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What are the 5 tools you simply couldn't do your work without?

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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):

  1. Grammarly – proofreading my texts, not just posts, but also client communication

  2. ChatGPT / Claude – mostly brainstorming, help with copy, and summarising

  3. Figma – I can put the basic graphics together quickly.

  4. Translator – sounds incredibly old-school, but English is not my mother tongue

  5. 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 – – prevents me from being banned on LinkedIn, so I will not lose my account.]

What are your five?

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Here's my everyday 5:

  1. Google Docs - User friendly and easier to save my content drafts.

  2. Canva - For quick creatives, decks and one pagers.

  3. ChatGPT/Claude - For ideation, content tweaking, image generations.

  4. Notion - to track and save competitor information.

  5. Buffer + Linkedin - For scheduling, sharing ideas, building a community.

Mine, honestly: Linear for tracking, Claude for drafting and code, Stripe for anything involving money, Figma, and a notes app I keep abandoning and crawling back to.

The list gets a lot longer the moment you run a creator or product business on top of building one. A membership tool, a store, a community app, a mailing tool, a scheduler, a link page, all separate, none of them talking to each other.

Closing that gap is what I'm building DukieX for: one Space where those creator-business pieces live together. We actually launch here on Wednesday, so I've been staring at this exact "too many tools" problem all month.

Mine, as someone doing research-heavy work:

NotebookLM — turning a pile of papers/PDFs into something I can actually query and reason over

Claude — thinking partner for drafting and structuring arguments

Zotero — reference wrangling, the unglamorous backbone

Obsidian — where notes actually live long-term

Readwise — so highlights don't die inside the PDF

Funny how the theme here is "tools that work alongside you." For me the friction is always the glue between them — I lose half my time moving context from one tool to the next. That's honestly why I started building a workspace layer on top of NotebookLM.

As a solo founder building Maleu (a social + learning + fitness app), mine are:

  1. Cursor — AI-assisted coding is the only reason a solo dev can ship something this big

  2. 2. Figma — designed the entire UI solo, couldn't imagine doing it without it

  3. 3. Claude/ChatGPT — my rubber duck, my brainstorming partner, my copywriter

  4. 4. Notion — the only thing keeping my product roadmap from being chaos in my head

  5. 5. Firebase/Supabase — real-time infra I'd have needed a whole backend team for 5 years ago

Honestly the tooling available now is insane. Building alone would've been impossible 5 years ago.

Here are my top 5:

1. Claude/ChatGPT – For everything from research and brainstorming to coding and marketing

2. GCP – I deploy all my services using App Hosting

3. Google Keep – I write down everything here—reminders, ideas, notes, and anything that pops into my head—so I don’t forget it

4. YouTube – “Polo Mode Timer” channel is essential for maintaining my focus

5. DeepL – Since English isn’t my native language, I’m always using it for translations

So, my daily workflow looks like this with these tools:

I use for my research; it provides me with answers from trustworthy sources. I don’t have to scroll through all those crappy websites overflowing with ads; I just got instant answers that genuinely provide value. So, my research part is sorted for now.

I use to automate and extract YouTube videos based on my keywords. It prepares Google Sheets for me with the publishing date, keywords, and the video link, making it easier for me to proceed with my content creation work.

: I use this tool for my content part. I use Claude for my whole content for Youtube + Tiktok, It writes the complete script for me, but yes, I won't say that I am totally dependent on Claude. I use my brain too. If I have some content, I add it manually there.

: I use this tool for generating product videos with the help of agentic ai, I just describe what I am looking for, and then the AI video agent writes a script for me, which is editable. Then, after the script, it generates the video for based on the requirements I have provided.

Mon top 5 en tant que solo-fondatrice / tradeuse :
1. Kolyb (mon app) : organisation quotidienne + networking, incroyables pour les solo-preneurs qui veulent avancer sans se sentir seuls
2. Claude : brainstorming, rédaction, code / design
3. Canva : visuels rapides
4. MT5 & : je trade le DAX en parallèle, indispensables
5. Reverso/ correcteur : on essaye d'éviter les fautes d'orthographe ! :)

My five -

  1. Visual Studio Code for coding

  2. Figma for design

  3. Apple Notes for all my notes, TBDs etc

  4. Claude for helping with brainstorming and some vibe coding

  5. Vercel & Supabase for hosting and DB

Solo founder building a social platform — here are my 5:

  1. Figma — for all UI/UX design work, no way around it

  2. 2. Claude — brainstorming, code review, and writing copy

  3. 3. Notion — product roadmap, feature specs, and thinking out loud

  4. 4. Linear — tracking what actually needs to ship this week

  5. 5. Strava + 4 other fitness/social apps I'm trying to replace with Maleu (the life OS I'm building — basically one app for your whole digital life)

The irony of being a solo founder building a unified platform is that you end up using more apps than anyone to build it.

for me cursor, supabase, vercel, x, notion

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