It’s almost a cliché at this point to say ‘There’s never been a better time to build a business. Remote or distributed teams are the norm – meaning you can build a world-beating organization without ever signing a lease (thanks, COVID!). Most of all, the digital tools are cheaper, and better than ever.

Most digital platforms you’ll need to spin up a company have a free or almost-free version that you can use at the outset. Processes that were once costly and confusing have now been made simple with online tools.

Strategy and design are key aspects of developing a brand, but when it comes to delivering it - organization is everything. As we’ve built NOAN we’ve used a number of different tools to enable us to manage, create and build the business. Each has fulfilled a slightly different role. Here are our favorites, which are used by some of the biggest brands in the world, and the roles they can play for your business.

Incorporation

NOAN is a registered Delaware C-corp, but our co-founders set up the company remotely, with all the legal setup documentation generated via Capbase. Platforms like Capbase, Carta and Stripe Atlas all provide a way to set up your company, organise and distribute equity and most make it simple to set up a bank account at the same time (We have a Brex bank account, for example). You’ll also find a host of helpful notes on how to think about equity distribution and fundraising in their content (We do recommend reading “Venture Deals” on that topic, btw - an invaluable bible). Founders - pay special attention to filing your 83(b) election documentation.

Collaboration

Miro

If you’re looking for a tool that will help you plan your business and act a little like a traditional whiteboard would then Miro is ideal. A collaborative, infinite board, Miro lets you do everything from use digital post-it notes to taking its templates to develop the UX of your site. Miro also features a wide array of frameworks to enable you to manage ideas or workflows.

Our recommendation is to build sections within it as you work through your NOAN Roadmap - such as a moodboard area, brand naming, research, membership structure and then use it as a permanent board, dropping in concepts, visuals, links and notes as you go. The NOAN Miro looks a little like what you’d expect to see on a police investigation, with lines connecting links and stickies. We love it and think you will too.

Trello

If you’re getting a project, website or business live then Trello is a really simple and easy to use platform to organize your approach. A card-based management platform, it’s perfect for getting to do lists together and then moving cards through different states of completion as you work on them (this is called Kanban). It also connects with Slack (see below) in a very seamless way. At NOAN we use it for our content production, with columns for ideas, editing and publishing. Others use the likes of Jira or Asana do to similar things.

Slack

If you are a team of more than one, then Slack is potentially a vital tool for you to use within your business. It has become the go-to communication platform for global businesses and once you understand how it works it’s easy to see why. Organize your business communications around channels for what matters to your business whether that is content, email, business strategy, membership etc.

Relevant communications can then be kept to those channels, and answers consolidated within threads. Want to quickly chat with a colleague? Fire up a slack huddle to discuss an idea. It’s perfect for remote companies and it really makes it a lot easier to stay across key aspects of a connected digital business. The free version of slack works perfectly for small teams, just be warned – you can only search back 90 days worth of messages - unless you pay for premium. Its biggest competitor is Microsoft Teams.

Other collaboration

All our docs, pitch decks, modelling spreadsheets and the rest are in Google Workspace, which is just about to roll out a major AI integration. You’re likely either a Google or a Microsoft tools house. You’re Outlook or Gmail, Teams or Slack. Both product groups effectively do the same thing, it’s really a matter of preference as to which you end up using.

For personal scheduling, Calendly has done a great job of becoming the gold standard, but we're planning to use Cal.com for calendar integration on http://getnoan.com because, among other things, the pricing model is better for our needs. Hence, we use Cal.com for our personal scheduling too. Both it and Calendly allow you to sync multiple calendars, use your choice of video conferencing, etc, and generally save you a lot of email tennis finding ‘a time that works for you’.

ENGAGEMENT

Email

For newsletter engagement, we use Mailchimp. Newsletters are a hot space right now, and there are plenty of options to choose from. Substack & Beehiiv are having a moment, both of which are tailored for high growth and subscription revenue, when the newsletter itself is the product. Options like Mailchimp, Sailthru and Campaign Monitor tend to have more robust commerce options. Check what you’ll want to integrate your provider with and be led by whatever will create the best experience for your users, and keep you in good standing on the data privacy front. For us, Mailchimp plays nicely with Squarespace, has plenty of ways to automate how we communicate with segments of our lists, and the pricing structure works (at this early phase, at least).

Website

This depends so much on what you’re trying to do, but we are big fans of Squarespace, whose team we've already found to be super engaged and responsive, even to an early-stage company like us. Squarespace has options and add-ons to facilitate stores and members-only sections. Webflow & Wordpress are similarly adaptable. Shopify will likely be your go-to if your business has a high number of SKUs and you’re looking to scale DTC sales. There is no one right answer, it’s all driven by how you need to connect with your user.