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1. Team Communication: Slack

• Slack allows us to use instant messaging so that we are always able to be in contact with one another. Unlike Facebook, Slack allows us to create channels to organize our conversations, add threads to those conversations and archive our channels so that we always have an easily searchable record of previous discussions. Slack integrates with Google Docs so we can share files easily.
• A potential problem is that it may be difficult to find conversations when there are a lot of different channels and private messages

2. Document Sharing: ClickUp

• ClickUp’s geared to be the most powerful document sharing platforms ever created, and a real all in one replacement for other tools as well; you’ll hear more about it’s other aspects in a bit. We’ll be able to create internal and external docs, and share documents with clients (or make them searchable through Google) via link. It has easy integrations with Slack, GitHub,
• The largest potential issue we face is downtime, but in the past year they’ve been down three times and had the issue resolved within 24hrs.

3. Version Control: GitHub

• Github is trusted by over 40 million users around the world, and it has incredible code reviewing features that will enable us to remain consistent throughout our projects. Through features like diffs, blame, and history our team can preview changes, browse easily through every update, and hone in on specific portions of code to see how it has changed over time. It integrates easily with Slack as well, which will keep us running smoothly (even if not in real-time.)
• While GitHub will keep immaculate records, and keep us well connected, an issue we could run into is cost. While the cost for a small team, like us, is manageable if we achieve growth too rapidly we may have to switch out. As far as I’ve discovered, transferring from GitHub to another source would be quite simple.

4. Prototyping: InVision

• An app created by designers, InVision is an easy way to share, and easy to use, prototyping tool. It works with any design tool (supporting JPG, PNG, PDF or GIF’s) and has a quick upload speed. Support for this software is top notch, there’s a large community to reach out to, and they’re extremely responsive on Twitter.
• An issue we could run into is dependency upon the software.

5. Time Tracking: ClickUp

• Starting and stopping the global work timer on ClickUp makes it easy to track all your working hours, from any computer that you are logged in to. It will also make it easier for me to keep track of everyone’s hours through time tracking logs and easy export for our accounting.
• The biggest potential issue? Forgetting to stop the timer on your working hours, but it’s an easy fix on this end to manually edit the hours.

6. Project Management: ClickUp

• Clickup has over 10,000 amazing reviews, the ability to create checklists, status updates, reminders, automations, and the ability to completely customize it to suit our business; it’s the clear choice for our team. It’s integrations with Slack and GitHub will make my life easier through clearly marking priority tasks, keeping a visual checklist for all tasks (completed and in progress), and keeping us all on track.
• If ClickUp does go down (it has in the past, again for less than 24 hours) we could go down with it. While the ability to export documents is available, a regular backup is a must.

7. Code Testing: BrowserStack

• Offering both live and automated testing, for both mobile apps and websites, with instant access to over 2,000 browsers (with real iOS and Android devices), BrowserStack will speed up our testing exponentially. No setup or maintenance required, as it works “right out of the box,” BrowserStack comes security ready with the full SOC2 compliance. It comes with the ability to integrate it with our Slack, and GitHub software as well!
• Again, expense is our biggest potential issue with this software at $259/2 parallel tests.

8. Digital Marketing Analytics: SemRush

• SemRush is capable of scheduling posts across the most popular social media platforms, and giving us a huge helping hand with content creation through their topic research tool. It’s able to show us what the most common questions are around a topic, the most relevant topics in our target area, and helps us see what the most trending topics are. It also can help us create, optimize, and launch our ads across platforms!
• I would say our biggest concern here would be cost, but this product functions as both our digital marketing analytics and our SEO.

9. Search Engine Optimization: SemRush

• With the log file analyzer, which will show us exactly how a Google crawler will interact with our sites, SemRush makes SEO a piece of cake. We can choose from an entire site audit, or a single page SEO checker. It’s highly detailed, and well reviewed.
• The only downside I can find here is that SemRush is not geared for those new to SEO. Although their SemRush Academy does look promising, it will be a time investment to get a proper grasp of the software.

10. Page Speed Testing: BrowserStack

• Fast, free, and an easily read analysis; BrowserStack offers a terrific speed test through their new SpeedLabs.
• No downsides, free speed testing is abundant if we run into any issues here.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end.

If you didn’t here’s the TL;DR:

ClickUp is the project management, time tracking, software that integrates super easily with our Slack communication and Github work, streamlining all our info into one easy to read hub. InVision is our prototyping software of choice (made by designers for designers.) SemRush is what we’re going to use to keep our digital marketing and SEO under control, and in sync. BrowserStack is our speed, and code testing software (for web and mobile everything.) Everything is cloud based, and easy to learn since they all have some serious in-depth tutorials.

That’s a wrap!