I was lucky enough to stumble upon Alpselerator – a start up accelerator week in the French Alps organised by the action-hungry, inspiring and well-connected Jack and Linda from Dream Valley Projects.
The week was unstructured and made up of a great mix of co-working, co-walking, bouncing ideas off each other and (of course) a whole lot of cheese.
Being around this group of techy entrepreneurs gave rise to many conversations about the apps and online tools that make life easier, more organised and above all more purposeful.
Here’s a roundup of their favourite tools and apps by category:
DESIGN AND EDITING
Taking the pain out of on-screen mock ups, LiveSurface provides professional object surface images with expanded surface details to allow for easy and straightforward use.
Platform: Online
Removing the need for fiddly importing from phone to laptop , Pinnacle is an effective video editing app right on your phone.
Platform: iOS
Create attractive, shareable text and image visuals right on your phone. Need an online version? Canva has similar capabilities available online and on iPAD.
Platform: iOS
WORKFLOW / PRODUCTIVITY / TEAM PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Multiple team members working on one document? Slimwiki is a free, easy, great-looking Wiki tool for teams.
Platform: Online (responsive layout)
An Agile project management tool built for software development, Blossom includes a project action plan and a helpful prioritised to-do list, checklists, deadlines and metrics about how successful each project has been.
Platform: Online.
Visual roadmapping for projects that really works for product launches. Includes a list of actions, ability to block out time periods, email reminders just before deadlines, colour coded. Great for multiple teams working on a project.
Platform: Online
This widely used team communications platform is great collaboration tool. Separate project rooms can be set up (finance, studio, random), automated messages can fire out WiFi passwords when they are requested and addon Slackbot can be your digital personal assistant, help you take notes and bring them up at request later.
Platform: iOS / Android / Windows phone / Online
ORGANISATION
Ever struggled to showcase collections? This app helps you organise and catalog collections, create an inventory of things in a location, prepare things before a move including holding a house-sale. Snupps has private or public ‘shelves’ that are a great way of visually organizing and showcasing stuff.
Platform: iOS / Android
WRITING / FOCUS
The quintessential writing machine for iOS, Mac and Android. Designed to keep your hands on the keyboard and mind on the text.
Platform: iOS/ Android / OSX
Promising to make your writing bold and clear, Hemingway is a great writing and editing tool that highlights complex sentences, common errors and parts that could do with re-writing for clearer, more flowing writing.
Platform: Windows / OSX
Background distraction can often affect your writing productivity or simply stress you out. With a simple interface and a choice between Productivity and Relaxing, Noisli makes helpful background sounds that assist your flow.
Platform: iOS / Online
Bringing back the joys of single-tasking, Omm Writer provides distraction free backgorunds, writing friendly audio tracks and even helpful keyboard sounds that bring you to the writing zone.
Platform: OSX/ Windows/ iPAD
INFO / NETWORKING
Techcrunch’s directory of innovative companies and the people behind them. Great for contacts and resources.
Platform: Online
ACCOUNTS & METRICS
An add-on for Stripe, Baremetrics is a visual and easy to follow analytics and metrics tool.
Platform: Online
Taking the necessity for accountant genes out of knowing what is going on with your business’ financials, First Officer is another Stripe add-on that churns out real, valuable data on recurring revenue, customer lifetime value and more from your subscription data.
Platform: Online
CUSTOMER COMMS, SUPPORT AND CRM
A one stop shop for customer communications on website, within apps and through email. Integrates customer chat, CRM, linked to Slack for customer relations that show the full picture of each customer’s communications history, full data, purchase details and even their location. There is the possibility of creating targeted drip campaigns with email metrics and sending in-app messages to announce new features, down time and more. In short, a digital version of that guy who remembers everything about everyone with many, many technological benefits.
Platform: Online / iOS / Android
Create little “How To” instructional GIFs that are very useful in answering support questions.
Platform: Windows and IOS
A video chat tool available straight through the web browser. Lets you create a virtual room on the browser that people can walk into and out of without the need for a unique URL.
Platform: Online
Think of it as a connection service for apps that really helps you make the most out of all of them. Great for creating triggers and actions, automating tedious tasks and moving data around from one app to another.
Platform: iOS/ Android / Online
A broadcasting, video streaming tool that let’s you see the world from someone else’s eyes.
Platform: iOS / Android
CLIENT MANAGEMENT
A simple, easy to use online tool for building and storing great looking proposals with an easy way for clients to accept proposals that can be integrated with Slack for better workflow.
Platform: Online
A simple and effective timing app for jobs. Set the timer and never lose track of your billable hours. An unlimited number of projects are possible, you can set different hourly rates and everything can be colour coded (happy times).
Platform: iPhone / Android / Windows / MacOS / Linux
Easy, drag and drop tool for creating forms, surveys, contests, even ones with integrated payments through Stripe integration. Forms can be branded and come with a great user experience that boosts response.
Platform: Online
An online Q&A platform that is an absolute gem for research, particularly for questions about software choices. Browse through questions already asked in the past with rated answers or ask your own questions and wait for answers. Answering and blogging about open questions can also be a great source of traffic.
Platform: Online
With thanks to:
