These resources cover everything from productivity utilities to amazing content apps to books to make your business happier. So what we wanna do is share these with you. We’ll update this page all the time so please feel free to bookmark it or even better subscribe to This Business Life and we’ll let you know when we add anything new.
Just a little note for full disclosure. Some of these resources are affiliate links. This means we sometimes get a very small commission if you decide to make a purchase. This is at no additional costs to you. We want you to know we don’t recommend anything in this list unless we’ve tried, tested and love it beforehand. Hopefully you’ll love them too!
Crucial hosting
When choosing a hosting provider we look for someone who has good support and an easy setup path. That’s why we like Crucial hosting. However you look at it, web hosting is tricky. We hear you saying, ‘Nah, easy, I can get hosting for $9.95!’. Yep you sure can but understand you’ll get what you pay for. Crucial is still economical but by paying a bit more you are getting good Australian hosting, backed up by some quality local support.
WooCommerce
‘WooCommerce is now the most popular eCommerce platform on the web.’ That’s what they say, and we can see why from a WordPress sense. WooCommerce is a solid, fully featured eCommerce plugin for WordPress. We’ve searched high and low, and always come back to Woo for a simple, reliable and configurable commerce addition to WordPress. It’s not OTT, bloated or incredibly expensive and at the other end of the spectrum it’s very professional and can run decent sized ‘shopfronts’.
iStock
iStock is our go-to image library. We’ve subscribed to iStock since it was a baby and was charging next to nothing for stock images. Now, it is a little more exxy, but to say the library is vast is an understatement. Hot tip: filter your search to only ‘signature images’ for a better quality of image. We also use iStock for audio files – they are still building their audio library but it’s come a long way over the past year.
Buffer
There are bazillions of people who somehow manage to tweet at random moments of the day. Or do they? Are they like us who use a brilliant app called Buffer? Buffer is a big pot of tweets (and other social) which then get fed out according to a schedule you setup. Brilliant for people like us that can’t interrupt their day sending out messages but do have things to say and need to use social for business. Buffer combined with CoSchedule – pretty awesome!
Canva
Canva empowers the world to design. No kidding, it’s that good. You know how it is. You need a great image for your website, you don’t have design skills but you know what you want. You can use Canva’s incredible library of templates to create exactly what you see in your head. You get to be a designer without being a designer. Canva is also fantastic for social media images (we all know images are shared much more than just words, right?) and for taking your next Powerpoint presentation out of Beige City and into the stratosphere. Canva’s library of templates, images and textures give you a crazy range of options, and their design school takes you through step by step if you need it. And bonus: it’s mostly free (images will cost you, but the cost is minimal).
Happiness centred business
Being in business is sometimes very tough. This book by Paddi Lund (from our very own BrisVegas) is an inspirational and motivating read. It’s not a huge brick of a book but rather small with big fonts and an easy to read tone.
Paddi covers everything from why enjoyment at work is important through to baking muffins in the middle of the office.
A magic book, for those who aren’t feeling the love.
Prezi
Prezi is another one that has been around for a long time. It follows the idea of Instagram in that it does one thing and does it well. Prezi is a simple to use yet quite powerfully beautiful online presentation tool. We create content everyday. Sometimes that content is better presented on a screen to our clients. We make Prezis to present ideas, concepts and methodology. Check out these couple we’ve put together for two of our projects:
If you want to create awesome presentations and wow the socks off your boss/client/friends – check out Prezi.
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is an email management tool. It’s been a staple at Mettro for a very long time; in fact, we were there when Campaign Monitor was just a little baby! We love Campaign Monitor because it’s Australian, its support is second-to-none, and they do what they do very well. No fuss, no trickery, Campaign Monitor just gets on with the job.
Google Apps
Google apps are the backbone of our business. Simply put we use mail, calendar, docs and drive all day everyday. We are early adopters of the Google ecosystem and enjoy it’s simplicity, integration and cross platform loveliness. Even our Apple loving iPhone wielding designer types absolutely love it!
Screenflow
The best and simplest way to make a movie of what’s happening on your screen. It sounds boring but we’ve not tried a better utility. We use it to create training videos, screencast prezi movies and a bunch of other crazy things. It’s cheap and easy to use. A swag of editing can be done within the app and it also uploads directly to Vimeo and YouTube.
Authy
If you aren’t doing 2 factor authentication for your online services then you should be. Authy is a terrific little app that is available on iphone and android as well as iwatch (score!).
Supportdetails.com
Every day we support our clients and their customers with web based issues. To provide the best possible support we need to know what they are working on including device type, browser and loads of other little bits. We send our clients to supportdetails.com and they are able to send the details it finds onto us.
Creative Market
This is a brilliant little site that has a load of great graphics, templates and images. Some amazing packages of illustration styles, backgrounds and fonts. Enjoy!
Reflector
We use this great little tool to project our iOS and Android screens to our computer monitors. Great for doing a demo of a mobile app or website to a large audience. Also great for capturing feedback for our studio. Works a treat!
Scannable
So in love with Scannable! Use it to easily ‘scan’ ok actually take a photo of your notes, important info etc so that you can store it digitally. Scannable detects the borders of your document, straightens and enhances. You can then share it to Evernote, email and a number of other places. Once you get it you’ll use it everyday!