39 Entrepreneurs Share the Tools and Resources They Swear By

Two people l sharing tools on a tablet.

There are a variety of useful resources available to entrepreneurs when launching and growing a company. From productivity apps to collaboration software, the right startup tools can help you streamline your processes and gain a competitive edge. 

We asked 39 founders to share the resources they swear by to keep their startup running smoothly. Here’s what they said.

Must-Have Resources for Startup Founders

1. Diony McPherson, Paperform

“Check out The Lean Canvas when you’re ready to get started to help put your idea to the test.

Use sites like BetaList to get your product in people’s hands fast. 

Consider announcing your launch on Product Hunt to attract users that love trying out new tech.”

See our full interview with the founder of software startup Paperform.

2. Frank DiZenzo, Ownwell

Brex.”

Read the complete interview with the founder of proptech startup Ownwell.

3. John Taylor Garner, Card Curator

“We use Segment as our analytic hooks for user conversions and follow-throughs. We also use Amplitude to measure user acquisition and engagement within our app. As for marketing, we use HubSpot to measure our web traffic, publish and analyze our blog posts, and send out our newsletters.”

Check out our interview with the founder of fintech startup Card Curator.

4. Olly Jones, elmo

Notion — we use it for everything. It’s our team brain!”

Read the full interview with the founder of automotive startup elmo.

5. Frida Leibowitz, Rachel Lauren, and Maxime Fourmault, Debbie

Notion and Slack — these are our primary sources of truth in terms of communication and project management.”

Check out our interview with the founders of fintech startup Debbie.

6. Joe Roets, Dragonchain

Google G Suite.”

See the complete interview with the founder of blockchain startup Dragonchain.

7. Fabiënne Overbeek, Grow a Wish

Youtube, I learned almost everything about creating a website, a webshop and a lot of marketing tricks.”

Read the complete interview with the founder of sustainable startup Grow a Wish.

8. Miriam Brafman, Packlane

“The most under-the-radar resource has been the eCommerceFuel forum run by Andrew Youderian. I joined the forum shortly after launching Packlane, and the community quality, forum content, and events have been invaluable for me as I’ve scaled Packlane. I learn a tremendous amount from the other entrepreneurs I’ve connected with there, and it has helped me avoid many costly mistakes and course-correct along the way. I can’t recommend it enough for other ecommerce entrepreneurs out there looking for peer-to-peer learning opportunities, relationships, and relevant content.”

Read our interview with the founder of packaging startup Packlane.

9. Evan Buist, Melodie

“There are numerous, but I could never give up Slack or Asana.”

Check out the full interview with the founder of music tech startup Melodie.

10. Alex Iceman, Genium

Slack, Jira, and Salesforce.”

See the complete interview with the founder of tech startup Genium.

11. Sonja Ebron, Courtroom5

Jira is indispensable for herding developers and building/maintaining tech.”

Check out our interview with the founder of legal tech startup Courtroom5.

12. Neeraj Gupta, Salonist

Trello helps me to manage business tasks and Zoho for managing emails.”

Read the full interview with the founder of beauty tech startup Salonist.

13. Artem Semjanow, Neatsy

“Everyday tools like Trello and Notion. I am also a big fan of QBO and Brex cause it saves my time on things that I don’t like. And I am also a Jedi Master of Slack and Figma.”

See our complete interview with the founder of AI startup Neatsy.

14. Tyler Gottstein, Cadi

“Tyler and the entire Cadi team are very thankful for all of the help and resources of StartEngine. We continue to support StartEngine’s efforts to support startups and early-growth companies, and their efforts to continuously connect investors at all levels to support entrepreneurs.”

Read our interview with the founder of sports tech startup Cadi.

15. Ziarekenya Smith, Inpathy

Adobe Suite and Sketch

Check out the complete interview with the founder of social media startup Inpathy.

16. Keeley Edens and Jessica Gaughan, Plan Voyage

“We’ve used Canva every single day since we’ve had the idea. From social media to pitch decks and everything in between.”

Read the full interview with the founders of event tech startup Plan Voyage.

17. Alex Ditzel, TripLegend

Slack and Slite.”

See our interview with the founder of travel startup TripLegend.

18. Greg Rozdeba, Dundas Life

“There are very few things a good Trello board can’t do.”

Check out our interview with the founder of insurtech startup Dundas Life.

19. Daria Luczkowski, Mia Bella Company

Canva and Shopify.”

Read the complete interview with the founder of ecommerce startup Mia Bella Company.

20. Devon Copley, Avatour

“A big challenge as a startup CEO is financial forecasts. The inputs can change pretty dramatically, and it’s hard to keep actuals updated in an Excel spreadsheet. I’ve been using a terrific new product from a fellow startup called Pry. It integrates directly with QuickBooks for past actuals while providing comprehensive tools for modeling hiring, revenue, and expenses. Highly recommended.”

See the full interview with the founder of VR startup Avatour.

21. Kerry Cooke, Spleash

HARO, Help A Reporter Out, is an amazing resource and a great way to get some PR.”

See our interview with the founder of pet startup Spleash.

22. Elnaz Sarraf, ROYBI

Google Suite, Zoom, and Dropbox are an essential part of our company’s growth, especially since most of us are working remotely from all around the world.”

Check out the full interview with the founder of edtech startup ROYBI.

23. Rachel Cossar and Neal Kaiser, Virtual Sapiens

Slack and Carta.”

See our complete interview with the founders of AI startup Virtual Sapiens.

24. Joshua Sear, Empower

“We have built our own internal dashboards and reporting tools. We also use G-Suite, Slack, Zoom, Zendesk, and Monday.com.”

Read our interview with the founder of SaaS startup Empower.

25. Josh Schwede & Scott Fowle, SPOTLYFE

“Outside of Zoom, which is necessary for most remote-first teams, we found quickly that we love and couldn’t live without Calendly. It saves so much time on the back-and-forth of scheduling so you can stay focused on the things that matter most.”

Read the full interview with the founders of SaaS startup SPOTLYFE.

26. Boris Sokolov and Peter Ivanov, Microweber

“We are using frameworks to follow the standards in Internet development. A few of them are Laravel and Bootstrap.”

See our interview with the founders of tech startup Microweber.

27. Justin Powell, Miniature Mail

“I use WooCommerce frequently and very much appreciate how much you can do with it for free.”

Read the full interview with the founder of ecommerce startup Miniature Mail.

28. Timur Chernenko, Gurucan

Scale or Die.”

Check out the complete interview with the founder of SaaS startup Gurucan.

29. Eric Ingram, Swell

Gitlab has such a deep and flexible feature base and [has] been one of the most important tools for our product and engineering teams. I’d swear by it.”

Read our interview with the founder of software startup Swell.

30. Roei Samuel, Connectd

“I used Headspace for meditation purposes, and it really helps.”

See the full interview with the founder of fintech startup Connectd.

31. Fran Villalba Segarra, Internxt

Stripe.”

Check out our interview with the founder of tech startup Internxt

32. Graham Wong, LAUFT

EOS — Entrepreneurial Operating System.”

Read our complete interview with the founder of LAUFT.

33. Reuben Swartz, Mimiran

Mimiran, of course. I’ve also become a fan of Superhuman for email.”

See the full interview with the founder of SaaS startup Mimiran.

34. Prasoon Shrivastava, Zepth

“We use Atlassian development and collaboration tools for product development and HubSpot for sales management.”

Check out our interview with the founder of proptech startup Zepth.

35. Guillermo Cornejo, Riders Share

“I love Google Data Studio and Google Bigquery for data reporting, [they are] very easy to use.”

Read the complete interview with the founder of marketplace startup Riders Share.

36. Dayana Doncheva, EcardForest

“That’s certainly Gimp — our beloved open-source illustration software.”

See our full interview with the founder of virtual gifting startup EcardForest.

37. Teddy Chestnut, BrightHire

Slack, Notion, and Superhuman (for managing my inbox). Superhuman is also a client.”

Check out our interview with the founder of HR tech startup BrightHire.

38. Oliver Rodwell, Reread

ClickUp – it’s how we organise our working lives.”

Read the complete interview with the founder of AI startup Reread.

39. Philip Verzun, Consorto

Pipedrive.”

See our full interview with the founder of real estate startup Consorto.

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