Behind every successful digital product agency is a rock-solid suite of powerful tools and services that make it possible to handle multiple tasks at once.
At VeryCreatives, we aim to provide the very best creative service we can. To do this, we use various digital business tools that let us focus on what matters most to our team and our clients. These tools and services have helped us develop and tweak our processes over the years.
Our favorite tools and services
The tools we use range from scheduling apps to payment processing solutions. Using them properly allows us to stay focused on clients’ needs while maintaining a consistently high level of output on each of our projects.
Here’s a list of our go-to services and tools:
Planning
Our choice of tool for all things scheduling is Asana. It is safe to say that it is the backbone of our company.
Why Asana?
We were a part of the private beta in 2011 thanks to the founder, Dustin Moskovitz, who got us provisioned before their public launch. The application has been growing with us ever since.
Asana’s flexibility lets us run project management, operations, sales, and back-office processes seamlessly.
We especially love the automation features Asana has started rolling out (such as automatic work assigning and visibility management), which really simplify our lives.
Communication
When choosing from the many communications tools out there, keep in mind that you should be using a suite that matches your team’s needs.
Our communication tools of choice are Slack and Google Apps.
Why Slack?
Slack simplifies our collaboration efforts with powerful integration functionality, workflow optimizations, guest options, and more.
The built-in Github integration makes it easy to pull updates on a given repository into Slack automatically. We use this alongside error notification services to keep our product-specific channels up-to-date.
Using Slack’s handy workflow automation tools, we gather daily status updates from team members as well.
We also love the special multi-channel and single-channel options that Slack offers for guests, allowing us to have clients participate in our internal conversations without any extra charge for additional user accounts. While this is a huge help, it’s worth noting that Asana remains the source of truth for all of our projects—we don’t take on new tasks based on solely Slack chat messages.
Slack has a few minor faults: Direct messages can be intrusive, and notifications need to be tweaked to keep noise to a minimum. But Slack is still an invaluable tool, especially while many of our team members are working remotely.
Why Google Apps?
This communication suite boasts of the robust service uptime and reliability of Google, making it a strong foundation for enterprise-grade email and more.
We were able to take advantage of the grandfathered free plan Google offers, which has proven to be perfect for us.
Resource management
Managing mission-critical documents and other project-specific media can become surprisingly confusing as projects mature and new clients are brought into the fray.
We use Google Drive and Dropbox to keep track of important files as they change hands between team members.
Why Google Drive?
File sharing functionality is simple and intuitive with Google drive, allowing us to quickly exchange important documents regardless of location.
Why Dropbox?
Uploading and sharing files is equally simple in Dropbox, and files shared through Dropbox benefit from its device agnostic interface.
Payments
Navigating international banking can be surprisingly difficult. From holding different currencies in separate bank accounts to managing transactions across your company’s existing accounts, the challenges involved make specialized tools and platforms a must.
To do all this without any headaches, we use TransferWise for Business (combined with our local bank accounts) and SignEasy.
Why TransferWise?
TransferWise is perfect for us: We can have accounts in multiple currencies and handle money transfers really easily. It’s a low-cost, flexible solution with a great user interface.
Why SignEasy?
SignEasy simplifies our contract-signing process, allowing for different types of documents to be signed (Word, PDF, JPG, etc.) both remotely and in person.
Development
Keeping tabs on our development process is critical, and we’d have a hard time handling it without the powerful tools we’ve chosen.
We use Bugsnag, GitHub/GitLab, DigitalOcean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Bitrise.
Why Bugsnag?
This is an error logging and application monitoring service that supports a wide range of programming languages. It’s easy to integrate into Slack and very affordable for our team.
Why GitHub and GitLab?
Private repositories are available for free through both of these services, letting us host code for multiple projects in a clean, structured manner.
Why Bitrise?
Bitrise is a fellow Hungarian startup that does mobile CI/CD.
This service gives us access to a mobile development stack that can be configured automatically to match our workflow.
Why DigitalOcean and AWS?
DigitalOcean and AWS are where we host our sites and applications. The uptime and network strength of both of these service providers make them excellent choices for all kinds of key projects.
Choosing great tools just makes sense
By using the best tools and services, we make faster progress on our clients’ projects and concentrate on development details to meet the highest standard in our completed products.
Get in touch if you could use some help planning and crafting your next digital product today.
