Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your startup?

Posted by acangiano on Saturday June 13, 2009 @10:21AM
from the ask-hn dept.

What set of utilities and services (online or offline) do you use to manage your startup? There are obviously many possible needs, like book-keeping, private and secure sharing and backing up of files, communication between co-founders and partners, customer care and ticket handling, etc... I'm not clueless about these subjects, but I'd like to hear what the HN community recommends.

( 23 comments | 38 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by caffeine on Saturday June 13, 2009 @02:31PM (#656343)

  Planning: VIM
  Blogging: VIM
  E-mail:   VIM
  Coding:   VIM
  Finances: VIM
  VCS: Git .. with comments edited in VIM ;)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by pyr3 on Saturday June 13, 2009 @04:46PM (#656468)

I would be interested in a write-up of how you do your planning and finances using Vim (format, helper scripts, etc).

I'm mostly interested in your workflow/text file formatting is like.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by hbien on Saturday June 13, 2009 @04:03PM (#656427)

Out of curiosity, how do you do your email and finances from Vim? Is there an awesome email plugin for vim that I don't know about =]

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by brl on Saturday June 13, 2009 @04:12PM (#656435)

Have you seen this:

http://vimperator.org

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by pclark on Saturday June 13, 2009 @10:28AM (#656151)

Planning: Pivotal Tracker.

Finance: Kashflow.

Todos: Basecamp.

SVN: Beanstalk.

Tickets: Zendesk.

Files [internal, collaboration & sharing]: Dropbox.

Email: Google Docs.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by pyroman on Saturday June 13, 2009 @12:33PM (#656252)

This wiki was created to list what tools are used by which startups. http://startuptools.pbworks.com/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by Oompa on Saturday June 13, 2009 @10:51AM (#656170)

Github, Campfire & Basecamp, and Google Apps for Domains.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by ErrantX on Saturday June 13, 2009 @11:33AM (#656209)

In no particular order:

Bitbucket (mercurial hosting), Gmail, Komodo Edit, Dropbox, Gtalk, Zoho Docs

For the record I know Komodo isnt really "management" but as it's the most crucial part of my workflow.... :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by pxlpshr on Saturday June 13, 2009 @10:59AM (#656179)

PM: Basecamp

Finance: OSX Numbers

Billing: iBiz

Files/Hybrid SVN: Dropbox

External Com: OtherInbox.com

Internal Com: GTalk, Skype, iChat, etc.

Documents: OSX Pages and Google Docs

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by sidmitra on Saturday June 13, 2009 @03:04PM (#656371)

Just to mention, Microsoft office offers some pretty nifty services in this regard. Check out Office Live Small Business. You get a workspace with 5Gb of file storage. You can view docs, ppts right in the browser and with a plugin you can edit them right on your desktop MS office.

There's also Live Mesh service (seperate 5 GB) that allows you to sync files across different computers. You can use it as a documentation, file sharing tool. .

We have a Team of 5. We started with a google based solution for now.

Conference Calls: Skype 3$ accounts(to dial into US) + http://www.freeconference.com/

Mailing List: Google Groups

Collaboration: Google Docs

Scheduling: Google Calendar

Project Mgmt: Google Sites (with different task list), with widgets showing our docs + calendars on google services.

Files: Google groups has 100 MB, so does Sites.

VCS: git/svn on pvt server.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by coopr on Monday June 15, 2009 @02:31PM (#658821)

Do we seriously have to re-ask this question every few weeks?!

http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by twrensch on Saturday June 13, 2009 @11:29AM (#656204)

I'm not happy with my mix yet, and spend too much time trying out new things. Here's what I'm currently using:

PM: Google notebook, Google calendar, "Stickies app" (Tomboy)

Finance: sigh still looking

Files: Dropbox

Communications: GMail, Skype (NOT Twitter)

Documents: Mix Google Docs & OpenOffice. I've started using Etherpad quite a bit as well.

Invoicing & Billing: Still looking for something that fits my needs, Spreadsheets & Docs for now

Source code: Local SNV server, thinking about Github

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by laktek on Sunday June 14, 2009 @04:35AM (#656956)

Give a try on CurdBee (http://curdbee.com) for invoicing and billing. It would fit perfectly for your startup if you are looking for a smart and low cost solution (you can start using it for Free!)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by NemanjaSAGE on Monday June 15, 2009 @03:38PM (#658937)

A couple of FREE products I would recommend are:

Simply Accounting First Step Express for accounting http://www.simplyaccounting.com/downloads/firststep/express/

and

Billing Boss for invoicing http://www.billingboss.com/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by niyazpk on Saturday June 13, 2009 @11:42AM (#656214)

I am a single programmer startup. Still working on my website.

TortoiseSVN (source control) is the only thing I am using as of now.

I have a to-do.txt in my desktop to remind me of what next. I use Gmail to communicate and StackOverflow to get help. Since I haven't completed building my application, I never needed other services to manage the work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by jseifer on Saturday June 13, 2009 @11:08AM (#656186)

As a freelancer:

Misc: Backpack

Project proposals: Writeboard

Invoicing: Freshbooks

Source control: Github

Bugs: Redmine and Pivotal Tracker

Other docs: Google Docs

To dos: Things

Files: Dropbox

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by juliend2 on Saturday June 13, 2009 @11:51AM (#656224)

As a freelancer :

Project management : BaseCamp

Personnal GTD improvement : RescueTime

Invoices & estimates : Freshbooks

Accounting : my accountant uses Simply Accounting (Windows app on my vmware box)

Files : dropbox

Source control : Git on RepositoryHosting.com (6$/month and i can manage any number of SVN/Git repositories. And it just works)

Synch iCal with google calendar

Synch contacts with Plaxo

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by slig on Saturday June 13, 2009 @07:06PM (#656602)

Thanks for the tip on RepositoryHosting :-)

Their price rocks.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by jlangenauer on Sunday June 14, 2009 @05:10AM (#656971)

Book-keeping: Saasu Issue/Bug Tracking: Lighthouse SVN hosting: Beanstalk Backups: Amazon S3 Site Monitoring: Pingdom

All of which I'd recommend - Saasu especially if you're based in Australia.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by entelarust on Saturday June 13, 2009 @02:47PM (#656353)

Project management: Trac Versioning: SVN/Trac Monitoring: Nagios, Pingdom Support: Get Satisfaction Newsletters: Campaign Monitor Communication: Gtalk, Email

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by stumpy124 on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @11:19PM (#662942)

We use http://www.helpspot.com

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by chique on Saturday June 13, 2009 @12:54PM (#656270)

Pivitol Tracker, Harvest, Google Apps for Domain.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What web/desktop apps do you use to manage your s... by ComputerGuru on Saturday June 13, 2009 @01:25PM (#656295)

Jira & FishEye.

[ Parent | on HN ]