Start-up Tools

 

• Start-ups are always short on time. Here are some tools (products/frameworks/etc) that might avoid you reinventing the wheel and save you some valuable time.
• We (Songkick) have found that the most useful tools are introduced to us by other start-ups. This wiki is an attempt to collect some of that knowledge and experience in one place so that companies getting started on new problems have a useful reference.
• This list is focused on technical tools to save development time. For business focused resources, Seedcamp have created a useful wiki here.
• With each tool, we've added a list of start-ups known to be using that tool, so there's a sense of how well tested they are by the community. If no start-up can vouch for the tool it doesn't make it onto the list.
• This list is maintained by Ian at Songkick but will be a lot better for your additions! Start-ups that have contributed to this wiki include: Boxed Ice, GroupSpaces, Habit Industries, Huddle, IvyLees, Playfire, Plug in SEO, Fragegg, Poll Everywhere, Smarkets, Songkick, TinyCoupon, Webjam, Echodio, Skimlinks, Wasabi Ventures, Soup.io, highdefnow, boxedup, Achilles, PicoCraft, CogniDox, lastarticle, edocr.com, TechBrewery/Zattoo, GetItWithMe, OnePage, Mediaroots, Clear Books, Urban Alarm

 

Categories

 

1. Search

• Google Custom Search Engine
• Lucene
• Quintura
• Solr
• Sphinx
• Xapian

Bugs

• Methodology
• Index Cards
• Zero Defects Culture
• Tools
• Bontq
• Bugzilla
• Exceptional (Rails-specific)
• Hoptoad (Rails-specific)
• Fogbugz
• Intervals
• JIRA
• Launchpad (Free hosting and OpenSource)
• Lighthouse
• Mantis (Open source)
• PivotalTracker
• Redmine
• RT
• SifterApp
• Trac

Performance

• Server Monitoring
• Nagios (open source)
• New Relic (Rails-specific)
• Panopta (advanced monitoring of servers and SaaS applications)
• Pingdom (up/down alerts)
• Server Density (easy resource usage monitoring)
• WebPagetest (load time analysis from US/NZ)
• Tools
• Fnord (resources hosting)
• Gatling (resources hosting)
• kHTTPd (resources hosting)
• JS/CSS Compression Using YUI Compressor
• memcached
• mod_perlite (Perl)
• PHP-FPM (a patch for php4/5 to greatly improve FastCGI SAPI usage)
• pgbouncer (Lightweight connection pooler for PostgreSQL, from the developers of Skype)
• Varnish Cache (reverse proxy)
• YSlow (performance checklist)
• Page Speed   Chat sohbet
• YUICompressor

Forms

• Google Docs
• Wufoo

Analytics

• Builtwith
• Chartbeat
• ClickHeat
• Clicky
• Crazy Egg
• Google Analytics
• Rifgraf
• Site Pulse - Live Web Traffic Monitor and Analytics 
• SurCentro
• Quantcast
• WebsiteGrader

Color

• Color Combos
• Color Scheme Designer
• Color Schemer Online

• Colour Lovers

• Kuler

Logo

• BrandStack
• DesignBay
• 99designs
• CrowdSpring
• Elance
• Guerra-Creativa
• LogoTournament
• ShopForDesigns

Image manipulation

• Aviary
• FotoFlexer
• Splashup
• Paint.NET
• Picnik
• Photoshop Express
•  Pixelmator  

Audio

• Gcast
• BlogTalkRadio
• Myna

Video

• Animoto
• ClipGenerator
• Episodic
• Ooyala
• Panda (Open source)
• Quick.tv
• Vimeo
• vzaar
• Xtranormal

Presentation tools

 

• Prezi 

Login System

• Clickpass
• RPX

Social functionality

• Crowdfactory
• Disqus
• Webjam

Location

• Geonames
• Google Geocoding API
• IP Location Tools
• Maxmind
• Nearby
• OpenStreetMap

Email

• Campaign Monitor
• Easymsg
• Exact Target
• eway direct
• iContact
• MailChimp
• Hmail Server

Telephony

• Google Voice
• Ring central
• Twilio
• Grasshopper
• Aretta Communications

Accounting, Taxes & Payroll

• Clear Books
• Exponent
• KashFlow
• Xero
• ReceiptFarm 

Invoicing & Payments

• Ballpark
• Billshare
• BillingBoss
• Blinksale
• CurdBee
• FreshBooks
• Harvest
• Ronin
• WorkingPoint
• Bill On Site

Subscription Payments / Management

• CheddarGetter
• Spreedly
• Aria, Vindicia, Zuora

Managing APIs

• 3scale
• Mashery

Web frameworks

• cakePHP (PHP)
• Code Igniter
• Django (Python)
• Drupal (PHP)
• Kohana (PHP)
• Rails (Ruby)
• StaticMatic
• Zend Framework (PHP)
• web.py (Python)
• Wordpress (PHP)

Databases

• MySQL (OpenSource)
• PostgreSQL (OpenSource)
• quickbase
• Swordfish

Sharing & storing files

• Dropbox
• MediaFire
• YouSendIt

Image Galleries

• SlideshowPro (Commercial)
• SimpleViewer (Free)

Customer Relationship Management

• BatchBook
• Canned Responses and TextExpander or AutoHotKey
• Zoho
• Highrise
• Tactile CRM

Feedback and FAQ

• CrowdSound
• FogBugz
• Get Satisfaction
• Hab.la
• LivePerson
• Redmine
• UserVoice
• Zendesk
• Launchly
• SurveyMonkey (user surveys)
• Amplicate

Websites

• Doctopus
• Weebly
• Spellr.us website/blog spelling checker

Test- and Behavior-Driven Development

• Bamboo
• CruiseControl.rb
• Cucumberr
• Hudson
• Selenium
• Testjour

Collaboration Platform

• CentralDesktop
• Comapping.com (online mindmapping collaborative tool)
• Confluence
• Projectmanager
• Huddle.net
• Meetup
• OpenGoo (OpenSource and Lightweight)
• Ohloh
• PBworks
• YouNoodle

Contractor Management

• eLance
• oDesk

Code Hosting and Version Control

• assembla (svn, git, mercurial + trac)
• Aptana Cloud (svn, IDE, php, java, rails etc...)
• bitbucket (mercurial only, basically a copy of github... which isn't bad)
• code spaces (svn)
• CVSDude (svn)
• github (git only)
• launchpad (bzr only, also only open source projects)
• Unfuddle (hosted svn/git, ticketing, etc.)
• Patch-tag (Darcs)

Social Media Tracking/Marketing

• PeashootApp
• SMHelper
• ShareThis
• Bluesky Local
• Filtrbox (realtime SMM platform w/ API)

Browser Compatibility tools

• Firebug
• IE Developer Toolbar (for ie6 & ie7)

Screenshot/screencast tools

• Camtasia
• Jing Project
• Screenflow
• Snapz Pro X
• Screenr

CDNs

• SimpleCDN (commercial)
• CoralCDN (academic)
• Amazon CloudFront
• Amazon S3

Cloud Infrastructure 

• Amazon EC2
• Google App Engine
• see the Libcloud-compatible cloud providers
• Flexiscale

Visibility

• AboutUs
• Elevator Pitches
• KillerStartups
• Mashable: Spark Of Genius
• Wikipedia
• Go2Web20

Loading Animations

• Ajaxload.info
• Preloaders.net

Private beta invitations & management:

• Prefinery

Scanning / Document Management

• Virtual Post Mail
• Mailbox Forwarding
• Earth Class Mail

Ad Serving Technology

• Open X (Open source Ad server)

Project Management tools 

• 5PM
• BaseCamp
• PBworks Project Management
• WizeHive