One of the things that keeps us focused at ProjectLocker is that we eat our own dogfood. But in our space, that means more than just keeping our code in ProjectLocker. It translates to the whole mindset of how we work. Simply put, we believe that cloud-based software is the future of work, so we do as much as possible in the cloud. If the unevenly-distributed future is already here, we want to experience it earliest so that we can be on the leading edge of honing its utility for our customers.
Here are some of the tools we use to build and manage ProjectLocker. It's a longish post, but hopefully some insight into our decision-making processes will help someone reading this. And please feel free to reach out if you want more details on the pros/cons of any of these!
We've used a number of hosting firms in the past, but we have been working with SoftLayer for a number of years. They aren't the cheapest host available, but they amazing uptime, excellent service, and a solid mix of dedicated & cloud offerings. They also bring a lot of flexibility to the table via their account managers.
We started experimenting when AWS was in beta, and have grown our footprint at AWS over the years. We use a number of AWS components: EC2 for transient processing, continuous integration & search, RDS for some PostgreSQL databases, S3 for storing archives, and SQS for coordinating some of our distributed systems. Overall, we really like the features AWS offers, but in general the $ costs and tradeoffs of designing for the AWS model make sense for parts of the ProjectLocker infrastructure but not other parts.
Stripe is, simply put, the best way to collect money on the Internet. Integration is a snap, their support is responsive, and their pricing is transparent (none of this was true of our prior provider). I can't recommend Stripe highly enough.
Asana is a lightweight Web-based task manager that we use to organize our work. What's great about Asana is that it doesn't impost much structure out of the box, but it has a lot of power to adapt to the way we work. In addition to the default Web app, Asana also has mobile apps to keep us updated on the go.
One of the ways we keep ProjectLocker's price points reasonable is by not employing a big sales force and spending our customers' money on expensive steak dinners for prospects. In practice, this means we primarily acquire new customers through referrals (thanks, y'all!) and inbound marketing. The problem we had was that we at ProjectLocker are hackers, more comfortable writing JavaScript than an integrated cross-channel marketing program, whatever that is. HubSpot is an all-in-one inbound marketing app that lets us concentrate on writing and not as much on the mechanics of publishing/SEO/reporting. Their support is wonderful, and their marketing resources are phenomenal.
When we're working with customers & prospects with more involved/custom needs, we want to be sure to keep track of each interaction. We try to keep our processes lightweight, so we opted for Nutshell. Nutshell has good email integration, so we can continue to communicate with customers primarily via email. However, Nutshell gives some more advanced CRM features for lead management & reporting that help us manage our sales flow.
MailChimp makes it super-easy to send newsletters. We also use their Mandrill ESP (email service provider) to power emails from our apps to ensure that they end up in your inboxes and not your spam folders. MailChimp is also based in Atlanta, so we love them for that!
QuickBooks is an industry standard, and our accountants & bookkeepers know it. It works well, even though it could use a UX overhaul.
Excellent customer support is one of the key reasons teams choose ProjectLocker. Groove makes it easier for us to respond quickly to your questions with accurate data, so you can get back to being a star at work. We especially like the searchable knowledge base of help articles for helping people find answers to common questions.
TextMate is one of the only pieces of traditional software I use regularly at ProjectLocker. I'm not religious about the choice of IDE, but it's not something I like to switch often. When I decided to switch to TextMate, the landscape among cloud IDEs was less developed. I'm hoping that the next time I switch, I'll be able to go 100% cloud.
Messages is great for coordinating and asking quick questions, especially now that it also lets us message iPhones too.
In spite of the cumbersome multi-persona thing Google has going on, Google Apps is great. Specifically, GMail is best in breed at 1) search and 2) spam blocking, which happen to be two problems we don't need. The Google Apps calendar is also handy, and it syncs with the Apple calendars (Mac, iPhone) as a bonus.
Freshly roasted high quality coffee, shipped to your door. Who can argue with that? Not me, though I'm a little concerned that they will add a zero to all of their prices now that Blue Bottle Coffee owns them. ;-)
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