Every startup faces multiple choices and decisions when it comes to technology. Whether you’re wondering what site search you should use or what is the best email marketing tool, knowledge is power. A group of Seedcamp entrepreneurs started a startup tools wiki for that purpose, and we thought it would be well suited here. For modifications, please edit the original document here. An additional list of business resources for startups is available here.
October 2024 update – startup tech stack
It’s been a while since I’ve updated this page, but it’s about time to refresh the startup tech stack.
The following list of recommended startup tech stack was originally published in May 2024 by New Economies. While the tools may vary, it’s good approximation of the stack startups embrace in 2024. It’s worth saying that many of these tools have a risk to be completely commoditised by autonomous AI agents. More on that soon!
Product Hunt is a community of early adopters and founders, sharing and discussing new product launches, podcasts and more. It’s chucked full of insights for founders. Some examples:
Everything you needed to find information about startups. From premium paid subscription databases to free tools showcasing new startups and startup maps, The Ultimate Startup Intelligence Tools List is guaranteed to help you get your research done.
*Updated* Startups for Startups, Google Startup Tools and HackerNews Vendor List
Google DevRel created a page of Google resources for startups – from the site’s description: “This site contains a selection of tools you will find useful when building, measuring, and enhancing your apps. Once you have a first version of your app running, you can use the tools on this site to get it into the hands of users and to get paid.”
Twitter Bootstrap: Include this in your website, and you are half finished. Add a class name to buttons, forms, quotes, etc. and they will instantly look pretty. No need to write your own CSS for everything, you simply do not have time. You can also easily create tooltips, Modals, dropdown menus, check out the Javascript Section it’s so sexy!
Subtle Patterns: Need background images? Subtle patterns give you a gallery of very subtle patterns. High Quality, and open sourced!
Cheat Sheets: Equip youself with HTML/CSS cheatsheets! Scan all the tags at once and see which one fits your needs!
Free Icons: Because Icons make your site beautiful.
LiveRoad: A Great IDE for design is very helpful. It’s helpful to find an developer tool that allows you to write html/css and renders the view in real time, so you don’t have to change -> save -> go to browser -> refresh.
Social Buttons: Want to add Twitter, Facebook, Google, buttons? Get them here.
Here’s the exciting part! Let’s talk about tools and libraries that help you implement your Ideas faster:
Tokbox: That’s us! Use us to power any video chat applications (talkshow, education apps, collaboration, etc). We have an iOS SDK as well, for web-web, mobile-mobile, web-mobile video chat and video messaging.
Twilio: Need to call/txt get a phone number from your web/mobile application? Check them out.
Firebase: Are all your developers front-end engineers? No worry, just use Firebase to store all your data. No need for back end! Plus, their javascript Library is real time so you get notifications on any database update. Very responsive. If you don’t get beta access, just use the guest account and WIN.
Pusher / Spire.io: Need real time stuff? Chat apps, real time drawing, etc etc. Pusher and Spire.io will handle all of it for you.
Stripe / Dwolla: Super Easy payment for your app. Use their api to handle payment related stuff. No need to worry about security and such.
Leaflet: Need Maps? Try Leaflet. Most devs go with google maps, but I personally like leaflet and I feel like it’s easier to use/develop with.
Rovi: Need Metadata for music/movie/actors, etc.? Rovi API has everything you need for information. Generate album/movie information on the fly!
Rdio: Want to add a music player on your website to play music? Rdio provides the music and the player via an API
Box: Need file storage (for physical files like mp3, flv, etc). Box API lets you store files dynamically!
Singly: Provides your app with your personal Data from foursquare, instagram, etc etc.
Sendgrid: Need to send email out to users? Use Sendgrid! They make sure that your emails never to go spam folders.
Mobile Tools:
If you are a web developer, you don’t have time to learn iOS or Java during the weekend. It’s better to use what you know already.
Phonegap / Appcelerator (Titanium) : Write mobile apps with HTML/CSS/Javascript. The are plugins available for almost everything. (Camera, video, and most of the APIs described above for web Tools)
Parse: Need real time push notification? Need a database/back end solution? Just use Parse! Did I also mention they also have a Javascript Library for your web application to interact with?
Promotions/Marketing
Launchrock: Website is not ready? Put up a LaunchRock Page and get your marketing working right away. When your website is ready, you will have users already!
VoiceBunny: Need a sexy voice-over for your videos? Send it to VoiceBunny!
Compare Ninja: Own your competitors by creating a Comparison Table quickly!
Something you need to do but not on the list? Tweet at me bro!
Sinatra: Super easy to use, the only drawback is that you have to learn ruby setup your database. I hate configuring stuff, so I usually use this as an option if I don’t need persistant information.
Meteor: If you don’t know any back end solution, learn Meteror. It’s the new way to code, and quite easy to learn. You can write back end code in javascript, one language conquers all!
Railscasts: If you’re not comfortable with rails, I wouldn’t recommend using it for the hackathon. It has a high learning curve. But if you insist, check out railscasts. Ryan Bates create screencast for just about everything you might want to do with a rails app.
Heroku: Deploy your app to heroku. It’s free, supports ruby, nodejs, static files, and a few other languages. Did I mention it’s free? You have nothing to loose.
Express: Express is built on NodeJS framework. If you’re using javascriptbackend, I’d rather take the time to learn Meteror. But that’s just me, you’re welcome to watch the getting started screencast for Express to see how you like it
VC Cafe knows that as an entrepreneur you need all the help you can get. That’s why we gathered a collection of 20 online resources for European startups that will help you with business plans, recruiting, publicity and networking.
1. Seedcamp: They provide a catalyst for the next generation of great entrepreneurs, help them take risks, think big, and succeed. In other words they are entrepreneurs that help others like them succeed in their new business.
2. SVPG: They want to share senior level experience and best practices with technology companies. Their Partners all come from industry, where each has held senior level executive positions delivering industry-leading products. They are not career consultants-they bring experience to the table.
3. VC News: Dow Jones financial information service provides unparalleled reporting and analysis of the entire global venture capital industry, from fundraising developments to financings, liquidity events to people moves and other key developments at venture capital firms and portfolio companies in every industry and region.
4. Y Combinator: They provide a series of AA equity financing documents that are written with simpler words so start-up companies will have an easier starting point. Their goal is to make angel funding rounds for startups easier for both sides.
5. cmypitch.com: Network for small business, connecting entrepreneurs with each other, investors and service providers. It’s a video-based web site that provides a platform to help entrepreneurs succeed.
6. UCL Advances: UCL Advances stimulates collaboration among researchers, business and investors driving innovations that benefit society and the economy. UCL has built a reputation as a pioneer of collaboration between industry and academia.
7. TIE UK: TiE, a not-for-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals, TiE is an organization of industry professionals who share the common interests of promoting and fostering entrepreneurial efforts.
8. Regus: Regus is the world’s largest provider of workplace solutions, offering the widest range of products and services that allow individuals and companies to work however, wherever, and whenever they need to.
9. Business Link: They help Start-Up companies, Running businesses or companies that are looking to grow and develop how to manage their finances, employ people, find and keep costumers, taxes, tray internationally and many more.
10. NESTA: They invest in early-stage companies, inform and shape policy, and deliver practical programs that inspire others to solve the big challenges of the future.
11. Princes Trust: They are a UK charity company that helps young people overcome barriers and get their lives working.
12. British Library Business & IP Centre: Funded by the London Development Agency, the British Library supports inventors, small businesses and entrepreneurs from that first spark of inspiration to successfully launching and developing a business. The Centre offers free access to the UK’s most comprehensive collection of business and intellectual property information.
13. Growing Business: Growingbusiness.co.uk is the leading online resource for entrepreneurs. Their practical guides cover all the issues an entrepreneur like you will face when expanding your business. From raising finance to business strategy and going public, they have all the need-to-know information you require to become a successful entrepreneur running a rapidly expanding and profitable company.
14. BPS: Business Plan Services’ collaboration with the world-renowned London Business School reinforces its position within the commercial marketplace as the UK’s leading practice that is dedicated to providing full assistance with business planning.
15. Company Guides: They specialize in helping high growth companies and entrepreneurs seeking corporate finance advice and private equity investment. They also publish a detailed directory of sources of finance and advice.
16. Sturtuply: They help the right job seekers find you and make the whole team–building process as easy as possible.
17. CrunchBoard: They are a job board that gives you access to millions of technology and business savvy readers of Tec Crunch, Mobile Crunch, Crunch Gear and other top technology blogs. Also check http://uk.crunchboard.com
18. OnStartups.com: Dharmesh Shah brings his experience by this site that isfor and about software startups.
19. Startupslive: With Stratupslive It’s your chance to hear the people behind some the UK’s most successful businesses tell their stories and also network with fellow budding entrepreneurs and provide you with quality independently written, practical advice to help you start your own business.
20. The Funded: TheFunded.com is an online community of entrepreneurs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. In addition, TheFunded.com allows entrepreneurs to view and share term sheets, to assist one other finding good investor, and to discuss the many facets of operating a business.
Business Link for London is the small business support and advice service for London, providing free, impartial and comprehensive advice to businesses to help them start up
1. IVC Online: (offers a paid database of Israeli startups, funds and research publication)
2. Invest in Israel: The investment promotion center of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, Foreign Trade Administration (see industry reports and M&A summaries for the year)
3. MATIMOP: the Israeli Industry Center for R&D. A free online database of startups.
Enjoyed every bit of your blog article.Really looking forward to read more. Will read on…
Here’s another great startup resource for entrepreneurs interested in raising money. https://roadtofunding.com
Thoroughly enjoyed the read! Thank you for the post.
I noticed a couple of user testing tools that aren’t listed…such as, UserTest.io, FullStory
Hope these help!
Nice post! Just an update – http://agilezen.com/ stopped their service a while back, sadly. My personal recommendation would be to go for https://kanbantool.com as far as project management goes. This has been around for just as long as agilezen, but unlike them, it’s still going strong and is being developed. Also, 99.99% uptime is pretty nice.
Mocksup are defunct now. There are a lot of other tools in that niche as well so lots of choices. I’d suggest adding Fluid UI
This list is good! I bookmarked it so i can come back to it in future. Consider adding StartupJohn (https://www.startupjohn.com/) to there as well. It is a website which you can submit your startup information and get a profile page with follow link within 48h of the submission time.
Enjoyed every bit of your blog article.Really looking forward to read more. Will read on…
Here’s another great startup resource for entrepreneurs interested in raising money. https://roadtofunding.com
Thoroughly enjoyed the read! Thank you for the post.
I noticed a couple of user testing tools that aren’t listed…such as, UserTest.io, FullStory
Hope these help!
Nice post! Just an update – http://agilezen.com/ stopped their service a while back, sadly. My personal recommendation would be to go for https://kanbantool.com as far as project management goes. This has been around for just as long as agilezen, but unlike them, it’s still going strong and is being developed. Also, 99.99% uptime is pretty nice.
Mocksup are defunct now. There are a lot of other tools in that niche as well so lots of choices. I’d suggest adding Fluid UI
This list is good! I bookmarked it so i can come back to it in future. Consider adding StartupJohn (https://www.startupjohn.com/) to there as well. It is a website which you can submit your startup information and get a profile page with follow link within 48h of the submission time.