My Business Tech Stack: 20 Essential Programs That Run My Company
I’ve been running my own company (Awe Luv Media) for 15 years, and the thing I know now more than ever is that the folks who excel in business have the RIGHT systems and tech stack in place. Because technology should be used to allow you to work smarter, not harder, and in integrity.
It’s important to keep operations seamless and efficient so I can focus on visionarying and creativity. At Awe Luv Media, we rely on a carefully curated tech stack to manage our workflow, streamline communication, and enhance productivity.
So here are the tools I use to deliver high-quality content, support our community, and keep our business running smoothly. Whether it’s internal collaboration, community management, or content distribution, these tools form the backbone of our daily operations.
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Team Communication and Collaboration
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Productivity
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Graphics and Video
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Finance and Legal
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Communications and Community Management
Here’s the rundown of the features and benefits of these essential tools:
Team Collaboration
Dropbox
Dropbox is our digital filing cabinet. It keeps all my important documents, photos, and videos safe and easily accessible from anywhere. Whether I’m on my laptop or phone, I can pull up what I need in seconds. Dropbox’s Smart Sync feature saves space on my hard drive by keeping rarely used files in the cloud, while still showing them in my file explorer. The sharing functionality is seamless; just send a link, and recipients can view or edit the file as needed. Plus, sharing files with my team or clients is a breeze, no more clunky email attachments
Pricing: Free plan with 2GB storage; paid plans start at $11.99 per month for 2TB
Slack
Sla
ck serves as the virtual headquarters for Awe Luv Media, keeping our teams connected in real-time. It’s like having a supercharged group chat with channels for every project, direct messages for quick chats, and endless integrations that keep everything in one place. We use Slack channels to manage projects, streamline conversations, and integrate with essential tools like Google Drive, DropBox, and Zoom. The search functionality is a lifesaver when you need to pull up past conversations or files quickly. No more digging through endless email threads; Slack makes team communication fast and efficient. With Slack, our team stays organized, informed, and aligned on all tasks and initiatives.
Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $8.75 per user per month.
WhatsApp is our tool for easy and urgent team communication where we shoot quick messages, assign deliverables, and accomplish our day-to-day tasks. Its community feature allows our team to organize our company’s programs and platforms into separate group chats all housed under a single community. These separate group chats ensure each team member communicates within their program of focus keeping our operations organized. With WhatsApp, our team stays connected and is always just a text or call away.
Pricing: Free download across android and IOS platforms.
Loom
Loom is an incredible tool for quick video messages. It’s perfect for giving feedback, explaining a concept, or just adding a personal touch to my communication. With Loom, we can record our screen, webcam, or both, making it easy to create tutorials, walkthroughs, or updates. The videos are instantly shareable via a link, and the viewer can leave comments and reactions, making it an interactive experience. This tool has been a game-changer for remote communication, allowing us to connect in a more engaging way while saving us tons of meeting hours.
Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $15 per user per month.
Zoom
Zoom is our go-to for video meetings. It’s reliable, high-quality video and audio make it easy to connect with team members and clients no matter where they are. Zoom’s features like screen sharing, breakout rooms, and virtual backgrounds make meetings interactive and productive. The platform’s integration with my calendar ensures I never miss a meeting, and recording capabilities allow for easy review and sharing of important discussions. We also use it to host larger webinars from time to time!
Pricing: Free plan available; Pro plans start at $15.99 per host per month.
Fireflies.ai
Fireflies.ai is like having a personal assistant who never misses a word. This AI-powered tool records and transcribes our meetings, so I can focus on the conversation and not on taking notes. After each meeting, Fireflies sends a detailed summary and a transcript with timestamps, making it easy to review key points and action items. The integration with platforms like Zoom and Google Meet means it starts recording automatically, and its ability to search through past transcripts is invaluable for referencing specific discussions. It’s perfect for capturing those brilliant ideas and action items that come up in team meetings and brainstorming sessions.
Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $18 per month.
Productivity
Calendly
Calendly acts as our virtual secretary handling appointment scheduling, protecting and communicating our time. This online booking platform allows us to input our team availability across an entire month’s basis allowing our clients to know exactly when we are available to schedule a virtual session. The platform’s integration with other calendar tools, such as Google and Outlook, keeps our team schedule synced and sends automated meeting notifications to clients, meaning no more manual email reminders.
Calendly makes our team schedule work for us and communicates our availability to our network with ease.
Pricing: Free plans available; paid plans start at $10 per user month.
Google Suite/Workspace
Google Suite/Workspace holds our emails and company’s administrative software, like our calendars. With Google Workspace, our team gets access to classic Google Apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides plus extensive Google Drive storage. Its custom business email feature allows all of our team to have branded email addresses at our own domain. With its Admin feature, we can create new users and manage file access, making it easy to share specific documents with external parties while keeping files they don’t need private.
With Google Workspaces, our team can easily collaborate and stay organized with file creation, management, and sharing, all in the convenience of a single space.
Pricing: Plans start at $6.30 per user month offering 30GB storage per user.
Motion
Motion serves as our digital calendar and task manager that efficiently fits in and schedules our to-dos into the day. Its AI-optimized project management feature automatically schedules tasks around existing commitments, making sure we maintain productivity and focus on priority deliverables, while adjusting it in real time as things come up. I especially love it because I don’t have to think about what I have to do next: it already knows, because it has a list of deadlines, priorities and how long things will take.
Pricing: Free trial available; subscription starts at $34 per month.
Graphics and Video
Canva
Canva is our go-to design tool for creating everything from social media graphics to presentations. Its user-friendly interface and vast library of templates make it easy to produce professional-looking visuals, even if you’re not a graphic designer. Canva’s drag-and-drop editor allows for quick customization of templates, and its extensive library of stock photos, icons, and fonts ensures you’ll find just the right elements for your design.
Plus, with Canva’s collaboration features, my team can work on designs together in real-time, ensuring consistency and creativity across our projects.
Pricing: Free plan available; Pro plans start at $12.95 per user per month.
Descript
Descript is our favorite video editing and transcription service. With a simple drag-and-drop of our audio or video file, it allows editing even if you aren’t that video savvy. Why? Because what your cut out the transcript also edits out in the video. The AI-powered software can also scan a video and give you highlight reels to use for social media or on your website, based on content that it finds most compelling.
With Descript, we easily add captions to our promotional videos and transcribe our entire podcast episodes and include them along with the audio for our audience that love listening with supporting text.
Pricing: Free plans available; paid plans start at $19 per person per month.
Finance and Legal
Gusto
Gusto takes the hassle out of payroll and HR. It automates payroll processing, tax filings, and even benefits administration. With Gusto, setting up and running payroll is straightforward, and employees can access their pay stubs and tax documents online. The platform also offers employee onboarding tools, making it easier to bring new hires up to speed. This means I can spend less time on paperwork and more time on growing my business. Plus, it helps me take care of my team with health insurance options, retirement plans, and more, which is a win-win.
Pricing: Plans start at $39 per month, plus $6 per person.
QuickBooks
QuickBooks is the finance manager of AweLuv Media, handling our invoices and expense tracking. The platform’s automation features, like recurring invoices and payment reminders, save time and reduce manual errors. QuickBooks also provides real-time financial reports and insights, helping us make informed decisions about the business’ financial health.
Pricing: Plans start at $35 per month.
DocuSign
DocuSign makes signing and sending documents a breeze. No more printing, scanning, or mailing contracts. Everything is done digitally and securely. With DocuSign, we can upload a document, add signature fields, and send it off for signing in minutes. The platform tracks the document’s progress and sends reminders, ensuring signatures are collected promptly. This efficiency speeds up workflows and keeps everything moving smoothly, whether we’re finalizing a deal or onboarding a new team member.
Pricing: Plans start at $10 per month.
Communications
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Kit is our trusted email marketing platform that helps us manage our email lists, automate campaigns, and track engagement effortlessly. With Kit, our team is able to create and send newsletters, set up automated email sequences, and segment our audience based on their behaviors and interests. The platform’s landing page builder feature allows us to attract new subscribers to our newsletter through a sign up form which we can share with a simple link across our platforms.
Its detailed analytics options keeps our team well informed on the performance of our emails and audience engagement.
Pricing: Free plan available for up to 1,000 subscribers; paid plans start at $29 per month.
Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks serves as our online community that holds The Book Academy. Through the platform, our team has an interactive membership space, with course materials, resources and ability for members to engage with each other. We also have badges for accomplishments and tiered options, which allow us to manage the content each member has access to. With its seamless management of payments and subscriptions, our team can focus on mentoring aspiring authors to achieve publishing success.
Pricing: Plans start at $49 per user month and provide a quiz to support user plan selection.
WordPress
WordPress is our website creation platform that powers our official site and blog AwesomelyLuvvie.com. The platform enables our team to share my latest thoughts and our projects with the world through its collaborators feature permitting various team members to create posts and upload content. WordPress allows our site to be easily customizable with a vast array of themes and plugins, which we use to enhance the site’s appearance and add features like contact forms, SEO optimization, and e-commerce capabilities.
The user-friendly dashboard makes content management easy allowing us to locate posts with a simple search and implement categories grouping similar posts.
Pricing: Free, with additional costs for themes, plugins, and hosting starting at around $4 per month.
WP Engine
WP Engine hosts our WordPress site, AwesomelyLuvvie.com. WP Engine has allowed our team to completely automate our website upkeep as it offers automatic updates, daily backups, and top-notch security features reducing the need for manual checkups. It also allows our team to test out and preview website changes and updates before pushing it live to maintain a professional look. With its 24/7 support team, we are constantly provided assistance if any site issues arise.
Pricing: Plans start at $13 per month.
Simplecast
Simplecast is our podcast hosting and management platform streamlining our podcast administration. We use Simplecast to handle our podcast distribution, allowing listeners to find The Professional Troublemaker podcast across platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Through the platform’s interface, our team can track our podcast analytics and create podcast trailers to tease and promote episodes on our WordPress site using easily embeddable players. With Simplecast, we store entire podcast audio files through a quick and simple upload.
Simplecast makes our podcast management trouble-free, providing our team with ease and efficiency.
Pricing: Plans start at $15 per month including a 14 day commitment free trial.
Bitly
Bit.ly is our URL shortening tool, helping us get our links concise and branded to align with our domain. By simply pasting an existing link, Bitly generates a shortened URL with our desired ending, allowing our team to seamlessly include links in flyer designs that match our promotions. The platform’s analytics feature keeps our team well-informed on the traffic to our links’ designated landing page by sharing user engagement and clicks, all filtered by location. Bitly’s features make it simple for our team to create, manage, and track our online links.
Pricing: Free plans available; paid plans start at $35 per month.
Try out Bit.ly
The sort of applause these softwares deserve
These tools make our company’s workmanageable and efficient. Today, I give them their deserving applause. Each one plays a vital role in keeping everything running like a well-oiled machine, so Awe Luv Media can focus on what it does best, creating, inspiring, and making a difference.
If you check out any of these tools, let us know how it goes!
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