Productivity Apps that distract me all day long
An ever-growing list of apps and platforms I use every day in my Chief Operating Officer role at Stupid Cancer, client work, and blogging.
I’m always fascinated when I read what apps people use on a regular basis in different industries. Here is my list:
Sunrise Calendar I’ve been using Sunrise for almost two years and it has really changed everything, starting from the moment I wake up. Honestly, though. The email digest in the morning is fantastic and gives me an idea of what I’m up against. I have several calendars shared with me, which I hide on the desktop and mobile app. I get it all in the email which limits alerts.
Slack Slack, my Slack. If you’re reading this, I’m preaching to the choir. Maybe we could have a brief discussion below on how terrible the Ryver ads are on Twitter.
Trello Organized. Elegant. Slack integrated. Nuff said.
Calendly I wear a lot of hats. Calendly is the first solution that lets me put scheduling time in the hands of the other person. Saves so much time and is great for new clients.
Appear.in Love Google Hangouts but hate needing to login and invite someone with a Google account? Try this. It’s lovely.
Curated.co Curated.co is a email service provider that helps you build elegant, roundup emails. You can use a submit stories via email or bookmarklet. Compile collected stories for distribution at will. (Currently getting 50% open rates consistently with the list we’ve built.) Check it out
TripIt Helping me organize travel plans for years. Also has tracking metrics on distance and what not. Forward your itineraries to plans@tripit.com to get started.
Zapier Wade and his team have helped me professionally in ways they will never know. Zapier is the ultimate GSD app.
IFTTT If This Then That could be viewed as a competitor of Zapier, but it’s more of a Coke and Pepsi relationship. They are both super helpful.
iDoneThis This quirky app has changed things at Stupid Cancer. With a cool Slack integration, employees can type /done xyz and have it logged. IDT pings you at 9am and 5pm with what’s happened recently among the staff in a email digest format.
Mint Hit recommend if checking Mint to see how little money you have is a favorite pastime.
Bigcommerce What’s to say. The only game in town. Love BC. Love the people. Shoutout to Mitchell, Ron, Tracey and everyone else on Medium.
Skubana Skubana is an all-in-one cloud management platform for all things e-commerce. It helps me manage my Amazon seller account.
Inventory Planner Oleg has built something amazing here. It’s a Bigcommerce bolt on that has helped me more than I would have thought since enlisting the services of a third-party fulfillment company. It’s my window into the warehouse.
BaseCRM Base is relatively new for Stupid Cancer but works with Zapier (duh) and helps us funnel everyone into the app. Have it connected with just about every entry point to the organization.
Confluence We use Confluence for document retention. I wish we used it more, but we’re a small staff. Adoption has been difficult versus Google Drive or Dropbox.
Zendesk Gone are the days of responding to inquiries via shared gmail account. Zendesk helps us help people and fast.
Iconosquare Perfect Instagram desktop browsing tool. Love tracking our hashtags on it.
SumoMe I just rolled this out on my personal site to grow my list. I am optimistic it will help me beef up my email list.
FileZilla Free FTP client. I’ve been using it since I converted to Mac in 2010.
BBEdit The perfect notepad/html editor. Keep up the good work.
Email Permutator Want to email the CEO of a company but don’t know their email address? Use this.
Assembla We built a mobile app with an India-based dev company. We use Assembla to track app functionality requests and bug fixes.
Non-Profits: Technology is The Biggest Donation You Aren’t Leveraging
Any non-profit COO or CTO will tell you that finding the technology that appropriately addresses their needs is tough to come by. The platforms that do exist with the non-profit in mind often cost upwards of $25,000 to engage. There are several problems with this situation. First, it is impossible to know that a CRM/donor database/360° fundraising platform will meet your needs long-term. Second, these platforms will lock you in for a year at least, and the much-needed updates will never come. Lastly, these platforms are insular systems without API or any means of connecting it to other solutions. (San Francisco, feel free to help us out here.)
Any non-profit COO or CTO will tell you that finding the technology that appropriately addresses their needs is tough to come by. The existing platforms with the non-profit in mind often cost upwards of $25,000 to engage. There are several problems with this situation. First, it is impossible to know that a CRM/donor database/360° fundraising platform will meet your needs long-term. Second, these platforms will lock you in for a year at least, and the much-needed updates will never come. Lastly, these platforms are insular systems without API or any means of connecting them to other solutions. (San Francisco, feel free to help us out here.)
I’m lucky to work in a non-profit vertical that spans from the tiny side-project to the multi-million dollar behemoth fundraising machine. In a space where we’re all working towards the same goal, it’s interesting how organizations leverage technology to carry out their mission.
Over the past six years at Stupid Cancer, we have stopped and started with so many different platforms my staff now cringes any time I tell them I’ve found something new. It’s true that I’ve probably worn out my welcome by having them help me test new things, but old habits die hard. When it was just Matthew and myself, we had to compensate for the lack of staff. It was the wild west of free trial exploration, and I learned a lot from it.
As we’ve grown over the past few years and hired staff to help us, my instinct remains to take a tech-forward approach.
I am also a big believer in putting automated systems in place where appropriate and removing the human element. There is no reason to try to do things better than computers. I see it way too often in this community of limited resources. It will only reduce your capacity for upward growth.
We recently did an internal exercise where we measured how much time each staff member spent on their respective duties. While they mostly landed as we thought they would, there were some instances where outside forces were pulling us away from getting out jobs done. In any company — especially a growing one – this is bound to happen. Ultimately, we took a look at the results and have begun to figure out how to mitigate these distractions by adding articles to our Zendesk FAQ, for example.
In this world of highly scrutinized non-profit budgets, there is so much time and money that can be saved by utilizing low-cost platforms like Zapier or IFTTT (Which doesn’t cost anything at all). I actually find most SaaS-based companies are willing to give deep discounts just based on your merit.
Google and Slack are two examples of companies that reward 501(c)(3) organizations with a lifetime subscription to their platform for free. If a platform doesn’t offer free or discounted services, offer to create compelling content for them that will be mutually beneficial.
We recently received a lovely donation from a platform we had used in the past that was in transition. The temporary separation was a mutual agreement, as they changed their core product offering. When the dust settled on their end, we jumped right in line to sign up.
As the maturation of Stupid Cancer continues from a tiny startup non-profit to million dollar organization, I remain vigilant in making sure we stay nimble and unburdened by the unnecessary.