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11
The methodology that works best for me is as follows:
Define Your Desired Future State: This is what you want to shoot for in maybe 2-3 years. This sets your target. Be as specific as possible. Give your future state concrete numbers and specific products.
Define Your Present State: This is where you are today. Again, specifics are important since you ...
8
In my opinion, a startup might consider these points:
Ease of workflow: How quickly can a dev build things with the tools. If using MS Foundation then you have chosen a complete workflow. Why should you break that? Jira will not integrate so well as TF, even when it is nice. If using something else like Java, there is no such workflow and you can chose ...
7
Atlassian JIRA is a recognised issue tracker. Atlassian does a $10 license for 10 users, depending on the size of your startup obviously, this could be a good fit. There are also other products that Atlassian sells for $10.
By the way JIRA integrates pretty well with Confluence which is a wiki that most probably would answer your CRM needs. There is a $10 ...
6
There are a dizzying number of online time tracking apps out there. So you definitely don't need to build your own. Here are some reviews of various apps:
from Lifehacker
from WebWorkerDaily.com
from FreelanceSwtich
from Mashable
My team uses Harvest, which has served our needs well. It's not a free app, however (there are plenty of free ones on the ...
6
Peldi, of Balsamiq Mockups fame, compiled a nice list of all tools and services they use at Balsamiq. Find it here: http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2009/10/30/tools/
It's the most popular post on their blog, so far. :-)
Good luck and have fun!
5
Watching rankings is a waste of time. Rankings tell you nothing. Just because you rank number one for a keyword or phrase doesn't mean anything. Capture more useful data/ insights, such as what keywords are driving traffic to your site or do some keyword research and identify keywords in which you want to capture a lot of traffic from and monitor those ...
5
Two free great tools which I use:
Site Juice of Pear Analytics (www.pearanalytics.com). It is free right now cause it is in the Beta testing phase. Will check ranks in Google, Yahoo and Bing and will also store them for you.
SEO toolbar (a Firefox plugin) which has the Rank Checker tool. Very handy for instant rank checks but the disadvantage is that it ...
4
The Google Keyword Tool could be what you are looking for. It will tell you a specific local and global search volume, and also cost per click for adwords.
There are also other 'keyword tools' out there if you want to search for that term.
Google Trends is a handy tool to see how terms are changing over time.
Also agree with Denis re building fast ...
4
There are thousands of web design blogs to try. Start following some links on Twitter for topics related to web design and you'll be able to build a list very quickly between the people tweeting and the blogs they link to in their tweets. You can also use CSS and website galleries to build up a list as designers will often post their work to showcase it.
A ...
4
My feeling is that Quora is not very helpful. It is more useful for general high-level overviews on topics.
I am also myself wondering whether there are any real notable differences in this site and Quora. I kind of prefer the format of the stack-overflow sites so I use this site.
So far this site has not been helpful for me, but I try to answer ...
3
For the ideas that just pop up:
I bought one of the small moleskin notebooks, the one that fits in your jean back pocket. I carry it wherever I go. If an idea comes up, I write it down. It has come in very handy (I am on my second one so far).
Side Note: I bought the graph paper one just in case I need to draw or design something.
3
We are building a SaaS startup too. Here are the tools we use -
37signals.com - basecamp for project management, highrise for maintaining customer lists
Outright.com for free simple web-based accounting
Google docs (spreadsheets and documents) for collaborative editing. Also use Google mail for custom company specific email id. And for chat.
git for ...
3
As others have stated, there is no one stop shop. There are just too many things you need to know, and do, for any one place to have expertise in all the areas.
The closest thing I can think of is Bob Walsh's StartupToDo. It's not a free service. Bob has very little information visible to the public, and I've never participated in the program, but I have ...
3
Just to clarify, you're asking for a list of all startups around the world who are building webapps right now?
There is no such list, at least not a comprehensive one. But you can probably get close by compiling data from several of the startup community's favourite news aggregators. Take a look at:
Crunchbase
Techcrunch
ReadWriteWeb
Mashable
GigaOM
Also ...
3
In the past 20 years information has become easily available, therefore skills like expertise and factual knowledge lost most of their value (except where deep expertise is required).
Those skills are now replaced with Critical Thinking. One doesn't need to use their brain for storing information, but instead for breaking down complex problems into small ...
2
I'm also playing with Redmine recently and, for now, it definitely looks great. It seems that community is pretty active and there are quite few plugins available.
It's true that setting it up could be a nightmare, though, but you don't actually need to know much about RoR itself to install it. It doesn't hurt to try to follow instructions - you might ...
2
Also a SAAS based startup (enterprise finance/billing space)
Web based SAAS
Unfuddle - bug/task tracking (new to us, moving from Redmine)
Bantamlive - CRM
PaySimple - ACH
Grasshopper - virtual PBX
SurePayroll - handles payroll and taxes! (new to us)
Dropbox - backup/sync/network drive/etc
JungleDisk - new to us, trying this out as a DrobBox replacement. ...
2
Freshbooks for client billing
Network Hippo for a lightweight CRM
Google Analytics
GetSatisfaction or UserVoice
Evernote for notetaking
2
I think the easiest way is to go ahead and build a coming-soon page for your product or service (with a google analytics tracker attached). Ask visitors to leave their email address which might give you an audience of interested people to answer other questions about your product.
Then run a modest adwords campaign using the keywords you think are ...
2
The one we use is Highrise by 37signals. It does cost come $ per month but I have found it really useful and simple to use.
SugarCRM can work as well if you can spend the time to configure it. That was the biggest challenge I had with it.
Both Highrise and SugarCRM are web based.
2
Everyone personal or business should be using search.twitter.com. Think about periphery keywords (curiosity keywords), locations, emotions, etc (see advanced options) that may not directly create "marks" for you to engage with but more pull you into conversations that build your knowledge of landscape and the people moving with in it.
Of course there are ...
2
Jason, if you have Salesforce, I would advise you to look at the Cases tab.
As Joe mentioned it is very customizable, and you can also specify a series of email accounts that automatically create Cases. For example, if you receive an email at info@yourcompany.com, a case is automatically created and you can manage it in SFDC.
The only drawback is if you ...
2
if web based is not an absolute requirement, check Keith Delong's Virtual TimeClock.
He's a local here so you can ask him questions if you want; this is his profile.
2
This is how i do it:
1. I organize my projects by folder on my desktop, when i see an image, link, document, pdf or anything related i place it in the folder. I try to organize the folder into categories like competitors, features, marketing, development, research etc.
I usually create a private wiki where my team can help me organize all our ideas. ...
2
I've tried many options as well; for me the important thing is to be able to write down the idea immediately, and I don't always have the laptop with me.
In the past I used Evernote a lot, now I prefer SimpleNote. SimpleNote is (like the name says) a simple notepad that works with many mobile phones and has also a web interface. So I can just write down my ...
2
So yes I’m not a lawyer, so prior to making a decision suggest getting appropriate legal counsel.
So based on the legal decision on jail breaking of the iphone (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/apple-loses-big-in-drm-ruling-jailbreaks-are-fair-use.ars )as long as the code is owned and operated by the person you should be able to provide a way ...
2
Mindmap from Mindjet.. it's not free, but it is the best mind-mapping software out there, IMHO.
http://www.mindjet.com/
I find that sending emails and jotting notes down does not really help with brainstorming... it helps with reminders (also Todo, Tasks, etc)... but actual brainstorming, where you can break up problem into smaller pieces, capture all the ...
2
Google.com
The needs of a startup are so large and diverse, that it is practically impossible to get them as a one size fits all solution.
There are a thousand ways to skin a cat, and there are thousands of those cats to be skinned....
http://answers.onstartups.com
http://www.prenhall.com/scarbzim/html/resource.html
http://www.zeromillion.com/
NB: I ...
2
@Gary E - I disagree with you. I think you're point of view is certainly valid but it also blankets all trial software as something that is made by mom and pop developers (at least that is what I got out of your post).
I for one use trial software that I have no intention of ever buying even though it is very useful. What is it, you ask? Visual C# Express ...
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