The epic christmas list of lifesaving startup tools

44 Must-Have Tools And Resources For The Startup Hustler

Merry Christmas! Here is our gift to you…A list! Everyone’s favourite.

Our team of designers, project managers, developers, sales and marketers have all rounded up their favourite online tools that will be invaluable to your startup in 2016!

Bookmark this list of startup tools to make 2016 a massive year for your startup growth.

Design Tools

startup design tools

  1. Canva – Simplest graphic design tool in the world with drag and drop elements and templates.

2. Skitch – An editing tool that lets you scribble on any document or image, with the aim to reduce the amount of text on your website.

3. Makerbook – A directory that categorises sites according to what resources they offer (stock photos, etc), so you can easily search, find and compare offerings.

4. Camtasia – Simple video editor and screen recorder for the novice videographer

5. Piktochart – A graphic design app for making your own high quality infographics

6. Pttrns.com – Mobile designs, screenflows and resources for app design inspiration

7. Unsplash – Beautifully minimalist, royalty free stock photography

8. Gratisography – Free high-resolution stock photography for all kinds of commercial applications

8. Flickr Creative Commons – Flickr’s hub where users can share their photography for public use

9. Subtle Patterns – Free background textures for web and image design

10. The Noun Project – Over 150,000 icons from designers all over the world

11. Dribbble – A ‘show and tell’ for designers of logos, icons, websites, apps and more

Project Management/Collaboration Tools

startup management tools

12. Trello – Completely customisable organisation tool for project management, to do lists, calendars and more

13. Asana – A web and mobile application designed to help teams track their work

14. Slack – Real-time instant messaging for work teams, with the aim to one day replace email altogether!

15. Streak – A useful Gmail tool for customer relationship management to manage and share your sales leads

16. Dropbox – Store your files in one place and sync and share easily with team members.

Marketing Tools

startup marketing tools

17. Mention – Real-time media monitoring tool that notifies you when someone mentions your startup online or links to your website

18. Mailchimp – Email marketing service for sending emails to contacts and tracking email analytics

19. Buzzsumo – Find the most shared and trending content in real time, and identify key influencers in your industry

20. SEMrush – Useful tool for online competitive analysis, allows you to research backlinks and keyword rankings.

21. Buffer – A social media management tool for sharing, scheduling and publishing on all your social media accounts in the one place.

22. Instapage – Easy tool for building high converting landing pages on your website.

23. Quicklytics – Google Analytics in a mobile app, showing you only your most important website stats in real time.

24. Survey Monkey – Create, publish and share surveys easily, or customise dozens of templates for common topics like idea validation, target market research and user feedback.

25. Sensor Tower – A suite of products for app store optimisation and up to date intelligence on the app stores.

26. Crazy Egg – A tool that provides heat map and scroll map reports to analyse your website’s visitor engagement and ‘visualise where they click’.

27. Optimizely – A/B testing and personalisation to optimise your website and mobile apps.

28. Ritetag – Tool for selecting the most effective, high traffic Twitter hashtags for greater tweet exposure and cut through

29. Livechat – Website chat and customer service software for answering customer questions (look to the bottom right of your screen and say hi to Kate…)

30. Google Keyword Planner – A free Adwords tool to help you identify which keywords to target and generate hundreds of keyword combinations in seconds

31. Sumo Me – A suite of awesome free tools for growing your website’s traffic, including call to actions, social sharing tools and list builders.

32. Disqus – A blog comment hosting service for websites and online communities that easily syncs with your social media profiles

Random Tools For Your Belt

startup random tools

33. Docusign – An electronic signature tool that also lets you easily exchanges contracts and signed documents with other parties.

34. Evernote – A mobile and web app for storing all your notes, ideas, photos and more.

35. Camscanner – An app to turn your phone or tablet into a document scanner for easy sharing.

36. Pocket – A place to store all the articles, videos and documents you want to read later. Synchronises across social media, email and everything else.

37. Pitch Envy – Startup pitch decks and pitch advice for inspiration

38. elance – A community of over 2 million freelance copywriters, designers, translators, etc for hire

Startup Learning Hubs To Bookmark

startup learning resources

39. Hubspot blog – Your first stop for any question about marketing or sales.

40. SEO Moz – Data-fuelled insights for improving your startup’s online visibility.

41. Foundr Magazine podcast – Insightful interviews with the world’s greatest entrepreneurs on topics designed to help you with your own startup.

42. Seth Godin’s Startup School Podcast – Marketing and business guru Seth guides thirty entrepreneurs through a workshop exploring how they can build and run their dream business.

43. Contently – Best blog for learning how to create engaging content that generates leads and sales.

44. The Buzinga Podcast – Shameless plug, I know. Each week I walk you through a topic that will help you launch and scale your tech startup!

Got any other must have startup tools you think I should add to this list? Please let me know in the comments below!

Where to go next

5 Lessons Every Startup Entrepreneur Must Learn

The 2 Forgotten Secrets To Startup Success

10 Fatal Commandments Of Building A Startup

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Logan Merrick is the co-founder and Director of Buzinga, as well as one of Australia's most recognised entrepreneurs, keynote speakers, investors and mentors. His writing on startups, technology and mobile marketing has been featured in The Australian, Business Insider, Startup Smart, Smart Company, and more.
  • Logan, Amazing list for start-up business and lots of tools i am using in my routine life.

  • Milo

    Saved it to bookmarks, thanks a lot! Also try Deskun for customer support and task management inside Gmail.

  • Ava Raynott

    Great list. Canva is the best designing tool; Buffer and mention for marketing; and ProofHub ( which is surprisingly not on the list) for project management. These are my top tools. Thanks for the list :)