A Post on The best online tools For Moving FOrwards Faster

Startups should never beat corporates.

Corporates have almost infinite resources and decades of combined memory. Startups start with literally nothing.

Yet two of the top five most valuable companies on earth was a startup in my lifetime.

How do they do it?

There are many answers but one is that starting with nothing can be an advantage. Corporates are often tied into legacy tech systems that are inflexible and dated. New online software services often enable things to be done faster.

But because these services are hosted on the cloud and simply require a monthly subscription, there’s no reason why corporate teams can’t make use of them too.

Here’s a selection of my personal favourites.

TEAMWORK

Miro

Online team collaboration using virtual whiteboards. Simple, intuitive and easy. We used it at a lot in the innovation team at TfL. You should too.

Trello

One of the techniques that’s been a staple of startup life for a long time but hasn’t always penetrated into the corporate world is the Kanban board. “Kanban” is a rather grandiloquent term for a list - or a series of lists. Lists of things that have been completed, are in progress and are still to do. It’s very simple and intuitive, and Trello provides the online service to set it up.

(fun fact: before we built our own App and were delivering the lowest-possible cost Minimum Viable Product at Sn-ap, we used Trello boards as the passenger manifest for our coaches. This means that dozens of coach drivers during those early days were using Trello in real time on their mobiles at bus stops around the country - and doing it perfectly. If it’s good enough for them…)

Slack

When I was a startup founder, the company ran on Slack. In those days, the gap between startupland and corporateworld was vast - with startups using quick ‘n’ easy instant messages and corporates on email.

The pandemic accelerated the shift and nowadays corporates are on Teams, which does much of the same stuff as Slack. But the original is still out there, if you need it.

COMMUNICATION AND CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

Google Workspace

Maybe you’re a team experimenting with a product as part of a larger organisation. You don’t want to 'pollute’ the main brand with something that may not work. And using the corporate brand involves rules and governance. So you set up a ‘burner’ brand for the purposes of the experiment. You need an email account with the right URL. Google Workspace enables this and effortlessly. It’s what I use for my thomasableman.com, Freewheeling.info and CarefreeCarfree.com accounts.

Buffer

Your burner brand also needs social media. You can use Buffer to create and deliver a whole schedule of social media posts.

If you’re reading this as a result of a LinkedIn post, that post was delivered through Buffer.

Tally / Typeform.com

If you’re trying something out, you probably want people to interact. Tally and Typeform offer intuitive, easy online forms. Microsoft Forms has much of the same functionality but you may not want to be integrated into the corporate machine just yet.

Loops

If you’re doing that experiment, you may want to keep it off the company email system so that it’s not associated with the main brand. Loops is fully trackable marketing emails that all happens on the cloud.

WebsitE, APP and CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR TRACKING

Framer

Does your experiment want a professional-looking website but without disturbing your website professionals? Framer is the tool for that.

Bubble.io

There’s an app for that. Well, there needs to be. Bubble is an app builder that can be used by people like you and me. If your experiment depends on folk interacting with an app, you can give them that experience without a app development person on the team.

Unbounce.com

One of the reasons why startups often beat corporates is that they’re much more willing to run detailed experiments. Do people not like the idea or do they not like how I’ve described it? Easily answered with an A-B test: showing different prospective customers different wording and see how they react. Unbounce is the platform to make this happen.

Hotjar

Startups obsess over the details. Partly because they have to and partly because there isn’t much else to obsess over. It works. Hotjar enables you to see exactly how people are interacting with your website in a way that a lot of corporates simply don’t feel the need to understand. But if you’re experimenting with something new it can be invaluable.

Intercom

Need customer support for your experiment? Intercom is what the cool cats use for AI-powered customer service.

EasyRetro

One of the staples of start-up life is the “retrospective” at the end of the sprint: looking back at sprint just gone and learning for next time. It’s not really part of corporate life but maybe could be part of your experiment? Either way, EasyRetro is also a great brainstorming tool - that’s mainly how we used it in the TfL innovation team

AI

Perplexity:

AI tools are virtual assistants and they’re invaluable.

ChatGPT does what it says on the tin - you can… chat to it. Whereas Perplexity is for finding factual information. ChatGPT is incredibly helpful but does have an endearing tendency to just make stuff up. Perplexity provides you with the source, so you can validate it yourself. It’s also more up to date.

Julius AI:

Imagine having a really good data analyst available 24/7. That’s Julius.AI. You can upload data then ‘talk’ to Julius like you talk to a person. Julius converts your prompt into code, and does the analysis to your specification.

ChatGPT:

I never get AI to write my posts for me. I believe you come here for my authentic voice. By writing, I’m adding to the store of knowledge in the world. By asking AI to write, I’m recycling it.

But I do ask ChatGPT to comment to help me improve. For example, this post is the original post. I then asked ChatGPT if I’d included any I shouldn’t have included or missed any. Here’s the answer:

Your article covers a solid range of online tools typically used by startups, which can be very beneficial for corporations as well. Here are some additional tools that you might consider including, along with a review of the current list:

Additional Tools to Consider:

Asana
- Category: Teamwork and Project Management
- Description: Asana is a robust project management tool that helps teams track their work and manage projects more effectively. It’s popular among startups for its flexibility and ease of use but is equally valuable for corporate teams to streamline workflows.
Notion
- Category: Team Collaboration and Documentation
- Description: Notion is an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, project management, and task management. Its versatility makes it ideal for startups, but it can also help corporate teams centralize information and improve collaboration.
Mailchimp
- Category: Marketing and Customer Engagement
- Description: Mailchimp is a comprehensive email marketing platform that allows businesses to create and send email campaigns, manage subscriber lists, and analyze performance. It’s highly beneficial for both startups and corporate teams looking to enhance their email marketing efforts.
Airtable
- Category: Project Management and Database Management
- Description: Airtable combines the functionality of a spreadsheet with a database, making it perfect for managing projects, tracking inventory, and organizing information. Its flexibility is beneficial for both startups and larger corporate teams.

Tools to Potentially Remove:

Your current list is comprehensive and relevant; however, if you need to streamline it further, you might consider removing tools that have direct corporate equivalents already in widespread use. For example:

Slack: While still relevant, many corporates are now using Microsoft Teams, which offers similar functionalities.

Which, as you can see, is pretty good advice. Had I not been showing you this as an illustration, I would have gone back and amended the article - thus making it even better.

There’s a quote that goes “Your job won’t be taken by AI. It’ll be taken by someone using AI.”

I’m a firm subscriber to this view. AI exists. use it.

Take action!

Freewheeling teams show a bias to action. Take action now:

If you’re a leader:

Make sure your team understand that they have permission to use these tools
Defend them when criticised by the IT team. Obviously you must never compromise your organisation’s cyber-security but make sure blanket application of policy doesn’t throttle your team’s flexibility for no purpose

If you’re a team member:

Set yourself a development target of using a number of these tools by the end of this year. They’re quick to start and you might love them

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Online tools used by Startups but which Corporates can use