My recommendations for books to read, people and sites to follow and products, apps or services to use are below. I have a separate page dedicated to resources for organizational health and culture.
Please note that some of the links are affiliate links, which helps me keep the lights on. As explained in the Terms of Use, I only use affiliate links for products I would recommend regardless of whether they offered affiliate links.
New to this blog? Welcome and consider subscribing. Please comment below if you know of other good links and resources that are missing from my lists.
Blogs & Podcasts
I still enjoy reading some blogs like sethgodin.com and michaelhyatt.com, but find myself consuming content primarily through podcasts these days. Some of my favorite leadership, news or thought provoking podcasts these days include:
- Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast (from a pastor, but largely focused on leadership in any type of organization)
- Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast (from a pastor, but entirely focused on leadership in any type of organization). I would suggest listening to episode #38 first.
- Lead to Win with Michael Hyatt
- The John Maxwell Leadership Podcast
- The Daily
- Work Life by Adam Grant
- Revisionist History
- How I Built This
- Gamechangers
- Naval Podcast
Recommended Reads:
My recommended books on leadership, culture, productivity and navigating change are in the side bar on the right.
My favorite web services and apps these days:
Communication & Collaboration
- Asana or Trello for managing projects
- Zoom for video meetings and webinars
- FreeConferenceCall for unlimited free conference calls
- Calendly for appointment scheduling
- Pocket for saving web content to read later
- Prezi for simple and engaging presentations
- 8×8 for hosted VoIP
Website Management
- Cyfe for dashboard analytics
- Wix for easy, non-ecommerce websites
- namecheap for domain registration
- Uptime Robot to be alerted when a site or page goes down
Communication & Sharing
- Mailchimp for email subscriptions and newsletters
- Hootsuite for social engagement and monitoring
- Olark for website help chats
- bit.ly for shortening and sharing URLs
Content Creation
- Canva for effortless designs whether for print or web
- Easel.ly or PicktoCharts for infographics
- Mindjet for creating mind maps
- Lucidcharts for diagrams, schematics, wireframes, etc.
Research and SEO
- Mention.net to monitor social media mentions and search terms
- Moz’s 100 free SEO tools
- Moz’s Open Site Explorer for popular site link research
- Quantcast for popular site stats and demographics
- Find email address domain formats and verify email addresses
- BuiltWith to see what a website is built with
- Google PageSpeed Insights
Tasks, Docs & Files
- Box and Dropbox for storing, sharing and syncing files
- Evernote for saving and sharing notes and ideas
- HelloSign collecting electronic signatures
- Crashplan for online backups
- ToDoIst for web, desktop and mobile task management
Automation & Productivity
- SaneBox for getting control of your email box allowing you to focus on what matters
- Zapier and If This Then That (IFTTT) connecting web apps via APIs to automate workflow
- FollowUpThen for using your inbox as a task list and scheduling follow-ups
- Formstack for forms, workflow and Webmerge.me for automated document workflow
Backend
- Nimble to keep track of leads and deals (CRM)
- Expensify for tracking expenses and creating reimbursement reports
- KnackHQ a relational database in the cloud
- Ordoro for creating shipping labels
Mobile & Tablet Apps
- Goodnotes for iPad note taking
- Paper for iPad sketching
- TripIt for managing and sharing travel itineraries
- Scannable for quickly scanning docs and storing them in an app or sharing them
- Evernote or OneNote for taking and accessing notes on the go
Startup Legal and Fundraising Resources
- Steve Blank
- Fred Wilson
- Patent FAQ
- Founder’s Workbench
- Y Combinator Model Docs
- Orrick Startup Toolkit
Free team and leadership resources to take advantage of:
- Organizational Health and Culture Resources (separate page on this blog)
- Presentation tips from Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen)
- Resources from the Heath Brothers (Made to Stick and Switch)
- 30 second MBA videos from Fast Company
- Free goods from Seth Godin
- Single page business plan (canvas PDF) from Strategyzer (an online version)
- Franklin Covey Tools
Thought provoking videos to watch: