5 Under-appreciated Tools I Use and Love
For this week’s Startup Edition a few of us are sharing some of the tools we use. I wanted to give a shout out to 5 tools (software and hardware) that I don’t think get enough hype.
1. Intercom.io #
If you’re building something that connects to the internet and has users you need to be using Intercom. Intercom is an amazing way to figure out who your users are and communicate with them. It’s half help desk, half CRM for your users, half lifecycle marketing tool and 150% awesome. We were early beta testers and are now happy paying customers.
2. Draft #
Draft has made me a better writer, hands down. It’s like Google Docs collaboration and comments but, useful. It makes it easy to share what you’re working on with your team. Every blog post I write goes through Draft, I’ll share a link to the post with a braintrust of fellow bloggers and incorporate their feedback easily.
3. Fagor 3-in-1 #
The kitchen in my tiny NYC apartment barely has room for a Rice Cooker, Pressure Cooker or Slow Cooker. It definitely doesn’t have room for all three. This awesome box is a combo of all three with some nice bonuses like a delay timer. I highly reccomend making some slow cooker carnitas if you pick one of these up. For about 15 dollars in ingredients and almost no effort you’ll end up with four pounds of crispy delicious Carnitas. Turn ‘em into frozen burritos and you’ve got the perfect mid-code snack.
4. TextExpander #
Since I installed TextExpander about 3 months ago, it’s saved me from typing more than 45,000 characters. I have shortcuts for everything from my email signiture to common support request answers I send out. I also have one that automatically adds a link to the Foursquare page every time I send someone an email about meeting at my favorite coffee shop.
5. Venmo #
Venmo is the world’s best mobile app. I find myself evangalizing it almost daily. With Venmo it’s easy to send cash to anyone. I use it to collect rent from my roommate, split lunch costs with my teammates, and charge friends for concert tickets. Download it today. Your life will never be the same again.
For more posts on this topic check out this week’s Startup Edition