Hindsight is 2020.

Especially when running a business. Early on you get many things wrong, it’s part of the process. There is no playbook, you are learning as you go.

But the beauty is, if you just keep learning, and keep going, magic happens. Little by little you figure out tools and tricks that make things easier, and you increment your way to success.

Here are a few tools and tricks that have 10x’d startup life, a few others that’ve helped, some that haven’t, and some that have negative ROI:

S-Tier Hacks (10x-ers)

1. Get-togethers with other founders

2. Granola to record all your meetings

3. Hiring S-tier advisors for sales/dev

4. Hiring a good bookkeeper & attorney

5. Using Claude projects sync’d to Google Drive folder

Highly Useful Tools & Tricks

1. Superhuman to organize your inbox

2. Slack + Zapier automated sales pipeline messages

3. Writing personal blogs to sharpen/broadcast your thoughts

4. 10min daily standups + 30min weekly team meetings

5. Using Google Drive for your data room

6. Coffee shop espresso tonics just to get outta the damn house

7. LinkedIn Live Q&A sessions turned into short-form video clips (sleeper pick)

8. Github Projects to track team-wide to do’s

9. eSignature in Google Docs

Useful But High Cost/Effort

1. Hubspot CRM to manage your sales pipeline

2. Long-tail keyword SEO + lead magnets for organic traffic

3. Self-published short-form video content

4. Tracking projects in Notion

5. Hiring a design agency

6. Attending conferences/trade-shows

7. Creator-led marketing campaigns

Not Really Worth It

1. ProductHunt launches

2. Banded newsletters

3. Affiliate marketing programs

4. Mass cold email campaigns with Instantly/Apollo

5. Broad-match Google search ads

6. Calendly for scheduling meetings (use Superhuman)

7. DocSend (investors don’t seem to like this)

Negative ROI Tools

1. Hiring B or C-tier advisors

2. Building a B2C subscription as sole revenue source

3. Pay-to-play press releases (some exceptions)

4. ChatGPT for creating your legal doc’s (always requires rework)

5. DocuSign (just use Google Docs’ built-in eSignature)

6. Twitter/X content marketing

Now I know I’m not obliged to leave a disclaimer here, but if I did, I’d just say that this is my tier list, based on my current feelings. It’s not a comprehensive Pew Research study.

Of course I am biased, I am running an early-stage B2B startup, and this will reflect where I’m at in that journey. My opinions have evolved over time, and they will continue to evolve - maybe I’ll update this in the future. Or maybe not.

It’s meant to be a fun little glimpse into how I’m thinking about various tools, tips, and tricks and the impact they’ve had on my startup. Hopefully a few people may find it useful or amusing - maybe it will save someone a few minutes and headaches.

Would love your thoughts on this list, if there’s anything I’m missing, anything you agree/disagree with, or anything you’d like me to expand on in a separate post.

Peace,
Ramsey