The Productivity Tools New Brunswick Entrepreneurs Can’t Live Without
Behind every successful person is a tool or two that makes their lives a little easier.
This is definitely true for those in New Brunswick’s business community, especially hustling entrepreneurs.
We asked a few to share some of the productivity tools they can’t live without.
G-Suite: Recommended by Kelly Lawson, founder of the Ella App and Ella the Shop
Whether it’s documentation storage, tracking schedules and hours or keeping merchandise orders, employment applications and payroll organized, Lawson says her company is all about Google’s app offerings. “We even recently added a Google nest cam to our storefront where we can record and store video footage for up to 30 days,” she says. “All of our backend business exists almost entirely in the cloud. The Carebears were really onto something back in the 80’s.”
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Remember the Milk – Recommended by Dave Gallant, managing director of innovation services at the Venn Garage
When your job is to help mentor and get a group of early-stage startups off the ground, it’s safe to say you’re going to be a busy dude. To help himself stay on task, Gallant uses an app called Remember the Milk. “It’s a simple, clean task management tool where I track all my to-dos for both work and personal time,” says Gallant. “Since I started using this tool, I complete more tasks in less time. It helps me stay on track.”
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1Password.com: Recommended by Sally Ng, Founder and CEO of the Triple Effect and DigiLearn
Even if you’re not an entrepreneur, having a plethora of social media accounts and logins is an issue many people have. It can also lead to some serious security vulnerabilities if you decide to make your password the same for everything. But Ng says this nifty app can solve and prevent those problems. “All your passwords and logins are at your fingertips. If you are writing your passwords on stickies or a notebook or having the same password for everything, you need this,” she says. “It’s super secure and has lots of other fancy features to keep all your logins easy to access.”
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Scanner Pro: Recommended by David Alston, New Brunswick’s chief entrepreneur in residence.
If you’re in a position where you always have forms and documents to sign, you need this in your life. “I get documents I often need to sign and send off to someone,” says Alston. “I just point the camera at the doc and it automatically sees what to scan and grabs it. I can then fire it off seconds later, save a copy for my records and get on with my day.”
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Skype: Recommended by Robyn Tingley, founder of GlassSky
Though it’s far from new, Tingley says Skype is still a powerful tool to accelerate business relationships, collaborate on projects remotely and help with faster decision making when not everyone can be in the same room. Not to mention, it’s easy to use. “It might sound old school, but these days my life is happening through Skype. Skype video and chat,” says Tingley. “Today alone I am connecting with a book editor in London, Ontario, a marketing agent in Nebraska, and clients in Washington and California… all over Skype. Everyone wants video.”
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