In the fast-paced world of digital commerce, staying ahead of the curve requires more than just industry know-how; it demands the right tools to streamline operations, boost productivity, and drive growth. But with countless software options flooding the market, how do you discern which ones are worth your time and investment? To cut through the noise, we reached out to seasoned SaaS experts who have their fingers on the pulse of the industry. These professionals have built and scaled businesses, navigated countless challenges, and fine-tuned their tech stacks to perfection.
In this article, we’ve gathered insightful testimonials from these experts, each revealing the online tools they rely on daily and recommend. Whether you’re an eCommerce owner, digital marketer, or SaaS business leader, these curated recommendations are sure to enhance your toolkit and give you a competitive edge. So, let’s dive in and discover the game-changing tools that can elevate your online business to new heights.
Natalie Marcotullio, Head of Growth and Operations at Navattic
“This probably shouldn’t be surprising, based on my SEO background, but Ahrefs all the way – I absolutely love it. And even if you’re not in an SEO role, it’s great for competitive research, great for market research in general, figuring out what topics people that related to your offering or related to any common themes are cropping up. So, it’s my number-one favorite tool.”
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a software company specializing in crafting online SEO tools and providing complimentary educational resources for marketing experts.
Ahrefs offers a comprehensive SEO toolkit designed to enhance search traffic and streamline website optimization. Achieving this goal involves web crawling, data storage, and user-friendly access via an intuitive interface.
Using Ahrefs, you can analyze your backlink profile, pinpoint potential avenues for link-building, and track your competitors’ strategies for acquiring backlinks.
A noteworthy aspect of Ahrefs is its backlink analysis tool, furnishing comprehensive insights into the backlinks directing to your site. This encompasses details such as the referring domains, anchor texts, and the authority of the linking pages.
This data empowers you to evaluate the caliber of your backlinks and detect any detrimental or inferior links that could impede your SEO endeavors.
Furthermore, Ahrefs provides capabilities for keyword research and content analysis alongside its backlink analysis functionality.
Mariah Hay, CEO and Co-Founder at Allboarder
“Most recently I joined an industry organization called Chief, and their app is awesome. Chief is a community where you have access to content, meetups, presentations, and social groups where you get together and talk about the problems you’re trying to face.”
Chief
Chief serves as a trusted private network for executive women aiming to enhance their leadership influence by connecting them with a curated community of executives and offering valuable insights. Established in 2019, Chief stands as the premier community for senior female executives, encompassing over 10,000 companies and representing 77% of the Fortune 100.
Membership with Chief empowers female executives to elevate their leadership skills. The offerings include personalized or group executive coaching, tailored programs addressing current business challenges, and access to a dynamic community where members can cultivate meaningful connections — relationships that pave the way for impactful professional growth.
Jane Portman, Co-Founder and CEO at Userlist
“There were two tools that we adopted in our marketing stack recently. One is Livestorm, which we use for our multiple workshops hosted on our platform, or even as guest partnerships. And another tool I really love is Pitch, a design tool for presentations. I was really amazed that finally somebody was able to solve the presentation problem. I was wondering, is there a tool out there that is doing it in a beautiful and modern way, and I was amazed to learn that such a tool does exist. Pitch and their library of templates is just downright amazing.”
Livestorm
Livestorm offers a versatile video engagement platform designed to enable organizations to host various types of expansive events, including live, on-demand, and pre-recorded sessions. It supports every aspect of video engagement workflows, from creating landing pages and managing registrations to sending follow-up emails and sharing recorded videos.
The platform stands out for its powerful analytics capabilities, which allow for easy monitoring and measurement of audience engagement. Additionally, it integrates smoothly with a range of tools, consolidating all essential data insights in one centralized hub.
Pitch
Pitch is a presentation software designed for today’s collaborative teams. Prioritizing real-time teamwork, efficient workflows, and user-friendly design elements, Pitch streamlines the process of creating and sharing stunning presentations for teams. Additionally, it offers curated templates by experts, making it effortless for anyone to spark inspiration.
Kristina Quinones, Director of Growth Marketing at Automattic
“I really love Grammarly. I think that Grammarly is incredibly powerful and it’s one of the most useful apps I’ve ever used. I think that anybody who’s writing emails or anything at all (so most people who work on the internet), would benefit from using Grammarly.”
Grammarly
Grammarly stands as the premier AI-powered writing assistant, relied upon by more than 30 million individuals and 70,000 professional teams globally. Whether it’s crafting an initial draft or refining every communication, Grammarly aids users, including 96% of Fortune 500 companies, in effectively conveying their messages and achieving desired outcomes, all while maintaining high standards of security and privacy. We champion the idea that exceptional writing drives success.
Grammarly offers a range of products tailored to different needs—Grammarly Business, Grammarly Premium, Grammarly Free, and Grammarly for Education—integrating seamlessly across over 500,000 apps and websites to provide relevant writing support wherever you work.
Established in 2009, Grammarly ranks No. 7 on the Forbes Cloud 100 list, features in TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in AI, and Inc.’s Best Workplaces. Adopting a remote-first hybrid work approach, our team primarily operates from home, convening for face-to-face collaborations at our North American and European hubs.
Tamara Grominsky, Founder of PMM Camp
“I’d say Notion. Over the past, I’ve tried a ton of different notetaking or project management tools. But Notion is the perfect way for me to organize both my professional and personal life, it’s free, and there’s a bunch of different ways that you can use the product. That’s the number-one product I recommend right now.“
Notion
Notion is a versatile productivity and note-taking platform created by Notion Labs, Inc. It provides a suite of organizational tools, such as task management, project monitoring, to-do lists, and bookmarking.
The platform offers offline capabilities through desktop and mobile apps compatible with Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Users have the flexibility to design custom templates, integrate videos and web content, and engage in real-time collaboration with others.
Notion is user-friendly and doesn’t necessitate specialized training. Leveraging AI and a collection of both free and premium templates, Notion’s AI feature enables users to compose and enhance content, summarize notes, conduct daily standups, modify tone, translate, or proofread text.
Notion enables its users to integrate with more than 70 other SaaS tools, such as Slack, GitHub, GitLab, Zoom, Jira, Cisco Webex, Zapier, and Typeform.
William Harris, Founder and CEO at Elumynt
“There are probably two that I absolutely love and feel like I probably couldn’t live without – Asana and Notion. And that’s because they’re the backbone of what we do – Asana for project management and tasks, so that way, when something comes through, how do we know who’s doing it, when they’re doing it, are there other dependencies, can we get it done in that timeframe? And then Notion for organizing a lot of more complex stuff like our processes and how things are going to get done, and why and when and how.”
Asana
Asana enables organizations to enhance their productivity. Serving as a SaaS platform, Asana is tailored for team collaboration and task management. Teams can establish projects, delegate tasks, define deadlines, and engage in direct communication through Asana. Additionally, it offers reporting capabilities, file attachments, calendars, and goal monitoring.
Matt Bilotti, Product Lead at AngelList
“I feel like the classic PM answer to this is Google Docs. I also use an email tool called Superhuman. I never thought I’d be paying for an email client because Gmail is free, but here I am, and I think that’s an amazing product. I learn product stuff from using their product because I see how smart their decisions are and how meticulous they are about the customer experience.”
Superhuman
Superhuman is an email application established in 2014 by Rahul Vohra. Designed for users aiming to enhance productivity, it emphasizes the efficient use of keyboard shortcuts to accelerate email reading and responses. The app is priced at $30 per month for general users ($10 for students) and promises potential time savings of up to three hours per week.
Kevan Lee, Co-Founder at Bonfire
“I have a Mount Rushmore of tools today. So, Trello is one. Give me any job, I could find a way to make Trello fit with it. I use it to keep myself organized day to day, and we use it for editorial calendars at Buffer. I use it for goal tracking, I use it for everything. I use it for my management – so many different things I use Trello for.
I use Pocket religiously. Anytime I see something I learn that I want to read I will add Pocket and then try to get through my Pocket once a week or so. I tend to have a backlog of articles to read in there. But I try to make my way through.
Feedly is another great big one for me. As you can tell, blogs are a huge part of my life still today, so I pull in tons of different content sources into Feedly, and their mobile app is great. So, I scroll through the mobile app once or twice a week just to clear things out and add things to Pocket and then read them and of course, it all goes to Buffer to share later so I have a little system.”
Trello
Trello is a versatile work management platform that enables teams to brainstorm ideas, collaborate on projects, structure workflows, and monitor progress visually and effectively. From initial brainstorming to planning and execution, Trello handles both significant milestones and daily tasks, facilitating teamwork and achieving objectives.
As a part of Mozilla, Pocket is developing a content platform that allows high-quality web stories to remain relevant long beyond their original publication dates. The company’s goal is to enable people to engage with stories that truly deserve their time and attention, whether through the articles they select for a global audience or the Pocket app, which allows users to save and revisit content at their convenience.
Established in 2007, Pocket joined the Mozilla product lineup in 2017 and functions as an independent subsidiary. Millions have downloaded our app, many more subscribe to our daily newsletter, and a vast audience encounters the stories we curate daily through Firefox. In essence, Pocket is dedicated to promoting exceptional content from across the digital landscape.
Feedly
Feedly is a news-aggregation app compatible with web browsers and mobile platforms like iOS and Android. Additionally, it offers a cloud-based service. The platform gathers news content from diverse online sources, allowing users to personalize their feeds and share them with others. Feedly was initially launched by DevHD in 2008.
Marvin Liao, Partner at Diaspora Ventures
“I feel like one of the important things in the morning, or even before you go to bed, is having a list of three to five things that you think about in terms of ‘I absolutely need to get this thing done.’ So looking at your calendars the night before – this is stuff I wish I followed a lot more religiously. The other thing that I’ve been trying to build in as well is an hour of the day in the beginning where I’m just working on non-business related things. Free your mind up a little bit more, because I feel like sometimes being too ingrained into your work in your business is not a good thing and does not open the creativity that you probably need to be more effective.”
Matthew Howells-Barby, VP of Growth at Kraken
“When it comes to the tool I most rely on, honestly, it’s either my Google Calendar or it’s Todoist. Todoist is basically a to-do list and rough project management platform, but I use it to manage all my tasks for work, side projects, personal tasks. I wouldn’t know how to function as a human being without these, so I think it’s a pretty good example of online tools that I truly do rely on.”
Todoist
If you’re in search of the ultimate to-do list app that operates seamlessly across all your devices, monitors your productivity, and offers extensive options for organizing and analyzing your tasks, Todoist is an app that shouldn’t be missed in your tech stack. Todoist provides apps for all major devices and platforms, and it’s incredibly user-friendly. Whether you need an app to stay productive on your own or to collaborate with others, Todoist is the way to go.
Conclusion
The insights shared by these SaaS experts underscore one crucial point: the right tool can make all the difference in the efficiency and success of your business. From improving customer engagement to streamlining workflows, these recommended tools have proven their worth in real-world applications. By integrating some of these tools into your own operations, you stand to gain significant improvements in productivity, customer satisfaction, and overall business growth.
Remember, the key to choosing the right tool lies in understanding your specific needs and goals. As you explore these expert recommendations, consider how each tool aligns with your business objectives. We hope this roundup of expert-endorsed tools provides you with valuable insights and helps you make informed decisions for your business’s future success.
