Tools

We often get asked what we software we use to run this site and also what tools the companies we interview use. Today, I'm going to share all of the tools we use and some additional ones that come a lot in interviews.

Here is a list of the 29 tools we use and have most often seen founders use to take businesses from idea to actual revenue. We may include affiliate links below if relevant. I've included two books come up in interviews a lot and personally love.

Website Builder

• Webflow - This what we use to run Project Hatch. It is the most customisable website builder.

Screen Recorder

• SmartLook - Watch how users interact with your site.

Books

• Hooked - My favourite start-up book, it goes into to detail on how to build habit-forming products that keep people coming back.
• Traction - Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares discuss 19 channels to gain traction (customers) for a product or service, and we tend to only look at a few we might be familiar with.

Keywords

• SEMrush - Full domain analysis
• Answer The Public - Longtail keywords and questions
• Ahrefs - Free backlink checker
• Google Keyword Planner - Google's keyword tool‍

Competitor Research

• Similarweb - See how many visits a site gets‍
• Alexa Ranking - Another tool to measure site visits‍
• Search Console - Google search tool

Email Providers

• Email Octopus - Free up to 2,500 subscribers
• Klaviyo - Perfect for ecommerce stores who need automation

Outreach

• Hunter - Finding and verifying emails. Find the right people and don't bounce.

Avoid Distraction

• Self Control - For Mac
• Cold Turkey - For Windows

Media Coverage

• SourceBottle - Media callouts
• HARO - Largest network of reports
• Angel List - Huge startup directory

Colour Picker

• Colour Hunt - Helps with finding a brandable colour palette.

Free Legal Docs

• Kiss
• Docracy

Social

• Loomly - Social Media Automation

Analytics + Reporting

• Google Analytics - Industry Standard for top level metrics
• Supermetrics - Automation for reporting

Outsourcing

• Online Jobs - Hire VA's

Image Editors

• Canva - Great free plan for editing photos and creating logos
• Placeit - Mockups for designs and products
• Tiny JPG - JPEG and PNG compression
• Compressor.io - Reduce image size by around 90%

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This list will continue to grow so please reach out with any tools you love and I will check them out!