Dora Nagy
Contact me if you would like to receive my templates for topics like Weekly 1:1s, Leadership offsite planning, OKR planning, Chief of Staff JD, Meeting etiquette, etc.
There are a gazillion tools and software out there, so I have compiled the list of those that I have personally used and would recommend or the tools that many Chiefs of Staff have recommended to me.
Ping me if I have missed anything as I try to keep this list updated!
Ways of working and running the company:
Matt Mochary Curriculum is a fantastic resource for any CEO / Chief of Staff looking to operationalize running a startup (or rather, a scale-up) and take things to the next level. I used to live & breathe these best practices during my Google days and since then, use a lot of Matt’s approach when I coach CEOs or Chiefs of Staff.
The Great CEO Within is Matt Mochary’s book version of all the wisdom he shares above. I often recommend the book to founders/CEOs who want to give it a go DIY-style without any support from a coach like myself. :)
Coda.io is a collection of team rituals, approaches, and tools you can adapt to your organization. Lots of practical ‘how to’ and templates for everything from goal-setting through productivity and communication all the way to people management.
Manager’s Handbook is a great fast track for any new manager, but also, a useful refresher for experienced managers. There are best practices that don’t need anyone reinventing the wheel and that are the foundation for running high-performing teams.
Quantive, Just3things, Betterworks are tried and trusted OKR platforms you can’t go wrong with if cascading OKRs is your main goal. I am a fan of ‘less is more’, so often a well-designed Google sheet is enough. For other times, have your pick.
GTMhub is another OKR management platform, highly customizable with available templates and lots of useful educational materials and ‘how to’ guides on OKRs.
Zokri is an OKR management platform with a focus on having the right conversations with the right people at the right time (which is the main goal in my opinion, OKRs is just a framework for that). Reminders and prompts make coordination easier.
Productivity:
Superhuman is an email productivity tool for those who hate email and zero inbox is not even a remote hope. Mind you, with the exception of one feature, Gmail can do the same thing (for free) once you set everything up, but you might not want to bother with that.
Briskine is a browser extension that speeds up your email and message writing so that you can reply faster by inserting template and keyboard shortcuts in Gmail, Outlook.com, LinkedIn etc.
Evernote and Google Keep are apps designed for note-taking, organizing, task management, and archiving. They are great for basic content capturing (whether it is an image, article, link, or notes) as they seamlessly sync on mobile & desktop.
Amplenote is where notes, ToDo-s and calendar meet in an intuitive UI. It’s great if you like to write and organize notes and keep them together with related events.
Todoist is a ToDo management tool for both work and life, with highly customizable labels, filters and templates that you can use to always see what is most important / urgent. This is advanced task management for those who love systems.
Calendly is for scheduling without the dreadful back and forth emails. The tool integrates with calendars on both Google and Outlook and it also shows when you are available if you happen to schedule through someone else’s calendly.
RescueTime is a time management tool that tells you exactly how you spend your time on your digital devices so that you can be more productive and spend more time on meaningful work.
Collaboration:
CollaborationSuperpowers is the one-stop-shop for all tools that one can possibly need for collaboration, productivity, teams, and all the random things that can come up such as ice-breakers for virtual meetings. Warning: you might get overwhelmed with all the options.
Asana or Monday.com are tools designed to help with coordinating plans, tracking projects and communicating on tasks across your organization.
Otter.ai is a transcription tool that records meetings, interviews, lectures, and other important voice conversations and it also transcribes notes.
Loom is great for remote teams across many time-zones. You can record video calls easily and instantly share them, e.g. you need to walk someone through a proposal, a project plan, an onboarding material, or create a step-by-step guide.
Notion is way more than a note-taking app though you can use it for that too - it’s like you take the Ferrari to go to the grocery shop, but hey. :) You can basically run your start-up or team on Notion and create a solid company wiki too. Lots of templates help you with project and task management, ToDos, notes, comms, etc.
Slido is great for running live polls during an event or meeting, gathering and upvoting questions to ask at the next TGIF or town hall meeting
HR:
BambooHR is an HR software that collects and organizes all the information gathered throughout the employee life cycle and helps you automate paperwork and data management. Great for creating visibility into individual OKRs.
CharlieHR is an HR automation platform that makes all the admin work from onboarding to offboarding easier. You can also run polls and employee surveys.
Degreed is an L&D platform that comes in handy when you need access to an extensive library of training to cater to all employee needs. L&D outsourced and automated.
Pave is best for employee compensation planning without spreadsheets and the clunky admin that comes with it.
Index Ventures stock option plan is an interactive tool you can use to design comp and stock options based on extensive benchmarking done in Europe with startups and scale-ups.
Gympass is a one-stop-shop for employee benefits, giving people access to apps and studios to support their mental, physical and emotional fitness.
Spill is a remote mental health support platform integrated into Slack, whenever employees need to talk to someone over chat or as a scheduled call.
Untapped.ai is a coaching service and platform for individuals and teams, combining the power of human touch and AI. Scaleable, affordable, reliable exec coaching.
Other:
Typeform is a data collection software helping you to create online surveys. Simple, clean, modern UI that makes filling out forms or surveys less painful. Easy to set up and use.
Poised is an AI powered communication coach, which basically means that it analyzes how you speak on a call and gives you recommendations on how to improve / what to pay attention to.
ChatGPT If you want to see the power of AI in action, try this tool for blog posts, articles, essays, you name it. Kinda scary good.
Creative Market is a go-to marketplace for slideware templates (whether you use ppt or Google docs), that can save you a lot of time and stress prepping important presentations. Lots of templates for slides and graphics including charts, all easily customizable.
Canva is a free design tool for quick design work you don’t want to hire an agency or a freelancer for. Lots of templates to use for drag & drop designs.
99designs is a great marketplace for designing logos, templates, and even full brand toolkits, without the price tag of a creative or brand agency. You can launch a ‘competition’ and see all ideas coming in, then select who you want to work with.