comfortably, and waking up at the perfect time for me, refreshed and ready to take on the day.”
“Show me how good it can get, Universe!”
qutebrowser
IntelliJ
Pollyanna Framework, ex: flyerian.com, ilyagulko.com, shitmyself.com (human/human), 26-110.com
Alan Indie Hacker
Web Prototyping / Boilerplates
https://tailwindui.com/components/marketing/page-examples/landing-pages
https://www.fontshare.com/fonts/satoshi
NextJS
Vedant
Startup:
PostHog for user tracking
Ilya M
Streaks - habit tracker
Jack J
Loom.com
Ublock Origin
Allen L
Next.js
shadcn/ui
v0.dev
PostHog
Toolstacks to Support Neurodiversity
ADHD
https://www.focusmate.com/
Chiropractic adjustment, esp nonforce chiropractic
Software
quickey
Tourettes
Channeling tics as kundalini activation #WIP
Channel with qigong http://qigong.garden/ #WIP
Release with Svaroopa Yoga svaroopa.org
Stuttering
Wayne Cooke Posture
Aspergers, Introversion
Algorithm for Real Empathy: Learn NVC (Nonviolent Communication)
http://nvctranslator.com/
Intro video
Bipolar
Meditating with Lawrence Levy & Segyu Rinpoche
The Neurodiverse Startup Ecosystem resource list
Non-software tools, e.g. management frameworks.
Justin Goldman Accelerated Empathy