Epic Resources & Tools
Categories
Project Management
Asana
Asana is a web-based project-management software, and the best part is it’s free for teams up to 15 members. Their tagline is “Teamwork without email.”
Pricing: Free with Unlimited Projects and teams of up to 15+ Members.
Visit Asana
Basecamp
Basecamp is a well-reviewed project management resource from 37Signals. It helps get things done and increase productivity. We use Basecamp to manage our global team projects for Foundr. We highly recommend it!
Pricing: Subscriptions start at $20 per month, but you can try them for free during a 60-day trial.
Visit Basecamp
Evernote
Create an “external brain,” share and sync notes and files in the cloud with free and paid versions. This is the ultimate tool to store your thoughts, findings, ideas and musings. A number 1 tool the Founder @ Foundr Magazine uses!
This is yet another gold standard productivity tool. You can have this on all of my mobile devices and my cpu. This award-winning note-taking app allows users to keep track of every note regardless of which device it’s on. Each time you add or modify a note it will automatically sync to update the note on all your devices. If you are driving and you have a though simply speak to text it!
Pricing: Free with plans starting from $5 to $11 /mo.
Visit Evernote
Cloud File Storage
Google Drive / Google Docs
Google offers a cloud storage service, known as Google Drive. You can get up to 15 GB for free, but that includes your Gmail archives as well. Files can be stored and shared with others for collaboration for free.
Foundr uses Google Docs every day to share files and track projects in the cloud.
Pricing: Free with first 15 GB.
Visit Google Drive
Dropbox
Dropbox is an excellent tool for storing and sharing information. It acts as a cloud backup and can be used to share files and sync data with others.
Pricing: Free with first 2GB then starts at $10.99/mo.
Visit Dropbox
Social Media
Buffer
Buffer helps you manage multiple social media accounts at once. Quickly schedule content from anywhere on the web, collaborate with team members, and analyze rich statistics on how your posts perform.
We’ve been using Buffer for the last year to share content on Twitter, Facebook, G+ & LinkedIn throughout the week and think it’s pretty awesome. It lets us share our useful content without bombing our feeds all at once.
Pricing: Free for up to 10 posts then $10 a month.
Visit Buffer
Hootsuite
Having a hard time keeping track and updating your Social Media accounts? HootSuite manages it all for you. Post to Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, simultaneously or individually, at the time you schedule. It allows you to plan ahead of time.
Pricing: Free with plans up to $10 /mo.
Visit Hootsuite
Click To Tweet
Clicktotweet is the best, easiest and simplest way to promote and advertise your blog, website, business and stuff on Twitter. Create fast tweet about this links to any website.
As an entrepreneur, you will have to become very good at promoting your content. ClicktoTweet allows you to do this with little stress and time involved. Write the tweet you want to share and this link generator will generate a custom shortened link. Helping to generate more exposure, it gives readers the opportunity to share with just one click.
Pricing: Free.
Visit Clicktotweet
Bit.ly
Bitly is a URL shortening service, which also allows you track metrics on the links. We use bit.ly at Foundr to measure effectiveness of certain campaigns!
Pricing: Free.
Visit Bitly
Jooicer
Jooicer is nifty little tool we just recently started playing around with, it lets you automate your social media strategy for Twitter by creating ‘custom recipes’. You choose which actions you want to automate, for example: unfollow non followers in 7 day, follow everyone with this hashtag in their bio, etc. You can compose reports and analyze the results. It’s pretty straight forward. Recipes can be shared with others and you use theirs as well. Here are just some recipes you can create with the service. It’s pretty awesome!
Pricing: Free for now.
Visit Jooicer
Time Management
Schedule Once
ScheduleOnce is an easy to use calendar app where you can show your available meeting times in a personalized URL. We’re big fans and use the free version of this tool to set up almost all of our interviews!
The paid version includes advanced features like multiple calendars and automatic email reminders in advance of your meeting.
Pricing: Free and paid plans start at $5 a month per user.
Visit Schedule Once
Gmail Plugins
Boomerang
Boomerang schedules your emails and sends you reminder notices. We are a massive fan of this little plugin which can be a MASSIVE time saver.
Pricing: Free on the basic plan and paid plans start at $4.99 /mo all the way up to $49.99 /mo.
Visit Boomerang Gmail
Rapportive
Rapportive is a free tool that shows you everything about your contacts right inside your Gmail inbox, including a profile picture, LinkedIn data, and social media accounts. We love Rapportive and use it every day!
Pricing: Free.
Visit Repportive
HubSpot Sales
This is a gmail plugin that we use for email tracking, email scheduling, and viewing information about contacts inside your inbox.
Pricing: Free or $10 a month as a power user. Visit HubSpot Sales
Web Tools
WordPress
The #1 Blog Publishing Platform. Free and easily customizable with wonderful support. The Foundr website is built on WordPress.
WordPress is the most popular content management system for creating your own website or blog. The software is free to use and infinitely customizable.
Choose from thousands of free and premium themes and an extensive library of plugins to create a beautiful and functional website.
Pricing: Free.
Visit WordPress
Google Analytics
Google’s free website tracking and analytical tool. A must have for anyone with any type of website.
Pricing: Free.
Visit Google Analytics
Memberium
Want to create a next level membership site to protect your content? We highly recommend Memberium which we use at Foundr with Infusionsoft.
Pricing: Starts at $47 p/m
Visit Memberium
Clicky
Clicky is just like Google Analytics, except it’s easier to use, and you can view how many people are on your site (and what they are doing) in real time! Your first site is free.
Pricing: Free for the first 3,000 page views then pricing starts at $10 a month all the way up to $20 a month.
Visit Clicky
WebinarJam
This is the current webinar software we are using at Foundr. Now we are quite new to webinars still, so this might change, but as of now we are loving what WebinarJam does!
Functioning as an add-on service to Google Hangouts, this software allows you to host unlimited webinars with unlimited attendees (other companies, like GoTo Webinar max out at 1,000 attendees) which means you can pack your webinars with as many potential customers as you can!
Pricing: $297.
Visit Deal Guardian
Survey Monkey
Create and publish online surveys in minutes, and view results graphically and in real time. SurveyMonkey provides free online questionnaire and survey tools. This is the ultimate service to survey your audience! When you think of online survey’s you think of survey monkey! We have also interviewed the CEO Dave Goldberg in Issue 20 of Foundr.
Pricing: Free for 10 questions per survey with up to 100 responses, then goes to upgraded plans starting at $19 /mo to $65 /mo.
Visit Survey Monkey
Legal
Trademarkia
Need to register a trademark or patent? Trademarkia is the ultimate place to get this done. We actually used these guys to register the Foundr Trademark. The process was so extremely simple and extremely cost effective!
Pricing: Varies – Depends on Patent & Trademark, however extremely affordable.
Visit Trademarkia
Legal Zoom
LegalZoom is the nation’s leading provider of personalized, online legal solutions for small business owners and families. Easy online incorporation or LLC creation.
Pricing: Depends on level of legal requirements. Can vary but extremely affordable service that we HIGHLY recommend!
Visit Legal Zoom
Email Lists
Aweber
The internet’s most powerful email opt-in service and email marketing/broadcasting tool. This is one of the best email marketing tools around. Simple to use and extremely powerful. This is what Foundr uses to build our email list and newsletter. Aweber have been around for many years and know what they are doing. We highly recommend this service!
Pricing: Based on the size of your mailing list, but starts at $19 a month.
Visit Aweber
Mailchimp
As any Internet marketer will tell you, nothing is more important than building your own e-mail list. It has a super easy-to-use interface, great analytics, and is 100 percent reliable. If you aren’t building an email list your work is being done in vein. MailChimp is a great tool because it doesn’t require any upfront cost.
Pricing: Based on the size of your mailing list. Free for up to 2000 email subscribers, then starts at $30 /mo.
Visit Mailchimp
Ontraport
Ontraport is a tool for managing your online business. You track interactions with your online customers, build automation around events and sell products or services. Without a tool like Ontraport (previously Office Autopilot) it’s difficult to keep track of important details and automate the sales and marketing processes you need. This tool is a higher level marketing and automation tool. We do not currently use it, but plan to in the near future for Foundr as it comes highly recommended from many of our friends!
Pricing: Based on the size of your mailing list.
Infusionsoft
Improve your sales with this marketing software. Easily manage your contacts, schedule your tasks, track your marketing and sales history, and a lot more! This software is next level marketing an automation and used by many advanced marketers and big companies.
Pricing: Ranges from $199 to $379 per month.
Vero
Automated user trigged email campaigns – this tool is pretty cool! It helps you send highly targeted emails based on customer behavior. You can detect that someone started going through the sign up process to buy your service and left and start sending emails every few hours or days after they leave your site to get them to come back. There is absolutely no code you need to know so you can set this up with just a few clicks. You can of course A/B test your emails and use analytics to see which emails are performing the best.
Pricing: They have a free 14-day trial and plans start at $99/mo.
Visit Vero
Web Resources
PhotoDune
We use this seriously-cheap stock photo service a lot of our products. If you need a photo that is in line with whatever product you are trying to sell, and you want to find something decent, professional and cool we recommend this site.
Pricing: You can find images for as low as $1! Seriously.
Visit PhotoDune
Themeforest
Theme Forest is a huge marketplace for different web themes for anything and everything you could ever want. From blogging themes to e-commerce themes, landing pages to “coming soon” pages, there are a ton of options.
Pricing: Pricing varies, but extremely affordable.
Visit Themeforest
Audio Jungle
We have used Audio Jungle so many times for different songs we’ve needed for different projects. For instance, our editor found the theme song we use in all our videos and podcasts on Audio Jungle.
With literally thousands of songs to choose from in all different categories, finding the right song for your next project should be a breeze if you use Audio Jungle!
Pricing: Pricing varies, but extremely affordable.
Visit AudioJungle
PicMonkey
Notice how everyone on social uses cool photos with writing? They are probably using PicMonkey. This online service enhances your special moments caught on camera by allowing you to add cool special effects, touch up, and design your photos. You can create high quality graphics with text overlays for marketing and social media.
Pricing: Free and paid versions available.
Visit PicMoney
Screencasting
Camtasia
This is the PC version of screen recording software. This is the go-to software for screen capturing for PC.
Pricing: Free with limited features and $299 for a single user licence.
Visit Camtasia
Jing
Jing captures anything you see on your computer screen, as an image or short video, and lets you share it instantly.
Pricing: Free.
Visit Jing
Screenflow
For Mac users – the screen capture software we are currently using.
Pricing: They offer a free trial or you can buy for $99.
Visit Screenflow
Podcasting
Libsyn
This is the website we use to host all of our podcast episodes. Pretty much the go to hosting company for podcasts.
Pricing: Plans ranging from $5 to $75, there is something to be found for every podcaster over at Libsyn!
Visit Libsyn
Outsourcing / Tasks
Speedlancer
he World’s Fastest Freelance Marketplace – Speedlancer connects you with 300+ top freelancers in the Design, Writing & Data categories. These ‘Speedlancers’ can complete any assortment of tasks in just 4 hours flat. Featuring writers from Inc.com, The Guardian and The Examiner, as well as similarly high calibre designers and data-professionals, Speedlancer gives you access to top talent on-demand, at totally accessible prices. You’ll never look back!
Pricing: Pricing varies, but extremely affordable.
Visit Speedlancer
Upwork
Another outsource website for freelancers, IT companies, programmers and web designers from abroad. This platform came to life due to the merge with Elance & oDesk, another great resource and platform for freelancers.
Pricing: Pricing varies, but extremely affordable.
Visit Upwork
Virtual Staff Finder
The perfect platform for hiring a VA (virtual assistant). The founder of Virtual Staff Finder was actually featured on the front cover of Issue 13 – Chris Ducker. This service comes highly recommended by many online entrepreneurs that we feature.
Pricing: $495 for an awesome service to find you the ultimate Virtual Assistant that meets your needs.
Visit Virtual Staff Finder
Fiverr
You’ll be surprised by what you can get done for $5.00 on this massive outsourcing marketplace (business documents, craigslist posting, transcription, proofreading, etc.)!
We love Fiverr as we’ve found it is a great place to get interesting and cool tasks achieved at an affordable price.
Pricing: Starts at $5.
Visit Fiverr
99Designs
This is a unique website that you can use if you need a logo design. It’s in a contest format. You submit the description of what you want, and designers will compete against each other to win money. This is a super fun and affordable way to get a high quality logo designed! We highly recommend this service!
Pricing: Starts at $299 and goes all the way up to $1,199.
Visit 99Designs
Keywords / SEO
Market Samurai
The number one tool for keyword research available, hands down. We have used this extensively for Foundr, and other websites. If you want to rank for certain keywords and increase getting your website found, we HIGHLY recommend using this service!
Pricing: $97.
Visit Market Samurai
Web Hosting
WP Engine
WPEngine is a WordPress hosting company that out-performs so many other hosting companies, especially if speed and security is a big deal for you.
It is for us, which is why we prefer this company above all else. Not to mention their customer support is beyond compare and lightening fast!
If you want to take your website hosting seriously then you seriously need to consider WPEngine. We highly recommend it!
Pricing: Depending on the traffic of your site plans start at $29 /mo all the way up to $249 /mo.
Visit WP Engine
Bluehost
One of the most common host providers. Super easy to use and you do not have to be tech savvy at all to figure it out! You can literally have it set up in minutes.
Another awesome thing about BlueHost is that you get a free domain name when you sign up for a hosting package with them. Which is a killer deal 😉
This is a service we HIGHLY recommend for getting started with setting up your website.
Pricing: Plans start at $3.49 /mo all the way up to $150 /mo.
Visit Bluehost
GoDaddy
The ultimate place to purchase domains, and acquire cheap hosting too! At Foundr we purchase all our domains here. Super cheap, and great service.
Pricing: Domains start at 99c plus a whole ton of other services! Super cheap!
Visit GoDaddy
Landing Pages
Leadpages
We cannot speak highly enough of LeadPages and use them for so many things.
From opt-in pages to “coming soon” pages, webinar registration pages to surveys, thank you pages to waiting lists, our business took a serious step up the minute we incorporated this software into our lives.
Not only are the templates oh-so-easy to customize, but LeadPages are designed (and tested over and over) to convert viewers into hardcore leads, easily and effortlessly. They can also be used with WordPress AND non-Wordpress websites.
This is a product that Foundr users and we HIGHLY recommend it!
Pricing: Starts at $37 /mo and goes up to $97 /mo.
Visit Leadpages
Mentoring
Clarity.fm
Make faster & better decisions to grow your business. Clarity is your lifeline that instantly connects you with battle-tested advice from entrepreneurs.
Pricing: Can be anywhere from $1 a minute to $1000 depending on the entrepreneur’s consulting fees.
Visit Clarity.fm
Growth Hacking
Kingsumo Headlines
A/B Test for article titles – This wordpress plugin is the bomb! You know how content sites like Huffington Post & BuzzFeed A/B test their titles? Well this is the exact turn key solution that those companies use. The plugin automatically chooses the title which will get the most clicks for your blog post. You start off with writing as many titles as you can feasibly think of for your WordPress post. Different titles are shown to visitors when they share your post with others. Over time, the best-performing title is shown to maximize your traffic.
This is a tool we use for the Foundr blog and we HIGHLY recommend it!
Pricing: $99 for life for up to 50,000 visitors a month. $499/mo for up to 500,000 visitors.
Visit Kingsumo Headlines
Qualaroo
Insight Surveys – Qualaroo is a brainchild of Sean Ellis the guy who defined the term growth hacking. They way they describe what they do is: “Analytics tell you what people are doing on your website. Qualaroo tells you why.”
It’s a great tool for asking your visitors insightful questions right at the specific time they’re performing a specific action on your website. You can ask questions such as “What is preventing you from starting a trial or purchasing?” with a few radio button choices underneath. What this does is really helps you learn much more about your customers so you can fine tune your site for much better conversion. It’s the “smart way” to do A/B testing.
This is a tool we use for the Foundr blog and we HIGHLY recommend it!
Pricing: Starts at $63/mo and goes up to $499/mo.
Visit Qualaroo
Optimizely
A/B Testing – Optimizely is the granddaddy of A/B testing for your website. Their tagline is “A/B Testing which you’ll actually use” and it is so true! These guys are the ones who pioneered creating the most beautiful and easy to use, user interface to perform A/B testing for your website. The tool is insanely easy to use, you can test multiple versions of your homepage or landing pages. They have an incredible support staff and a wealth of information on their blog about best practices. If you are in need of A/B testing they’re it, you can forget anyone else. This is definitely a powerful weapon to have in your toolkit for conversions on your website.
Pricing: Based on your traffic, starts at $17/mo and goes up to $539/mo.
Visit Optimizely
SplitMetrics
Have an app on the App Store or Google Play Store? Split Metrics will help you optimize downloads by allowing you to A/B test Screenshots, Icon’s and your Description.
Pricing: Free.
Visit SplitMetrics
Kingsumo Giveaways
Giveaways have been the #1 cost-effective method AppSumo has used to grow a list of 700,000 email subscribers. They figured it was time to give you the technology they’ve spent 1 year perfecting.
Another EPIC growth hacking tool that Foundr uses that we HIGHLY recommend!
Pricing: Starts at $198 for one licence and goes up to $594.
Visit Kingsumo Giveaways
Sumome List Builder
Sumome is is a super cool WordPress plugin by Noah Kagan. ListBuilder is probably the most popular of all the tools in the bundle, it lets you convert these one-time visitors into lifelong readers and newsletter subscribers. A lightbox popover which is customizable automatically pops up after a certain amount of time or you can use a smart mode to popup and ask your visitors to subscribe when the tool think they’re getting ready to leave the website. This is a great free little tool to grow your email list and capture your website browsers.
Pricing: Free.
Visit Sumome List Builder
Sumome Scrollbox
Similar tool to listbuilder, Scrollbox lets you pop up a message asking your blog readers for an email address when they are nearly done enjoying your content. It is a really nice subtle little popup and it is fully customizable, enables you to ask for emails at a whichever percentage someone scrolls down your page.
Pricing: Free.
Visit Sumome Scrollbox
Hello Bar
This is a nice simple little wordpress plugin that simply places a bar with a message or a call to action up on the top of your site which never goes away. The tool allows you to setup an email collection or a redirect depending on what you’d like to do. If you want the pro version you can do fancy stuff such as A/B testing. Great tool.
Pricing: Free unless you want the PRO plan which is $4.95/mo.
Visit Hello Bar
Optin Monster
OptinMonster Converts Visitors into Subscribers & Customers. The A/B testing for this tool is extremely awesome, and if you want to take your list building up a level on your website, we HIGHLY recommend this software. OptinMonster enables you to create professionally designed optin forms without writing a single line of code in 60 seconds flat.
Pricing: Start’s at $49 and goes all the way up to $349.
Visit Optin Monster
Buzz Sumo
This is a content marketers dream tool! Enter any term into it’s search and the tool spits out the most shared articles on social media on the topic you entered. This is an extremely useful tool if you wish to get ideas for what articles to write that resonated really well with your competitors. You can also reach out to the people who have written these articles to see if you can post a guest article on their blog since you know it has received a lot of traction. You can sort of infographics, videos, giveaways, and guest posts as well. This is another very powerful tool in your content marketing toolkit!
Pricing: Free for a single user and goes all the way up to $499+ /mo.
Visit Buzz Sumo
Kiss Metrics
This is the grand-daddy of any marketing and growth hacking tools. If you are not using this you should, everyone should. While Google Analytics gives you great info about traffic coming to your website KISSmetrics tells you what happens to this traffic once they reach your site. It basically helps you fine-tune your conversion by analyzing what happens to customers who reached your website.
Pricing: Starts at $150/mo and goes up to $500/mo.
Visit Kiss Metrics
Inspectlet
Inspectlet records videos of your visitors as they use your site, allowing you to see everything they do. See every mouse movement, scroll, click, and keypress on your website. We use this tool on the Foundr website and comes highly recommended by us!
Pricing: Free and goes up to $299/mo.
Visit Inspectlet
Images & Photos
Bigstock Photo
The ultimate place to purchase images. This is the exact site we use for all images for Foundr. Extremely cost effective, and great photos! We highly recommend.
Pricing: Plans start at 1 free image per /mo then start at $79 /mo all the way up to $639 /year.
Visit Bigstock Photo
Disclaimer
Some of the links in this list are affiliate links, meaning we may receive a commission if you choose to buy it. However, the price will never increase for you in order to compensate us.
We truly appreciate your support if you do choose to buy through our affiliate links we are happy to answer any questions you may have! Please understand that we have experience with all of these companies, and we recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something.
