Every millisecond is valuable in the life of an entrepreneur, which is why technology is so ridiculously awesome. Besides the obvious tools most of us use on a regular basis (Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, etc.), there are lots of lesser-known yet extremely helpful services, sites and applications our interviewees couldn’t imagine living without.
Check out the following list, and tell us what tools you use to save time, become more efficient and get ahead of your competitors. Here are 23 tools to help you build a business, recommended by our interviewees.
1. Evernote
I love Evernote–I’m definitely a fanatic. It’s on my Mac, my iPhone and my iPad, and it helps me organize my thoughts and track down old ideas. Oftentimes I’ll look through my Evernote notebooks and look for emerging patterns. If I notice, for instance, that I’ve clipped 10 cool new infographic tools I’ll start thinking about creating a new post around that subject.” -Chris McConnell, Founder of DailyTekk.com
2. Trello
“Trello is the greatest tool to organize your tasks and share with your teammates.” -Yuki Furukawa, Co-Founder of Yamory
3. Dropbox
“I would marry Dropbox if it was a woman and I was better looking and single. It’s that cool.” -Tim Brownson, Life Coach and Author
4. FreshBooks
“FreshBooks is great for billing clients and keeping track of expenses so there’s little prep work needed when we meet with our accountant.” -Kathryn Hawkins, Owner of Gimundo.com
5. Mint
“I’m kind of obsessed with tracking my finances. Mint is awesome if you like to see where your money is going.” -Ethan Waldman, Founder of Cloud Coach
6. Flickr
“Flickr’s creative commons image search is a great resource for presenters and also embodies much of what’s great about the Internet—an amateur photographer’s one great shot can climb to the top and be used by everyone.” -Alistair Croll, Author, Entrepreneur and Startup Accelerant
7. Todoist
“Todoist is the best to-do list app that I’ve found and I’ve been using it for years. I love that you can sort your tasks by project, due date and level of importance or by any tag you might make up… -Julie Clow, Author of The Work Revolution
8. Snagit
“Snagit lets me easily take screenshots and record quick videos, saving me tons of time.” -Brian Moran, Director of Online Sales at Get 10,000 Fans
9. Free Desktop Clock
“It has often happened that I called at the wrong time when someone wrote GMT+2 or ET-3. Free Desktop Clock allows me not to make that mistake, because it shows me visually and clearly what time it is everywhere in the world.” -Shahar Vigdor, Co-Founder of FanGager
10. Pandora
“Pandora’s music keeps me sane.” -Erin Levin, Producer of African Children’s Choir Film
11. Basecamp
“Basecamp is a must when it comes to organizing more than five team members.” -Di Huang, President and CEO of SoWink
12. Fiverr
“When I can’t do something technical I know I can go to Fiverr.com and usually find someone to do it for me for only 5 bucks.” -Malika Harricharan, Founder of the Association of Food Bloggers
13. Salesforce
“Every single contact I’ve ever met goes into Salesforce, which I’m able to access across my laptop, tablet and smartphone.” -Mike Krass, Co-Founder of MKG Media Group
14. MailChimp
“MailChimp is an excellent tool for sending/tracking/designing online newsletters. They allow you to send thousands of emails per month on their completely free account, for life. Only after you really hit it big do you pay a few dollars per month.” -Anne and Mike Howard, Founders of HoneyTrek.com
15. Ruzuku
“Ruzuku is great for easy creation of online courses.” -Lucille Zimmerman, Counselor, Professor, Author and Blogger
16. Flipboard
“Flipboard is my favorite app on my iPad. It presents all my social media, blogs, and news items in a magazine format and allows me to retweet anything that I find interesting with just one tap.” -Dush Ramachandran, Business Transformation Coach of The Net Momentum
17. Timely
“I tend to do my reading at night, in blocks, and Timely allows me to easily add tweets to a queue that’s then kicked out on an automated schedule. I love this tool.” -Steve Gumm, CEO of 18 Stories: The Idea Factory
18. Hootsuite
“Hootsuite is probably the single most important tool in my life. I monitor about 30 Twitter accounts with it.” -Derek Wyatt, Co-Founder of Consulting And Knowledge Exchange
19. SEOmoz
SEOmoz, created by Rand Fishkin, is a leader in the field of search engine optimization tools, resources and community.
20. Podio
“I love Podio for online collaboration, it’s free, has a fabulous customizable interface and has an iPhone app.” -Lisa Kenefick, Founder of Probate Research
21. Highrise
“I use 37signals’ Highrise to keep track of client and potential business relationships.” -Jon Leland, Visionary Electronic Media Communicator
22. Formstack
“Formstack is a great, inexpensive tool for collecting data. It’s also easy to customize.” -Martina Welke and Britta Jacobs, Co-Founders of Zealyst
23. Thesaurus.com
“Thesaurus.com always helps with writers block! And it’s the grown-up version of the only thing I wanted for Christmas at seven years old: a dictionary (I still own that dictionary!).” -Jolene Loetscher, Founder of DooGooders and Selfspiration
What tools help you build your business?
23 Tools To Help You Build a Business Image Credit
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.