Tools make life easier. Here are a bunch that we use pretty much daily.

Getting Started

Bluehost: A website needs a web host. We recommend starting with Bluehost.

Digital Ocean: Once your website starts getting tens of thousands of views a month, you'll want to switch away from shared hosting and use a more professional (and of course more expensive) platform. We've loved Digital Ocean! Free $100 credit when you use our link.

WordPress: We've used and love WordPress for running a website.

Squarespace also has a good reputation for being easy to use.

G Suite: An email address, shared file creation, calendars—we use the G Suite by Google like 100 times a day.

OneNote: For keeping track of all those brilliant notes you need to make. We've used Microsoft's free OneNote program for over six years and like it way more than the Notes app on our phones. Evernote is also popular.

Communication + Customer Support

Helpscout: A must-have tool if your business requires customer support. It's pricey but worth the monthly fee to have an easy helpdesk dashboard for customer service. (Get a $50 credit when you use our link)

Slack: If you're working with a team or have multiple employees, we love Slack for communication. Plus it's free.

Grammarly: Too many typos? Grammarly works in your browser to catch those pesky spelling errors. We use the free version.

Project Management

Trello: My favorite (free!) tool for managing tasks and projects.

Asana: My second favorite (free) tool for managing tasks and projects :)

Jira: Heath's go-to tool for managing projects. Hey, everyone's different 😂

Calendly: Send people links to book time on your calendar easily. Has a free + a paid option. We use the paid option which integrates with Zoom.

HubSpot: Great for managing sales if you're running a team.

Legal & Accounting

Freshbooks: I already covered this with accounting, but great for tracking invoices and expenses.

Legalzoom: We let Legalzoom file our LLC and act as our registered agent (you have to have a registered agent in many states). It felt pricey to me at first, but once I looked at all the time and confusion it would save me in filing my own LLC, it was an easy decision.

Rocket Lawyer: Writing a privacy policy, a release form, a disclosure, a contract—skip hiring a lawyer and use Rocket Lawyer's free templates. I use these all the time.

Tech Tools

Elfsight: This is a timer widget that can expire to offer limited-time deals or discounts on products. Costs me $6/month and is a great way to entice sales!

Zoom: For meetings, for recording podcasts, for webinars, for live streams—we use Zoom video conferencing for EVERYTHING.

Dropbox: Worth the $10 every month. We've used Dropbox for years for online file storage and sharing.

Krisp: A noise-canceling tool that works with over 800 apps. If you're on a call and have people talking in the background, Krisp will mute it for you. It's magic.

Glide: A crazy awesome freemium tool that can turn your Google spreadsheet into an app. We use this for our RV Entrepreneur Summit and it's amazing.

Adobe Creative Cloud: Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro. If your business involves photo or video or design, the Adobe Suite is a must. Expensive, but worth it. They do have discounts for students and teachers.

Creative

Epidemic Sound: A music library for anyone who needs to license music for online use.

Canva: A freemium tool for designing your own graphics.

Pressbooks: An online tool for formatting and exporting your book before self-publishing. Get 25% off when you use the coupon code RVE.

Lynda: Over 1200 courses on business. A great place to look for relevant courses on topics where you want to grow.

Creative Live: Creative Live offers free high-quality live courses or paid replays of courses. I've watched courses on jump-starting your business, upping your photography, and designing your own logo.

Teachable: If you're creating your own courses, we host our full RV Entrepreneur School on Teachable. It's where you're reading this lesson now :)

Tailwind: For boosting website traffic with Pinterest. $15/month and as much as I hate to say it, totally worth every penny. It easily doubled our website traffic to implement a Pinterest strategy.

Events

Eventbrite: Perhaps the easiest way to manage your event and sell tickets.

The Event Helper: An easy way to get event insurance so you can avoid printing and storing release forms!