I am frequently asked by early stage entrepreneurs what software we use, so here’s a quick list of the five online applications I can’t live without.

1. Salesforce.com. I started using salesforce back in the demo days when you could get a 3 user license that did everything for $50/month. Ah, those were the days… These days, it’s amazing we don’t scare off new employees with the mantra “it’s in salesforce” as the answer to seemingly every question. Seriously though, salesforce is where I spend my day. Every person who fills out a contact form on this website winds up in there automagically, and every person I’m supposed to call or have ever called is in there. (It’s a founders job to sell, after all.) Essentially, Salesforce.com functions as a much needed extension of my brain as our sales pipeline grows, and it’s pretty darn handy for sharing customer contact info within the company.




2. Basecamp. Yes, salesforce has project management stuff you can tack on, but lets just say it wasn’t a huge hit when we tried it. Not that basecamp is absolutely perfect either, but you know they’re doing something right when you turn it on and people start adding data without any arm twisting. Basecamp also shares something in common with one of my favorite things about salesforce: the “wish for it and it will come” feature. I suppose it helps that we aren’t shy about sharing what features we need ;-), but we’ve happily seen things appear over time such as cross-project search and posting via email that make our lives SO much simpler.




3. Socialtext. I wasn’t exactly sure we needed a wiki as yet-another-place-to-store-data. But once again, it’s hard to argue with a technology that is easily adopted by the organization and has taken on a life of its own. In a way, it’s like a giant shared filing cabinet for everything about anything internal. (Whereas basecamp shares project-specific data, and salesforce captures the sales process. So it’s not as complicated to have 3 systems as it might sound.)




4. blist. I’m adding this to the list a bit early, as it’s still got a ways to go to get through all the bugs. However, I would will it out of beta, if I could. It’s not uncommon to need to compare a list of stuff and figure out which entries match criteria a, b, and c. Blist does this with “lenses” over an online spreadsheet with simple and/or choices; no programming lingo (ie SQL) required. I honestly haven’t seen anything similar, but let me know if you have!




5. twitter. I have been known to say we’re in the business of creating serendipity, and I think that’s what I love most about Twitter. This micro-blogging tool encourages you to share what you’re experiencing or thinking in 140 character bursts. And because people can follow either your persona OR create feeds on any word of interest, you wind up serendipitously meeting people with similar interests. People who often become instant friends, pitching in and answering questions or cheerleading when you have a breakthrough moment at 2 am. Twitter is a truly social network that I’m grateful for as an entrepreneur.

   So that’s my top five web applications - what are yours?