Five top apps for startups

Five startups reveal their fave app and why they are so helpful.

Andre Eikmeier, CEO and cofounder, Vinomofo

Top app: 15five.com

What: A cloud-based weekly team reporting app that you create questions for. Every week, team members fill it in for us to evaluate.

Why: “We use this app for succinct, focused role-based KPI reporting to identify any issues or obstacles, and to stay in tune with everyone’s morale. It means little things are getting brought to my attention every week, often before they escalate and I can action them. Questions and responses turn into conversations, bringing problems and issues to the surface, celebrating wins, sharing ideas and monitoring satisfaction.”

Tim Fung, CEO and cofounder of Airtasker

Top app: Waze

What: Community-based traffic and navigation app

Why: “Waze can tell you where there are traffic jams, speed cameras and parking police. With this extra information, Waze can also often plan you a better route than Google Maps. On top of that, it’s fun to play with, because of the smart gamification points system and on-road messaging between users. Whilst many would rightly argue that you shouldn’t be using your phone while driving, I can imagine Waze being even more useful when it’s integrated into Google Glass, or potentially directly into vehicles, or even driverless cars. Waze was acquired by Google, so this is a real possibility.”

Kevin Jochelson, founder, Fiestafy.com

Top app: Asana

What: A project management tool that allows user to map out projects and break them down into tasks and sub-tasks

Why: “I need to stay on top of all the different aspects of my business, and Asana allows me to do exactly that. I can assign tasks to myself, my team and freelancers I use. I track all my tasks by assigning deadlines, and this makes sure nothing slips through the cracks. The app is built around the concept that back and forth emailing is wasteful, so you can comment on tasks directly in the app, allowing a quick flow of information. I can also manage my ‘to do’ list on the fly with the iPhone app, which I often review the night before to make sure I have a productive day ahead.”

Nicola Farrell, marketing, Pollenizer

Top app: Slack

What: A communication tool that brings the team together, no matter where in the world they may be.

Why: We use Slack for real-time messaging, archiving and integrations to other tools, such as Google Docs and Trello. This means less internal email communication and keeping things quick and on the go. Using Slack means no-one should miss out on anything, and everyone is clear on what’s happening on each project. One of my favourite features allows me to be notified when certain terms or words are used by the team, meaning I’m always on top of the urgent things.”

Bosco Tan, cofounder, Getpocketbook

Top app: CamScanner

What: Document management solution tool

Why: “This is a really easy tool that allows you to take photos of documents and turn them into scanner quality PDFs. It does this magical thing where it pulls documents’ dimensions so it lays flat, then adds a smart filter, so it looks photocopied. It’s the best way to respond to forms needing signatures, or taking photos of notes to send to others. The real benefit is that startups don’t need to buy a scanner, or find an alternative way to process documents.”