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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Great question. Mine are pretty specific to what I do as a solo founder building a fintech tool.
Claude / Claude Code - my entire dev process runs through it. I plan in Claude and implement in Claude Code. It has replaced a co-founder for me.
Supabase - I would not be shipping a production database as a solo non-backend developer without it.
SEC EDGAR - sounds odd but the free public filing database is the core data source for everything I build. Genuinely underrated.
Vercel - zero ops, instant deploys. I could not maintain infrastructure and build product simultaneously without it.
Resend - transactional email that just works. I wasted two days on alternatives before switching.
Workbuddy - like Codex but more simple for me
Obsidiain - a local notebook that make no network issue
CloudFlare - my pages list on the site
LLM - Gemini\Deepseek...
Github Desktop - upload the pages
Keyboard, mouse, Operation system, text editor (any kind), Internet browser
My current 5 as a developer:
1. Codex - for coding, refactoring, and exploring unfamiliar codebases
2. GitHub - source of truth for everything I ship
3. Cloudflare - hosting, workers, DNS, and quick experiments
4. Hugging Face - A hub for the world's cutting-edge models.
5. Product Hunt - mostly for seeing how makers explain products in one sentence
The pattern for me: the best tools reduce context switching, not just task time.
Great list — and #4 hits home, English isn't my first language either, so a solid translator is non-negotiable for me too.
Mine, as a solo founder building a small SaaS:
Supabase — auth, Postgres and storage in one; as a solo dev it genuinely saved me weeks.
Claude — my second pair of hands for both code and copy.
Stripe — subscriptions that just work, so billing isn't my problem anymore.
The OpenAI API — my product literally runs on it.
DeepL — far better than Google Translate for German, and I build for a German audience.
And honestly Gmail would be my sneaky 6th, for the exact reason you said — emailing myself ideas late at night 😄
Mine are pretty simple, but I use them almost every day:
1. ChatGPT — drafting comments, summarizing posts, and cleaning up messy notes
2. Google Sheets — tracking leads, replies, posts, and follow-ups
3. HubSpot — keeping contacts, conversations, and follow-ups organized
4. Google Docs — SOPs, drafts, and client notes
5. LinkedIn/Reddit search — finding conversations where people are actually asking for help
The biggest one for me is probably Sheets or HubSpot. If I don’t track conversations, it’s way too easy to lose good follow-ups.
claude, has speed the building of the product by 10x
my top 5:
Figma for designs
Opencode + claude opus for coding
Keupera for SEO and GEO
Gojiberry for outreach
Netlify for hosting
GPT – I use it for thinking, writing, and turning messy ideas into clear output
Claude –deep reasoning, long-form writing, and structured thinking
Lightroom – organizing and editing photos with natural, clean color
Photoshop –detailed image editing, visual refinement
Gmail –communication, capturing ideas, and managing personal task reminders