A certain size of companies
Working with smaller companies instead of the big ones always interests me. As my day job is running a small design and technology company, I believe that most smaller companies have a little bit more heart in the game, and that is something I like.
I’m not talking about the random one-person company that has been active for a week or two, but solid smaller companies with a handful of people with a respectful history of being around for a while.
We also use services from large companies at work. The entire disclosure is that we are currently using Slack. Slack is no longer a small company (but it was way smaller when we started using it), and we use Google’s paid service for email and calendars.
Tools
Fathom Analytics is a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics. It was created by a team of two developers in Canada (but I’m pretty sure one is British). Their main goal is to provide website owners with accurate and actionable data about their visitors without compromising privacy.
Postmark is an email delivery service that delivers transactional and broadcast emails, such as password resets, account notifications, and purchase confirmations. It strongly emphasizes reliability, speed, and security. (Postmark was recently acquired by ActiveCampaign but has managed to maintain its quality so far.)
Content Management Systems
Craft is a Content Management System (CMS) known for its flexibility and ease of use. It is a tool that helps designers and developers create custom websites quickly and efficiently. Many small—to medium-sized businesses use Craft to manage their online content, but quite a few large brands also use Craft.
Another CMS we like is Statamic, which is made by a small team and built upon Laravel. It has a great Control Panel for clients who work in it, and we use it for sites where we don’t need a database since it allows us to store everything as files.
Project and time management
We have tracked time with Harvest since 2008. It’s easy to use, summarizes all hours spent on projects at the end of the month, and keeps us informed about where we spend our time. It does this well and gets out of your way.
Project management software comes and goes, but we stuck to Basecamp during the years.
- Is it the perfect solution? Nope.
- Is it the best alternative for software development? Nope.
- Is it the most beautifully designed software? Nope.
- Does it solve most problems for us and our clients? Yes.
It’s software made for most people, meaning it can be used by clients, partners, CEOs, designers, support staff, project managers, developers, and almost anyone else.
Missive is an email application made for teams. We utilize the Google Workspace email setup within Missive. Some of our favorite features include having separate and shared accounts in the same app, assigning emails, and discussing them in the app before replying and sending them.