Tag: app of the week

Zack’s App of the Week: Product Hunt

Zack’s App of the Week: Product Hunt

Jul 6, 2014 | ,

Finding big trends — and the companies making them happen — is paramount for success as an early stage investor. I’ve written about tools angel investors use to identify and track potential investments in my Forbes column as I try to bubble up some of these apps in my weekly column here on the OurCrowd blog. One tool that’s burst on the scene is so simple yet makes so much sense. It’s called Product Hunt and was developed by a guy named Ryan Hoover. Product Hunt surfaces the best new products every day. Along with a list of cool apps, users of Product Hunt get access to read some of the smartest investors and entrepreneurs discuss the tools and apps. Frequently, in the comments section, the founder of the new app or software product will show up and answer questions about his/her product as they arise. Right now, only a few select contributors can share the apps they find and love — and that keeps the quality of the products high. Users can vote up and comment on the...

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Zack’s App of the Week: Feedly

Zack’s App of the Week: Feedly

May 4, 2014 |

Last week’s App article mentioned Newsle, a tool we use to track and stay up to date on the activities of our constituents. So, anytime our Linkedin connections made the news, we’re alerted to it. For more general news tracking, one of our favorite apps is Feedly. I was a heavy user of Google Reader, which was the search company’s news reader. But when Google announced at the end of last year that they were abandoning the product, many users were left stranded. Our business requires us to not only stay abreast of the 36 portfolio companies we’ve invested in and their markets, but also keep current on the crowdfunding market, our competition, and generally, attune to trends in startup investing land. Our marketing team migrated to Feedly and we’ve been using it ever since. Load up the websites you want to follow, create tags of the type of information you’d like to follow, and discover new sources of quality content using Feedly. Using a reader like Feedly mitigates the need to travel to those handful of sites you...

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Zack’s App of the Week: Newsle

Zack’s App of the Week: Newsle

Apr 6, 2014 |

It’s probably no secret that at OurCrowd, it’s a full time job to communicate with all our constituencies. It’s very important for us to stay informed on what’s happening with our investors, our companies, and our partners and communicate important messages to them along the way. One of the tools I habitually use to find out news on my network is called Newsle. I’ve battled using Google Alerts, RSS feeds, and social media for years to stay on top of what’s happening in my network. With alerts, I’m bombarded with too many emails, adding to the problem of email overload. And RSS feeds are too passive to be used to stay abreast of current events. Social media is, well, just a firehouse of frequently useless information. That’s why I like Newsle. It turns down the noise associated with staying in touch by filtering out the less essential stuff about my network. Instead, I get an email when something impactful is happening with my contacts. Maybe, they’ve switched companies, signed a large partnership, or been promoted — if they were,...

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Zack’s App of the Week: Session Buddy

Zack’s App of the Week: Session Buddy

Mar 16, 2014 |

Regardless of whether you’re an Apple fanboy or a loyal Microsoft user, chances are you probably multitask with multiple browser windows open at the same time. I do — I’m not too proud to admit it. Through the course of the day in my community management and marketing work, it’s possible that I’ll have 3-4 browser windows open at the same time and probably close to 10-15 browser tabs open. A recent hire at OurCrowd (welcome, Nate!) told me about Session Buddy, a Chrome plugin.  Apparently, I’m a little late to the game as it’s had over 8109 reviews on the Chrome Store, but the app has quickly worked its way into my daily worklife, boosting my productivity and making my desktop more management. What Session Buddy does is allow you to essentially save sessions — that means save the windows and tabs you have open — to be able to open them again at another time. So, if you get into the office and open up your social media profiles on different tabs, you could create a “Social...

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Zack’s App of the Week: Basecamp

Zack’s App of the Week: Basecamp

Mar 4, 2014 |

When we started working on OurCrowd in 2012, like any early-stage startup, our core team needed to collaborate on projects that spanned the entire company. Whether it was web development or marketing campaigns, we needed a way — and a place — to plan and run our projects. For this, we use Basecamp. Basecamp: Our homebase for projects We create projects in Basecamp when we work collaboratively. We set up a project, invite in the relevant team members and use the simple, easy-to-use tools that Basecamp provides to plan, schedule, and delegate tasks to our teams. Basecamp’s usefulness is in its simplicity. Sure, you could add A LOT more functionality to this project management tool. But its developer, 37 Signals, has resisted calls to add functionality to the software. For us, the task management functionality doesn’t align so well with our internal workflows (and that’s why we use another App of the Week, Asana). But otherwise, we’re comfortable using Basecamp to help us manage our cross-company and cross-functionality projects. [xyz-ihs...

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