Tools to Love as a Startup Founder

Roses are red, violets are blue, being a founder can be tough, but tools can help you make it through!

I wanted to share some of my favorite sweet tools in a Valentine’s Day themed round up, and be sure to let me know what are your favorites.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I wanted to share some of the startup tools and tricks I am loving:

1. Yep.so

This is the epitome of AI for good. With this easy tool, you can create an MVP or landing page in literally 15 minutes or less. This is the go to recommendation I make when someone wants to test their idea in a fast and scrappy way. With their AI integrations, they can even find or create images and text to support the process.

2. Descript

Descript is one of my favorite AI tools because it does so much. You can create recordings, podcasts, descriptions, and with its AI, you can turn videos and audio to transcripts. And my favorite thing—which if you are better at reviewing text and making edits than chopping videos—is you can edit your transcript and it will reflect the changes on the audio or video. Boom. Efficiency captured.

3. Canva

Canva is one of the best all around design tools I recommend. You can create stationery, mock ups, social media images, logos, really anything you can put your mind to. They can great integrations as well such as a QR code generator and image editing tools. Even with their free trial, you can go a long way.

4. Airtable

Airtable is like Google Sheets with extra power and punch. You can create and manage databases in a sleek way. Perfect for your CRM or outreach list, qualifying your leads, or just keeping all the thoughts in your head in one place. Also, it has the capacity to build or be the back end of applications. Very cool!

5. Trello

If you are more inclined to visuals when planning your content or mapping out your product development, Trello is the tool for you. It allows you to build our various dashboards, Kan Bans, and process flows. (And it is super easy to share with any teams or freelancers too!)

6. Buy Me a Coffee

Tipping is everywhere, but if you are a service provider or creator, Buy-Me-a-Coffee is more than just a virtual tip jar. It is advanced enough to run easy to manage memberships or subscriptions from this platform. (I know some people who ran their first year of business just from this platform alone!)

7. Zapier

Zapier is an AI automation tool that acts as glue between different platforms and products. It is a one stop powerhouse. For example, if you want to run a google form and then automatically send a thank you email afterwards (in a way sewing a process of forms with email), you can do that. (And so much more!) You have a number of free ‘zaps’ to play with, so be sure to check it out.

8. Notion

Notion is an amazing all-in-one tool. You can host your CRM, websites, databases, and so much more. I have seen people run their content calendar planning, documents, datarooms, and workshops all through Notion. It is a productivity platform that really allows you to customize for your needs.

Those are just a few things I am loving, but would love to hear any tools and tricks you think would be helpful to share amongst student founders.

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If this has been useful to you or if you have feedback to improve, please drop me a quick line. Or share with a friend!