
We’re creating a “Startup toolbox”. What apps should go in it? - g0atbutt
http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/02/09/hn-we%E2%80%99re-creating-a-%E2%80%9Cstartup-toolbox%E2%80%9D-what-apps-should-go-in-it/
======
zapnap
A few that I swear by:

github <http://github.com> for source control and wikis

sendgrid <http://sendgrid.com> or Amazon SES for email

mogotest <http://mogotest.com> for browser testing

recurly <http://recurly.com> for managing recurring payments

tender <http://tenderapp.com> for support / help desk

linode <http://linode.com> for hosting or Amazon EC2

mocksup <http://mocksup.com> for quick and easy mockups

clicky <http://getclicky.com> for analytics

zerigo <http://www.zerigo.com> for dns and monitoring

AWS <http://aws.amazon.com> S3, EC2, and everything else :)

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norova
Geckoboard: <http://www.geckoboard.com/> \--- "a hosted, real-time status
board serving up the indicators that matter to you."

Freshbooks: <http://www.freshbooks.com/> \--- "painless billing"

Linode: <http://www.linode.com/> \--- "Deploy and Manage Linux Virtual Servers
in the Linode Cloud. Get a server running in minutes with your choice of Linux
distro, resources, and node location."

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_pius
Hard to imagine why someone creating a traditional Ruby-based web app wouldn't
start with Heroku.

<http://heroku.com>

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maguay
Why MediaTemple specifically? Is there something they provide more/better than
other hosts to make them so much more popular among webdevs and creatives?
I've tried to figure out how people justify their higher price relative to
other hosts like Dreamhost on the simple hosting end to VPS.net on the hither
end...

I'd really be interested in any insight any MediaTemple users have!

Edit: I should mention that I recently purchased a domain from MediaTemple
because currently you can registe one .com for $5. Otherwise, though, I'm
currently using Dreamhost for site hosting and my other domain registrations.
I'd really like to know what more they truly offer for hosting!

~~~
wh-uws
I use mediatemple.

My setup is the mediatemple for client projects and a linode vps for my own
personal playground

I like them because they are like an entry level honda to, for comparison, say
the Rolls Royce of one of the more expensive Rackspace plans.

I don't know if anyone else has used rackspace but I had a client who did
once. You pay them something like $2000 - $4000 a month but everytime you call
them you _instantly_ get a person on the phone that can get you to someone who
can help you fix your problem.

With mediatemple you have to deal with a machine answering and wait 5 or 10
minutes but you only pay $200 for the whole year. And the service and
knowledge of the support people is comparable.

They also have a great control panel with all of the standard dns
configuration, 1 click app installation, administrative stuff.

Long story short they have plenty of things that automate the tedious setup
process of building a site and pretty good customer service.

Though I would agree for the more tech savvy go for the free Amazon ec2
instance and scale up from there or invest in a vps with linode or slicehost.

If you have any specific questions feel free to ask. I know my answer was
really general

~~~
maguay
Thanks for responding! I do have a couple questions. What type of site are you
running on your MediaTemple account? If just a standard website or blog, why
MediaTemple over, say, Dreamhost? I would personally compare Dreamhost to a
honda and MediaTemple to a Rolls Royce when thinking of hosting, say, a design
blog, but that would be solely based on price. For just standard hosting, $97
can get you a year's hosting at Dreamhost or many other similar hosting
companies. Do you have any idea what they offer to make it worth double that
for basic hosting?

Thanks again for your time and for replying!

~~~
wh-uws
You're welcome!

and phone support is about the only difference as far as I can tell.

Its nice to be able to call someone

------
benologist
MongoHQ: <http://mongohq.com/>

If anyone wants to work with MongoDB (nosql database) it's a lot easier to let
them handle the details instead of adding it to your already huge list of
things you need to do, know, learn etc. They have free databases you can mess
around with, and their paid ones are a lot cheaper than getting more
vps's/dedicateds/cloud instances - these guys save me time, headaches _and_
money.

BizSpark: <http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/>

Free MS software for 3 years including Windows, Visual Studio, SQL Server etc.
Generous terms when your 3 years are up.

DNSPark: <http://dnspark.net/>

Very cheap DNS, I use them at Playtomic which millions of people hit each day.
They have generous query limits - $14/year for 5 million queries/month should
well and truly cover most startups - and if like me that's closer to "a day"
then a month they're still yet to implement overage charges.

Pingdom: <http://www.pingdom.com/>

Uptime and latency monitoring for your servers. I'm still only using their
free plan which is a mistake on my part - I just haven't had time to get it
all set up properly and have the data piped into my own dashboard but it is on
my to do list.

High Scalability: <http://highscalability.com/>

Not a service, but an awesome blog that you should read if you are dealing
with big numbers or big data, or aspiring to. They're one of the few out-of-
my-industry blogs I actually go to _without_ coming through HN.

Web Hosting Talk: <http://webhostingtalk.com/>

If you're not excited about being billed per hour, per request _and_ per
gigabyte for storage and bandwidth in teh cloudz then you can get awesome
deals on all levels of hosting there, esp good for dedicateds and vps.

Fusion Charts: <http://www.fusioncharts.com/>

I don't use them anymore but they have a great library of free Flash charts
you can use. AMCharts (<http://www.amcharts.com/>) is another one that I still
use but only for their world maps.

------
mutru
Some of the tools we're using ourselves:

Team collaboration: <http://www.flowdock.com/> No matter what are the other
tools you're using, Flowdock keeps your team organized and up-to-date. Google
Wave done right.

Version control: <http://www.github.com/>

Agile project management: <http://www.pivotaltracker.com/>

Customer feedback: <http://www.uservoice.com/>

Service monitoring: <http://www.pingdom.com/>

Scalable database: <http://www.mongodb.org/>

Programming languages: JavaScript, Ruby, Scala

Everyone in the company is using an OS X desktop, and our servers (hosted in
several places) are powered by Ubuntu Linux and Chef (systems management).

------
cj
If you recommend MediaTemple add a disclaimer to stay away from (gs). Their dv
service is alright, but gs has terrible performance. I tweeted a few weeks ago
that I was switching away from MT (gs) and their twitter support DM'd me
admitting that gs "sucks" as they tried to sell me on their DV package.

I'm sure many people here would recommend Linode, Slicehost, or Heroku as
competent alternatives.

~~~
phlux
Greets! -- spell out those acronyms, please. If we are trying to educate
people on services etc... dont assume they know what everything means.

~~~
acrum
The acronyms are how Media Temple refers to their different hosting packages.
A look at their website reveals (gs) = grid service, (dv) = dedicated virtual.

Personally, I have worked on one site that was hosted on a (dv) server with
Media Temple (for three months.. I was only filling in), and had nothing but
good experiences with them.

Their prices are definitely high though, so I don't know if I'd call them
exactly startup-friendly. I wasn't the one paying for the site I worked with,
but if I had to pay for it myself, I'd probably look elsewhere.

------
inmygarage
Dropbox, Github, Pivotal Tracker, Balsamiq

------
krisrak
domain: godaddy.com ($7.67 with promo code)

hosting and db: google app engine (free)

mail: google apps (free)

support: get satisfaction (free)

blog: tumblr (free)

graphics: gimp (free)

analytics: google analytics (free)

:this is what I use for all my projects: <http://shaloc.com>,
<http://checkinmania.com>, <http://misotrendy.com>

more at <http://initlabs.com>

~~~
jonny_eh
Excellent suggestions. The awesomeness of App Engine should not be under
estimated. It makes running a web app extremely easy and painless (and free,
at first).

It has some gaps though depending on what you're going to use it for. For
example, its sending/receiving to/from custom domains is quite limited.

To fix that I've used: -To send emails from a custom domain: SendGrid.com -To
receive emails sent to a custom domain: CloudMailin.net

For buying domain names, I've switched from GoDaddy to name.com, just to get
away from the awfulness that is GoDaddy's UI.

------
Groxx
TrueCrypt + DropBox = protect your data from almost anything.

I've been using this for programming, it has been working flawlessly. And
DropBox is the _only_ system so far that handles my 1GB file without choking,
and does so quickly enough that a day's changes (and the repo changes) only
take a few minutes to scan and upload.

------
edw519
The Hacker's Diet: <http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/>

If you don't take care of yourself, nothing else in your toolbox matters.

~~~
amock
Not only that, but it's good practice for the methodology you should be using
when developing your product. Constantly measure and keep track of your
results so you can see what's working and what isn't. Keep track of trends and
don't overreact to short term changes.

------
hardik988
There's an awesome collection of startup tools here:

<http://startuptools.pbworks.com/w/page/17974963/FrontPage>

------
DanielRibeiro
Pretty much everything listed here: <http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-
for-entrepreneurs/>

------
trustfundbaby
unfuddle.com ... free git/svn hosting and ticketing.

domaintools - domain monitor for stalking that domain that you absolutely have
to have <http://www.domaintools.com/monitor/>

------
ElbertF
Surveys: <http://surveymonkey.com/>

I'm currently using the free plan for a handful of projects and it's awesome.

~~~
clare
In the same line our own survey startup <http://www.impressity.com> is another
free survey option. The surveys are 100% free without limitation. You can set
10 survey questions to private, and the remaining will be public. We welcome
any feedback, and hope this can contribute to HN community.

------
paraschopra
<plug>

Visual Website Optimizer <http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/> for A/B testing

</plug>

------
onteria
> Mockups: Photoshop (or Pixelmator for really tight budgets)

Only thing with Pixelmator is it's Mac only (unless I missed fine print
somewhere). You might not have Macs laying around if you're on a really tight
budget. Gimp might be good to throw out there since it's free and works on
multiple platforms.

~~~
Gertig
I use <http://mocksup.com> for mockups, clickable and connectable.

------
hopeless
Codebase: <http://codebasehq.com> for Git/Subversion/Mercurial hosting,
tickets, wikis, time tracking etc. Cheaper and more flexible than Github
(though I also love Github for public projects). And they have a new version
out in Q1

~~~
dlib
With a Codebasehq account also comes a free deployhq account. You commit
changes to your git-branch and deployhq will ssh into your production server
and update the code. Extra commands (e.g. rake db:migrate) can also be
executed. It's basically like Capistrano but as-a-service, but easier to set
up (and less versatile probably, but I haven't come across anything I couldn't
do).

They're also working on Deliverhq, basically transactional email delivery like
Sendgrid.

------
tm65atcolumbia
Infrastructure: github, heroku, linode, dropbox

Team: skype, google voice, googleApps,

Development: stackoverflow

Customer Understanding: clicky

------
bpeters
<http://getsatisfaction.com> is a great way to get feedback from users on your
startup. Easy to manage and free for the feedback widget. I have not tried to
pay for features yet.

~~~
g0atbutt
That's an interesting app. I've heard good things about it but I've never used
it myself. How often do you use it?

~~~
bpeters
We use it all the time during our closed alpha. Provides a quick and simple
way to have users ask questions, provide new ideas, and offer feedback. Allows
admins to comment back and answer any questions so its pretty engaging.

------
rbreve
mixpanel: for specific analytics and metrics

yammer: to communicate with your teammates

gomockingbird.com easy way to create mockups browser based

amazon ec2/s3 for hosting

------
fredoliveira
Goplan for project management: <http://goplanapp.com>

(Disclaimer: I work on the app - we'll also cut a deal for the toolbox if it
moves forward)

------
mercurialist
IndexTank: <http://indextank.com> Full-text indexing & search service
(realtime, incl. free options, geo/faceting).

------
timtim
Those two have not been mentioned yet:

Hosted SVN/Git: <http://www.assembla.com/> -> I prefer it over Github.

Real Browser Website Monitoring: <http://www.alertfox.com/free-website-
monitoring/> -> Once you have your web app running, make sure it really works.

We have been using both for more than a year now. Great services! Both over
free plans, too.

------
andyshora
I've created a Collaborative Task Manager, <http://managewith.us> which allows
remote members of a team to manage a list of tasks, seeing updates in real-
time (a bit like Etherpad).

There's a free version, but I'd be happy to give your readers a discount on
the Pro and Enterprise packages (they are relatively affordable anyway).

If you're interested drop me an email, which is info@ the domain above :-)

Andy

------
kleinsch
If you're in any way technical, why would you go MediaTemple (or other VPS
provider) and not Amazon EC2? With the new micro instances, Amazon is very
competitive on the low end, and they've got configurations to scale up to the
highest volumes. I think as far as features go, they're miles ahead of the
competition, but feel like there's something I must be missing.

------
kwellman
For the bootstrapping budget startups:

bitbucket.org --> Free private repositories

amazon ec2 --> Free usage tier for a year

uservoice --> basic functionality is free

------
ac132
Lots of great stuff mentioned, but here's some I didn't see:

SEO:<http://raventools.com/>

Password Management: <http://passpack.com/>

Stickers: <http://www.stickermule.com/> :-)

------
cemregr
For web design/mockup work, Fireworks is way more suitable than Photoshop.
It's also a lot cheaper.

------
juddlyon
Google Apps, Dropbox, Evernote, LAMP, VIM, Google (learn the advanced search
operators)

------
olalonde
<http://Uservoice.com>: feedback box

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thushan
This isn't so much as a toolbox item but a must read I think
<http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/>

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glenjamin
Hoptoad: <http://hoptoadapp.com>

Exception notification, mainly ruby but has an easy to implement API. Plugins
available for many other frameworks afaik.

------
rjrodger
My <http://startupdeathclock.com> is great for cheering yourself up.

Only to be used in the week after you close a round!

------
sammville
My web app at poplytics.com helps website owners collect feedback. Would love
for it to be included. Currently free

~~~
rcamera
I and my cofounder are starting our beta team, and we are considering using
your app to gather and manage feedback. Seems interesting, though we just
started researching today. Will give feedback tomorrow.

------
meiers
Plimus.com for easy billing/recurrent billing

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ceslami
Recurly or Chargify for recurring payments.

------
thethimble
Vim

------
duck
Shortcut to Hacker News

------
edge17
coffee

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mkramlich
DropBox, GitHub, Basecamp, Balsamiq, vi, DynaDot, Linode, Gmail, Twitter, Gimp

~~~
benologist
+1 for Dynadot, forgot to mention them earlier. I don't really think of them
much but I've used them for years.

------
lwat
PostGreSQL

