What are the 5 tools you simply couldn't do your work without?
This could be related to your industry, or even a side project you're working on.
Here are my 5 (I couldn't function without them):
Grammarly – proofreading my texts, not just posts, but also client communication
ChatGPT / Claude – mostly brainstorming, help with copy, and summarising
Figma – I can put the basic graphics together quickly.
Translator – sounds incredibly old-school, but English is not my mother tongue
Gmail – and not only for communication, but also for storing ideas and sending myself email reminders for posts
[and soon one more that I am working on – SafeLimit – prevents me from being banned on LinkedIn, so I will not lose my account.]
What are your five?
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The 5 tools I couldn't do my work without:
PunamIDE – I built it, but it's also my daily driver. I use it to code, debug, record development sessions, manage AI workflows, and test new features on itself.
ChatGpt/DeepSeek – My primary AI coding partner. It's helped me generate, review, and refactor thousands of lines of code while working with limited hardware and budget.
GitHub – Version control, backups, releases, issue tracking, and collaboration. Every serious software project I build lives here.
SQLite – The unsung hero. Lightweight, fast, and reliable. It powers indexing, local storage, settings, and project data across my apps.
Tauri – Lets me build native desktop applications with web technologies while keeping performance and memory usage low.
Bonus: My aging i3 laptop. It has no right to still be carrying this much workload, but here we are. 😄
My top 5:
ChatGPT – research, brainstorming, writing, coding, and problem-solving.
Cursor – has completely changed how I build and prototype ideas.
Figma – still the fastest way to think visually.
Slack – where work actually happens.
Notion – my knowledge base, task manager, and idea dump all in one.
Funny how AI now takes up 2 out of my 5 essential tools. A few years ago that list would've looked completely different.
@evelyn_chen77 I am not so sure whether any of these tools don't use AI :D it seems like all has something with AI.
Such a great topic — I’ve already found so many useful things in the comments.
My five:
ChatGPT — brainstorming, research, writing, and structuring ideas
Google Docs — where nearly all my drafts and thinking live
Music — I genuinely work worse without it
Slack — team communication and keeping everything moving
Airtable — organising projects, content, and all the moving pieces. I really love it
@marie_saxon Love this list. ChatGPT and Claude has honestly become my second brain for startup building 😄
My 5:
ChatGPT / Claude – research, brainstorming, and helping me think through ideas
Qadence – keeping track of projects, tasks, and everything happening across them
Google Docs – writing and collaborating on ideas
Slack / WhatsApp – communication and quick discussions
Mail – surprisingly still one of my most opened apps
I use plenty of other tools depending on the project, but these are the ones I'd struggle to work without on a daily basis.
My 5:
ChatGPT
Codex
Canva
Email - Outlook, gmail
Google Calendar
@aggie_ho I am on the Gmail team. :D We are not friends with Outlook :D
Mine as a solo founder building in the productivity space:
Figma — for sketching anything that needs to be shown, not explained
Notion — planning, notes, thinking out loud
Claude — first thinking partner before talking to anyone else
TestFlight / Google Play Console — for getting real feedback before I’m sure it’s ready
A plain task list — nothing fancy, just everything in one place so my brain can stop holding it
The pattern I notice: none of these are powerful. They’re just calm. The tools that actually stuck are the ones that don’t demand attention when I’m not using them.
@dmb_dmb I am a huge fan of your last item in the list :)
Here are my Fast 5 🚗💨
Claude / ChatGPT – brainstorming, copywriting, research, and quick prototyping
Figma – where most of my day is spent designing and iterating
Fathom – probably the tool that saves me the most time every week
Reddit – equal parts research and doomscrolling 😅
Crop Photo AI– recently started using it to standardize and resize product images for a Shopify catalog. Saves a surprising amount of manual work.
Claude
Zoom
Slack
Databox
Asana
@pc4media How is it working with Asana? Satisfied?
solo founder building TAM Network. my 5:
1. Cursor + Claude Code - the build muscle. 70 percent of code ships through here.
2. Linear - one place to write things down so the work does not evaporate between sessions.
3. Loom - 2-minute videos beat 20-minute meetings every time.
4. Threads - faster signal on what messaging resonates than any analytics tool.
5. Notion - building in public means a public Notion roadmap as the source of truth.
bonus 6: a small group chat with three other solo founders. that one is the moat for staying sane.
@thenameisarian I would say that sometimes the point 6 needs to be point 1 in the priority list :D
@busmark_w_nika you are not wrong. the weeks it should be point 1 are the ones where the build muscle is fine but the morale muscle is shot. the group chat is the only place you can say 'i am spiraling' and someone hands you a fix instead of a pep talk.
the honest version of the list reorders itself by which muscle is the bottleneck that week.
@thenameisarian Sometimes I need this group of people, too. :)
Interesting how everyone's list is different!
Mine as a founder:
MySpec: turning rough ideas into reviewed, build-ready specifications.
Cursor: building.
Claude: thinking through product decisions and technical trade-offs.
GitHub: shipping.
Linear: planning what's next.
The better the specification, the less time I spend fixing misunderstandings later.