Entrepreneur/Startup Resources & Tools–Nov ’12
I am frequently asked for recommended resources and tools for entrepreneurs and startups. So here is a list of tools, blogs and other resources that I have personally used and would use again in my startups. There are many other options that aren’t on my list, but I have limited the list to options I’ve used or worked with recently and they tend towards my home base of SoCal. I also left some obvious options off because of bad experiences with them. I’ll try to update this every so often, so it keeps fresh with the ever changing startup landscape and my recent experiences.
Blogs
- Steve Blank
- Startup Lesson Learned–Eric Ries (The Lean Startup)
- For Entrepreneurs–David Skok
- How to Change the World–Guy Kawasaki
- Search Engine Land (SEO)
Books
- Art of the Start–Guy Kawasaki
- The Lean Startup–Eric Ries
- The Startup Owner’s Manual–Steve Blank & Bob Dorf
- Business Model Generation–Alex Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur
- Crossing the Chasm–Geoffrey A. Moore
- The Founder’s Dilemmas–Noam Wasserman
- Running Lean–Ash Maurya
Business & Product Planning
- Lean Canvas (Lean startup business modeling)
- Startup Financial Model
- XMind
- TheBrain
- Mindjet
Email
Calendars & Scheduling
Doc Management/Filesharing/Collaboration/eSignatures
CRM & Sales
Customer Support
- Zendesk
- GetSatistication
- LiveChat (Chat)
- Olark (Chat)
Software Development, Project Management and Team Collaboration
- Github
- Atlassian/JIRA
- Pivotal Tracker
- Team Box
- Hipchat
- Flowdock
- Producteev
- Bootstrap (Front-end HTML5/responsive CSS)
VOIP Business Telephone Systems
- RingCentral (Scalable & Robust)
- Phonebooth (Better for Smaller Needs)
- SnapRecordings (Professional telephone greetings/messages)
Conference Calls & Web Meetings
Administration/HR/General Business Tools
- Expensify
- Quickbooks Online
- Quickbooks Payroll
- Bill.com
- FreshBooks
- Docstoc (Document templates)
- IntelliCorp (Background checks)
Naming
- Domai.nr (Domain name generation and search)
- Nameboy (Domain name generation and search)
- NameStation (Domain name generation and search)
- UpName (Domains for sale)
Domain Registration
Logos & Design
- 99designs (Crowdsourced design)
Website/Software Design & Development
- Lynq Media (Freelance web design & development)
- LiveWebMedia (Website development & marketing)
- New Leaders (Full-service web software development)
Website/App Tools & Services
- LaunchRock (Launching soon pages)
- Amazon Web Services (Cloud datacenter/hosting)
- Rackspace (Cloud datacenter/hosting)
- Pair (Hosting)
- HostGator (Hosting)
- SendGrid (System emails)
- Postmark (System emails)
- New Relic (monitoring & performance man
agement) - Pingdom (Monitoring)
- TRUSTe (Privacy & compliance)
- Google Analytics
- MixPanel (User analytics)
- RapidSSL (SSL certificates)
- Verisign (SSL certificates)
- Zapier (API/web services integration & management)
- BrowserStack (Browser testing tool)
- Loop11 (Usability testing)
- Qualys (Security & compliance)
- Chargify (Subscription based billing)
Marketing
- VerticalResponse (Email)
- Constant Contact (Email)
- MailChimp (Email)
- Campaign Monitor (Email)
- AdSpeed (Online ad serving & management)
- Facebook ads
- LinkedIn ads
- StumbleUpon ads
- Google Adwords (Search advertising)
- Bing Ads (Search advertising)
- SEOmoz (SEO and social media management)
- Unbounce (Landing pages, A/B testing)
- SurveyMonkey (Online surveys)
- Brown & Egusa PR (Tech reporter/bloggers lists)
Investor & Equity Tools
- TruEquity (Cap table management)
- OptionEase (Stock option management and expensing)
- Gust (Angel funding)
- AngelList (Investor matching)
- The Funded (Investor & deal info)
- Caplinked (Investor relations)
Training & Education
Law Firms (Startup Experience)
- Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth (Contact: Mark Skaist)–
- Stubbs Alderton & Markiles (Contact: Kevin DeBré)–Los Angeles
- Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
- Homeier & Law (Contact: Jor Law)–Los Angeles
Intellectual Property (IP) Law Firms
- Lewitt Hackman–Los Angeles
- Fulwider Patton–Los Angeles
- Shaub & Williams–Los Angeles
IP Research
Accountants/CPA
- HKG (Contact: John Gosch)–Los Angeles
Insurance Brokers (Startup Specialists)
- Costello & Sons
- Quickbooks Pay-As-You-Go (Workers’ Comp)
Shared Workspace
- Coloft–Santa Monica
Recruiting
Misc.
- TR Trading (Used office furniture)–Gardena, CA
- Fiverr (Illustrated avatars and small design projects)
- Envato (Digital goods marketplace)
- CrunchBase (Startup company database)
- VentureBeat (Funding news)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- U.S. Bureau
- Melissa DATA (Free data)
- Employer Identification Number registration
Other Tools/Resource Lists
November 14, 2012 @ 10:10 pm
This is a great resource, thank you very much for putting it together for our reference.