My business toolbelt
I often stumble upon someone using an indispensable tool I had never heard of. If there's a tool in my toolbelt that might help you, let's not keep it from you any longer!
Hi everyone,
Thank you for reading Great CTOs Focus on Outcomes. I publish weekly and have an archive of almost 150 posts, each packed with valuable insights on various topics relevant to CTOs and the issues they face, distilled from my career experience.
I strive to make each post a helpful resource on the topic it focuses on so that when a CTO has a need, they can reference an atomic nugget of insight. To this end, I regularly revisit and refine posts, ensuring you always receive the best and most up-to-date information with the most clarity.
If you’d like to support the growth of this publication and its growing resources, please consider upgrading to paid and taking advantage of the additional benefits, such as detailed playbooks, templates, and an hour of consultation.My Go-To Tools for Common Tasks
Part of feeling prepared to tackle any challenge, big or small, that comes your way is the confidence that a good set of tools can bring.
For knowledge worker roles, it’s not the trusty hammer, multitool, or complete set of screwdrivers for all occasions. Digital tools primarily address your common needs. Unlike other jobs relying on analog tools, we live in an age where most of our digital tools are a Google search and trial signup away from being something we are actively using.
I actively scan the market and generally know what is out there. Occasionally, though, a colleague will mention a tool they are using that provides either superior quality results or massive time-saving efficiency gains on tasks I was previously burning hours on.
Sharing my go-to tools for everyday tasks might help reduce the period that anyone might need to wait before discovering a tool that could change their work.
You never know; you might discover something here that changes your world. I have organised the tools I use into the following categories that represent the main areas in which I spend time working:
Office Documents
Bookings & Diary management
Accounting & Payments
Social Media Presence
AI
Along the way, I also made some observations, with my CTO hat on, about the strategy of the companies behind these tools, some of which may expose them to losing customers in the future.
Attention to first-time subscribers
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Office Documents
Office suite
I might be part of a diminishing group of people who prefer Microsoft Office for more complex presentations and documents. However, for 90+ % of all documents I work on, my needs are far less, and the simplicity of the Google Workspaces suite is perfectly fine. It works consistently with Google Drive and the sharing features, making using the suite effortless. I have access to a Microsoft Office license when work occasionally demands it.
PDF Management
In my work and personal life, I am often required to fill out and sign PDF documents I am sent. Some history has left me vowing never to use Adobe software again, but the consistency and ease of use I have found from PDFfiller over the years make me glad I did. For people based in countries such as the US, it even supports integration with notarisation services (hopefully something we can look forward to in New Zealand).
Bookings & Diary management
With my consulting and coaching work, I increasingly need to manage my time carefully to further my content and ensure I am bookable by prospects and clients.
Booking calendar
There are undoubtedly better booking calendars out there—many of the costs can scale up considerably. Through an upgrade tier, Google Workspaces offers a booking feature that has undoubtedly eaten into the market share of more established solutions such as Calendly. It's conveniently built into the calendar interface I use daily, and you can easily check availability for your Google calendars and those of others.
Task management & prioritisation
I’ve used Tick Tick for years. I use various features for tasks and time management concepts, such as Pomodoro timers, the Eisenhower matrix, and Kanban views of my tasks.
World Time
I work with clients and guests from around the world for my coaching and consulting work, and on our livestream, CTO Life Line, so a handy tool for lining up times across time zones is instrumental.
Accounting & Payments
Running a sole trader business requires being on top of your finances and tax returns. In New Zealand, I have income tax and provisional tax, various levies and Goods and Services Tax (GST). New Zealand is a hub of innovation in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Accounting, with Xero and MYOB originating here. HNRY is a relatively new solution aimed at sole traders that might make waves globally in the future.
Accounting
I use Xero because it's a big brand and hails from the southern hemisphere (and as Australians, we will claim anything good New Zealand does and denounce it when the world sours on it; for instance, a certain Hollywood movie star). Coincidentally, I worked at Xero on a contract when I first moved to New Zealand. For that gig, I needed to set up accounting software to help manage my tax payments, and as an employee, I was the beneficiary of a free license. Unfortunately, I am paying a subscription now, which has increased costs a few times, yet the software has begun to feel quite dated.
Xero holds my New Zealand tax history and provides some visibility of my transactions and some flexible invoice creation features. I want to reduce my dependence on these and save money on the subscription.
I recently moved from a regular franchisee accountant to HNRY. This service has helped me spend less on a dedicated accountant. HNRY does a lot of the heavy lifting by managing a bank account on your behalf, so it has visibility of your transactions. It also does a lot with automation and employs accountants to do what can’t be automated. It
HNRY makes being a sole trader much more similar to the simplicity of a full-time worker who is on a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) tax system, i.e. taxes garnished from your wages, avoiding significant lump sum payments that could cause cashflow issues or at least considerable overhead in managing tax put aside in other bank accounts etc.
Payment Processing
I charge for various services, from this publication's paid subscription tiers to coaching and consulting in New Zealand and worldwide. For my convenience, I wish there were more universal access to each payment provider, allowing me to manage fewer providers. However, that’s not where we are yet (and maybe we should never arrive there as there might be consumer impacts elsewhere).
In the paid section, I cover the tools I use for my social media presence and which are in danger of being replaced. There are some takeaways about what CTOs might value in their own work.
Social Media Presence
Graphic design
Blog
Automation & Text snippets
Livestreaming platform
Royalty-Free Images
Royalty-Free Music
Conclusion
Social Media Presence
Social media is a more conversational medium for advertising the content I create and the services I provide. It's currently a necessary part of communicating with audiences and prospective clients, but it also has the potential to consume unprofitable amounts of time. Tools like Substack and Canva have made a massive difference in the time I put into the content versus administrating it on the platforms.
Graphic design
To publicise things such as the livestream shows we do each month or some of the publication's content or offers relating to coaching or consulting, I need to create visual content to suit various social media platforms.
Blog
I moved from Medium to Substack a few years ago. While I’ve never prioritised monetising this publication, I aspire to make it self-funded. Medium’s monetisation approach drastically limits the content's audience, which is not the model that fits my mission to help CTOs. I moved to Substack, and it’s been a reasonably frictionless writing platform. As a writer, I want to spend most of my time on the platform writing and a minimum amount of time configuring or struggling with the platform.
There’s an interesting pattern with Substack, which I have observed with a tool I mentioned further down, Streamyard. Both were savvy about the package of functionality that would differentiate them in the marketplace and create the fortuitous network effects that helped them win market share. Both also appeared to trade quality for the speed to market.
The way improvement in each platform moves in fits and starts. It often reverts to indicate the teams of engineers behind the scenes, potentially shifting from priority to priority - a tactic that no doubt served them well in the early days. The challenge is that both platforms are exposed to competitors that can replicate the functionality that once differentiated these platforms, whilst outperforming them in quality and functionality refinement.
For instance, Substack’s editing interface is simple, but its limitations are becoming noticeable as other platforms, such as Beehiv and Ghost, become more popular. Control of the aesthetic of posts is becoming an advantage for these different platforms. The social sharing features are nifty ideas that felt like they were only half finished and then left. For Streamyard, the editing, clip publishing and sharing.
Amazingly, it has these features in the first place as it’s a few steps from its core, but it’s a terrific adjacency that solves another job-to-be-done for a livestream content creator. It's also quickly becoming apparent that other platforms will overtake soon, which may leave it exposed for a company like Restream to package together with a tool like Descript and offer better functionality for a similar price.
Automation & Text Snippets
Various steps must be automated with my content and business to help maximise value-creation activity over other activities. For instance, I’ve noticed that many of the topics I cover are most valuable when people are experiencing the challenge I am writing about. I’ve used Zapier to set up a simple content repurposing strategy that reposts my previous posts on platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.
There are commercial tools that do the same thing, and I have tried several of them, but the step increase in functionality and cost can’t be justified now. I was interested in having reasons to learn a variety of modern automation and orchestration tools and have real-world applications of generative AI use cases, so, combining these factors against my technology strategy instincts to give this over to a service, I built this solution myself.
Another convenient tool I started using as I promoted CTO Life Line on various platforms is TextBlaze. Once I have written a phrase, title, blurb, or link I wish to use in my promotions, I store it here and can easily insert it with a shortcut. It stores these snippets in the cloud, so they are all available regardless of the device I use (I have a laptop and a desktop setup ready for live streaming in my office). That’s also helpful in following up with leads with information about my services. I eagerly await an Android app or keyboard plugin.
Livestreaming platform
For livestreaming our show, CTO Life Line, we use Streamyard. The combination of the following features is a compelling combination that has enabled the majority of our show:
The ability to post to multiple platforms,
Configure the aesthetics of multiple remote streaming participants, as well as visual overlays, video clips, and other features used in our stream.
Capture high-quality audio and video both centrally and locally for each participant and then edit and publish recordings and clips.
Other platforms may soon catch up to Streamyard. Still, for now, it suits our needs. It is an excellent example of a product that understands the value chain for a growing segment of the market—the growth of new media that disrupts traditional channels such as television and radio.
Royalty-Free Images
In the posts for this publication and occasionally in graphics I create in Canva (when I'm not using the excellent built-in clipart), I've used attribution images from Pexels and Unsplash. These platforms offer many excellent-quality images. There are times when I'm searching for an image that I can find on commercially licensed imagery but not on these sites, which is a bit frustrating. For now, I get creative with the images I choose. I always have a subtle theme (or sometimes a not-so-subtle one) that connects the image to the story.
Royalty-Free Music
I’ve had a few instances where I need a small music clip, such as playing under the CTO Life Line title sequence. Finding the correct type of music with the proper length could take significant time. Or I can use AI to tailor something to fit. I am not immune to the concerns of artists' rights (as AI has likely been trained on datasets of commercial music) and livelihoods.
These small applications provide hands-on, practical utility of these tools without threatening livelihoods, and offer an opportunity to consider moral and ethical implications through real-world examples. The industry will likely need to find a balance, one that is better than where streaming has currently landed, which seems unprofitable, even for quite successful artists.
soundraw.io (as a Canva plugin app)
Spelling, Grammar checking & Clarity improvement
Using Grammarly, I learned that I continue to repeat some common grammatical errors, such as switching ‘which’ and ‘that’ in the wrong contexts. Grammarly helps me correct these, clean up my use of commas, and identify unnecessary words that may add noise, getting in the way of meaning. It occasionally slows or crawls to a halt, but it’s the best of the growing number of interactive writing assistants on the market. If they are not careful, a more reliable service will supplant them. You don’t need to look too hard to find users complaining about this. Why do companies leave such issues unchecked for so long?
Link-in-bio
I’ve just started using this—it's reasonably necessary on platforms such as Instagram and others that prevent or penalise posting links. I selected what I saw most people using, and it's been easy to configure.
AI
I use AIs regularly. I always try a range, but there are a few I have always come back to. I enjoy the voice interface that OpenAI’s ChatGPT Windows and Android apps offer, so they are a regular go-to, especially since the improvement of the image generation models makes it practical for basic graphic design tasks, such as creating social media images and blog post graphics.
I also enjoy the MCP integration and overall writing voice that Anthropic’s Claude offers.
Conclusion
The range of Software-as-a-Service tools available for supporting all aspects of work is impressive, considering I grew up in an era of shrink-wrapped software. Purchasing software involved driving to the store and buying a box, sometimes with dozens of disks, which you would take home and slowly feed into your machine over many hours to install your programme.
In many cases, I was able to sign up for a trial of these tools in under a minute and start solving business problems immediately. Later, if the solution is compelling enough, I can subscribe easily. The downside is that as some get more popular, they have raised their prices, so I must monitor the costs of each. I am investigating whether there are opportunities to replace some of these tools with lifetime licenses through a site such as AppSumo.
These tools also provide interesting insights into which are secure in my toolbelt and which are at risk of being replaced. What is it about these companies that puts them at risk? Are they bigger competitors? More nimble competitors? Or mismanagement of leadership? A CTO can continually learn about their craft through observation.
So, those are the tools I use the most to run my publication, host our show, and run my sole trader business. Did any inclusions surprise you? Were there any new ones for you that might be worth trying out? What tools are indispensable to you? Share what you use for what in the comments - I’d like to find my next time-saving, quality-improving tool.
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