Apps to Grow Your Business

Rand Fishkin is the founder, face, soul, and self-styled Wizard of Moz. He’s built an SEO tool that industry experts love. But his success hasn’t always been easy. Rand has spoken before about the building of Moz.com and ending up $500,000 in debt. We caught up with Rand to talk about his life now, including his new role at Moz, the new tool keyword research tool he’s building, and the apps he loves to use. Oh, and his moustache.     Apps used by Rand Fishkin and MOZ.com   Jira     Pingdom     Slack     Office 365     15Five     Balsamiq     Buzzsumo     7Geese     Conspire     Creative Cloud     FounderDating     True Social Metrics

Ed Molyneux is the founder and CEO of FreeAgent, small business accounting software. The story of how he built the first version of FreeAgent speaks to a recurring theme with entrepreneurs: solving your own problem first. [00:02:47] Lessons from 11 years as a Harrier Jet pilot Ed made it very clear that to be successful as a pilot or entrepreneur you need to be able to rely on a great team. It’s this team that will ultimately determine if your mission as a pilot or business is successful. “The excitement that you get from being part of a really effective team isn’t that dissimilar to those days [as a Harrier pilot].” [00:07:49] Building a team Since putting together a team is not easy, especially when you’re a startup, I asked Ed for some advice on how to choose the right people. “You recognize the gaps in your abilities and you hire people who can do the things, and are excited about doing the things that you just can’t do.” [00:10:53] Bridging th

Susan Baroncini Moe is the founder of Business in Blue Jeans, a personal business coaching service. Susan helps current business owners find new business models for growth, and additionally acts as a guide to those wanting to transition from employee to entrepreneur.   [00:03:20] What is Business in Blue Jeans “One of the reasons entrepreneurs doubt themselves is that they simply don’t know how to do a lot of the things that as business owners we all need to know how to do.” [00:06:43] Common traits among entrepreneurs Susan made special mention that there is a common condition she sees in a lot of her clients: grandiose ideas and big plans but a lingering fear and feeling that they’re unqualified or incapable of doing it. Tip: “Success Inventory”, keep a running list of your accomplishments, moments where you have been successful that prove that you are qualified. [00:11:09] Guinness World Record Holder Few people can say that they are an officially recogn

Dorie Clark, author of Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, is also a strategic marketing consultant and can be found at DorieClark.com. She joined us on the GetApp podcast to talk about her book and what we can do to discover out breakthrough ideas. “For a lot of professionals today it’s very common that people have a lot of different jobs a lot of different careers and we need to know how to adapt in the marketplace.” [00:04:45] Dorie explains how she faced a rough patch when she was repeatedly turned down from doctoral programs and after pivoting into journalism, got laid off a year later when the economy started to hit the publishing industry. Those moments where inspiration to write her first book: Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future. “Often times the reason there was a failure was because of larger forces I really couldn’t see at the time.” [00:07:00] When asked about how to get out of a

Guy Kawasaki on The Art of the Start, social media and exciting apps Guy Kawasaki needs little introduction. He was with Apple when it rose from the ashes, he's a successful entrepreneur and investor, but most notably he's an outspoken proponent of social media as the best marketing tool. We caught up with him in this episode of the GetCast to chew the fat on everything from smart watches to social media. "I love watches but I’m not rushing out to buy it" [05:06] What better way to kick off our talk than with the Apple Watch? Guy is a watch enthusiast who is especially fond of Breitlings, and is currently wearing a Withings Activitaé. The Apple Watch is another story though. “I would never predict that Apple is going to fail with any device like this but I’m not going to rush out and buy it.” Guy did see one bit of potential with the Apple Watch. "I always lose my car keys, but never lose my arm" [06:51] “If the watch took the place of my car key, I would be very intereste

Interview and advice from Howler Brothers CMO From working in a medical device startup to starting an investment fund Rick Wittenbraker is a guy who has a lot experience helping to build companies. Rick is now the marketing director at Howler Brothers apparel company and he’s our guest on this episode. Experience with startups [00:02:23] Rick started his career with a job in a private equity firm. After his stint there he decided to move back to Austin where he linked up with some friends to lead their medical device startup in marketing and business development. [00:06:14] Not satisfied with working in a startup, Rick and his brother decide to take a bigger role and invest. Together they pooled their money and establish Stage One Capital which invested in a variety of startups. [00:10:30] During his time as investor Rick listened to a lot of pitches and learned a thing or two about what the successful companies do to grow. Listen to some advice Rick has to those take the Lean Startup methodology by hea

Being proactive about developing talent you need Cain Ullah is the CEO and co-founder of Red Badger a software development company helping enterprise intrapreneurs. Cain joins on on this episode to talk about how he built Red Badger and how they proactively handle recruiting How to close more deals How do you get a new software company to be taken seriously. You have no track record or credibility. Cains advice after knowing what he knows now, “live software examples would have made pitching to partners the value of Red Badger much easier”. Apps to reduce infrastructure costs while starting up As a software company Red Badger has always utilized cloud based apps to reduce operational costs. Apps are such an important part of their business Cain says,” we hold quarterly company wide tech round tables to evaluate libraries, frameworks and apps”. Some apps that Cain recommends: FreeAgent is their accounting app to manage payroll, expenses and budgets. Slack to almost completely replace e

Wordpress web design for small businesses Julian Kingman is a GetApp community member who left a review for ActiveCampaign and is now joining us on this episode of our podcast. Julian is a web designer and developer who uses Wordpress to help small businesses reach their goals. Tips to get more clients To get more customers to his freelance studio, Design Man Can, Julian recommends these tips from personal experience. Consistent work ethics deliver results and get word of mouth referrals. Create profiles on TaskRabbit and Craigslist to get discovered by new clients. Network with your local community through Meetup.com. How to keep clients happy Julian mentioned that a big part of his work was dedicated initially to discovering the real reason his clients need websites. These are some of the tools that help him stay on top of clients and diligent in his research. Evernote to keep track of conversations and client needs/ideas/feedback. Trello as a multitasking project management tool (CRM, project management

The future of scaling companies and exponential growth As a Harvard researcher in the future of work and models of leadership, Erica Dhawan discovered something fascinating. People were harnessing relationships, resources and networks in revolutionary new ways. Cotential, helping accelerate employee connections This discovery is what Erica, and co-founder/co-author Saj-Nicole Joni, coined as Connectional Intelligence. Their company Cotential takes that model of Connectional Intelligence and applies it to the companies and workforces. Apps that Cotential uses Evernote Basecamp Asana Slack Get Big Things Done, beyond crowdsourcing Together Erica and Saj-Nicole have co-authored Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence. This book takes crowdsourcing and the hive mind to the next level. Erica and Saj-Nichole show us in this book how Connectional Intelligence is the step after crowdsourcing, the step that actually generates the breakthroughs. Get the book now on Amazon Duolingo a personal favor

Jodie Hebbard is a life coach that decided to start her remote coaching business and soon had a scheduling problem across multiple time zones. In this show, Jodie shares with us why she is a life coach and also the reasons why she decided to use Acuity Scheduling in her new business. https://www.jodiehebbard.com http://www.getapp.com/hr-employee-management-software/a/acuity-scheduling/

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You don't often find someone with over 12 years experience in the SaaS industry. Rick Chapman is one of the rare SaaS experts whose been there from the dot-com bust to today's appification of everything. Rick joined us on this episode of the GetCast to talk about the evolution of SaaS and his book the SaaS Entrepreneur. He also shares with us his predictions about what is going to be key in the evolution of SaaS and apps. Links to Rick Chapman... SaaS Entrepreneur: The Definitive Guide to Succeeding in Your Cloud Application Business SaaS University Softletter, information and news for the SaaS industry. Rick on Twitter @rickchapman53

Find your new cloud accounting apps at http://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/accounting/ In this show you'll learn why QuickBooks uses... Zendesk for customer service. Uservoice as part of their help desk. Intuit QuickBase for team collaboration. JIRA for development management. MailChimp for email marketing. SurveyMonkey for data collection. HipChat for real time team contact. Onmiture from Adobe for web tracking and analytics. Salesforce for lead reports. Tableau for number crunching. David also recommends... Pocket Casts to listen to podcasts. Any.do as a personal to-do manager. Evernote for note-taking. Contactually to track contacts. Nine as an Exchange client. Find your new cloud accounting apps at http://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/accounting/

Find your new cloud accounting apps at http://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/accounting/ In this show you’ll learn why FinancialForce uses… Salesforce as their crm tool. Google apps for productivity. Marketo to do landing pages. Kevin also recommends... Samsung Gear Live smart watch. Tile for keeping track of things. Find your new cloud accounting apps at http://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/accounting/

Find your new marketing automation apps at http://www.getapp.com/marketing-automation-software  In this show you’ll learn why Kahuna uses… Salesforce as their crm tool. Quickbooks to manage their finances. Bill.com to coordinates bills to pay. Concur to make receipt tracking more efficient. Adam also recommends... Tempo as his personal agenda and calendar. Cotap as their mobile messaging tool. Join.me for quick screencasts. Webex for group chats. Clarity when you need the advice of an expert. Quibb as a fun social news app. Find your new marketing automation apps at http://www.getapp.com/marketing-automation-software

Find your new ad network apps at http://www.getapp.com/ad-networks-software In this show you’ll learn why AdsNative uses… New Relic for deeper customer data. Datadog as their moitoring service. Slack as a communication tool. Mail Chimp for email marketing. Intercom to see how customer use their site. Mixpanel to dig deeper into their site/user analytics.  Dhawal also recommends... Wunderlist as an iOs to-do list. Find your new ad network apps at http://www.getapp.com/ad-networks-software

Find your new customer management apps at http://www.getapp.com/customer-management-software In this show you’ll learn why Insightly uses… Preact to analyze product usage. Marketo to self manage online marketing. Optimizely for A/B testing. Crazy Egg to understand page engagement. KissMetrics for easy to use analytics.  Find your new customer management apps at http://www.getapp.com/customer-management-software