Remember back in January (you know, those pre-COVID days?) when Elon Musk brought up the idea of business showers? His thought was simple, and something that stuck with us as a growing company; when a friend starts a business, people come together, congratulate them and bring them resources to help their business succeed.
It's a bit late to host a business shower as Plooto is no longer in our infancy days but we did just celebrate a birthday last month and upon reflection of our time so far, we took the business shower concept one step further and thought; why don't we celebrate business birthdays?
Below you will find some of the tools used on a daily basis by Plootonians, that if we were to celebrate a friends business birthday, we would tell them to put on their wish list!
- Wrike
- Canva
- Hubspot
- Microsoft Teams
- 15Five
- Notion
- Plooto
Wrike - A Task Manager to Keep Things on Track
There are many task managers available on the market today, but we love using Wrike. Why? It holds people, teams and the business accountable to what we said we would accomplish. Wrike is customizable to our company's needs as well as to individual needs. It is the definition of a centralized and organized hub where a company can manage all of its projects and tasks.
At Plooto we even use it to ensure that the work teams are doing align to our department and company OKRs. When there is an endless number of tasks and projects that teams could be working on, it's important to be able to visually see how many of these project and tasks are related to our goals. It helps in setting priority and importance of everything we work on.
Canva - A Tool To Make Our Visuals Look Better
We are still a small team and we currently outsource our product and web design, but we like to move fast and don't have time to outsource all our design assets. So, we implemented Canva - a simple online graphic design tool that allows you to create images for blogs, social media, and so much more. It enables us to create that content quickly and easily, even with our little to no graphic design skills. We look forward to the day we have a designer in-house, but for now Canva does a great job.
HubSpot - Marketing is Nothing Without Automation
This blog was written on HubSpot. Our email campaigns are built on HubSpot. Our website is built on HubSpot. What can't this platform do for a small business? The answer is not much. Or marketing team lives and breathes by the capabilities that HubSpot provides us.
Microsoft Teams - Keeping the Conversations Going While Remote
In a world where Plootonians are all working remote, it is essential to keep the collaboration and conversations going that used to happen organically when we were all in the office together. Teams lets us do just that! We use it on a daily basis and removes the need for email to conduct internal conversations.
Microsoft Teams is simple, flexible and effective. Providing employees with the right tools to collaborate extensively from remote locations, from multiple devices, and without the risk of information silos or missed communications.
15Five - OKRs, 1-on-1's and Weekly Updates are Key to Growth
As mentioned, we Plootonians like to move fast and we want our own professions to grow as fast as our company is. We adopted 15Five to keep our personal and professional goals visible and aligned. Day-to-day it becomes very easy to put off or forget about your personal and professional goals, getting caught up in the success of the business. We don't want that to happen! We want each Plootonian to know their own goals and work with their team and managers to help reach those goals.
15Five is also a great tool to structure 1-on-1's with managers to ensure all topics that need to be talked about are covered. Plus, we can align our weekly updates and individual discussions to our OKRs which are also tracked in the same tool!
Notion - The All-in-One Knowledge Base to Keep Everyone Aligned
Simply put, Notion is a place to store documents. But, there are endless possibilities for using Notion inside a company. Plooto uses it as our company-wide knowledge base. We take our meeting notes here, we hold our weekly town halls here, we plan our projects and manage our on-boarding of new employee here. It is truly an all-in-one tool that can be customized to meet the needs of any company. Plus, there are workspaces so team notes remain organized and easily accessed.
To best understand Notion answer this question: Have you ever joined a company and in the first week learned 1000 new acronyms that you've never heard before and are having trouble remembering? At Plooto we ran into that issue, but now we have an entire (not to mention searchable) glossary built on Notion so Plootonians old and new are always talking about the same thing when words and acronyms like PQL, Active Node or Loyal Node are used in conversation.
Plooto - A Payments Platform to Manage All Those Subscriptions
Last but not least, we must not forget Plooto! Yes, Plooto is our own product and we use it every single day to manage all our payments. From accounts payable, accounts receivable, to international payments Plooto uses Plooto for higher visibility into our financials and cash management. Being a small but growing company we know first hand how hard it can be to keep all things money related on track...it's why we started Plooto in the first place!
And that's that! The top applications we use at Plooto on a daily basis. So, if you are a new business or are a friend of someone starting their own venture, why not suggest some of the tools above to help grow their company faster. These tools exist to help SMBs succeed and give them time back in their day to focus on what really matters; their products and the solutions to the problems they set out to solve in the first place!
