Marketing and growth teams at early-stage startups have limited resources, short timelines, and tight budgets.
As such, these scrappy crews of t-shaped marketers need to do more with less, often independent of developers and designers building the product
These 93 tools, services, and resources are the first ones I turn to when a startup asks for help in ideation, execution, or a crash course.
You won’t find table-stakes products like Google Analytics or project management software like Asana.
| Product / Tool▲▼ | Why I Use It▲▼ | Category▲▼ | Cost▲▼ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook Ad Library | See exactly what ads your competitors are running on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. | Advertising | 🆓 Free |
| Google Ad Transparency | See any company's Google ads. Great for competitive research. | Advertising | 🆓 Free |
| Marpipe | Automates ad creative testing so you're not doing it manually. | Advertising | 💰 Paid |
| Milk Money | Premium outdoor ads at a fraction of the price. Worth exploring. | Advertising | 💰 Paid |
| TikTok Creative Center | See what TikTok ads are performing. Free competitive intel. | Advertising | 🆓 Free |
| TikTok Creator Marketplace | Find TikTok creators for brand partnerships. | Advertising | 🆓 Free |
| Ideas Grab | 3,500+ project ideas when you're stuck or brainstorming. | Brainstorming | 🆓 Free |
| Really Good Emails | 9,000+ email examples. Browse before you design yours. | Brainstorming | 🆓 Free |
| Really Good Push Notifications | Curated push notification examples. Small detail, big impact on engagement. | Brainstorming | 🆓 Free |
| SwipeFile | Curated examples from top copywriters and marketers. Study before you write. | Brainstorming | 🆓 Free |
| Brick By Brick | Solid free playbook if you're building a community from scratch. | Community | 🆓 Free |
| F5Bot | Free alerts when someone mentions your brand on Reddit or Hacker News. | Community | 🆓 Free |
| GummySearch | Find your early adopters in Reddit communities before your competitors do. | Community | 🔓 Freemium |
| BuzzSumo | Find what content actually performs before you waste time writing the wrong thing. | Content | 🔓 Freemium |
| Design Systems | Great Figma resource if you're building or maintaining a design system. | Content | 🆓 Free |
| Grammarly | Catches the stuff spellcheck misses. Worth it for anything public-facing. | Content | 🔓 Freemium |
| HelloBar | Custom bars, modals, and sliders for your site. Simple conversion tool. | Content | 💰 Paid |
| HubSpot Resources | Massive free library of ebooks, guides, and templates. Start here before building your own. | Content | 🆓 Free |
| LetterHunt | 10,000+ curated newsletters to promote your business. Underrated distribution channel. | Content | 🔓 Freemium |
| Pexels | Free stock videos that don't look like stock videos. | Content | 🆓 Free |
| Pinterest Trends | See what's trending on Pinterest. Useful for content planning. | Content | 🆓 Free |
| Proxi | Create custom interactive maps. Great for local or event-based content. | Content | 🆓 Free |
| Riverside | Record podcast interviews in studio quality, remotely. | Content | 💰 Paid |
| Synthesia | AI-generated videos. Good for internal content and demos. | Content | 🔓 Freemium |
| Unsplash | 2,000,000+ free stock photos that don't look terrible. | Content | 🆓 Free |
| Headline Analyzer | Free sanity check on your marketing headlines before you ship them. | Copywriting | 🆓 Free |
| Jasper | AI copywriting that's better than starting from a blank page. | Copywriting | 🔓 Freemium |
| Ahrefs | The gold standard for traffic, backlink, and keyword intel on your competitors. | Data | 🔓 Freemium |
| CrazyEgg | Heatmaps that show you where users actually click, not where you think they do. | Data | 🔓 Freemium |
| Mode | SQL, Python notebooks, and visualizations in one place. Great for data teams. | Data | 🔓 Freemium |
| Segment | Collect data once, send it to 200+ tools. Saves months of integration work. | Data | 🔓 Freemium |
| SharedCount | Track social shares, likes, and reach of your content. | Data | 💰 Paid |
| Similar Web | See any website's traffic estimates and key metrics. Essential for competitive analysis. | Data | 🔓 Freemium |
| Typeform | Beautiful, interactive forms that people actually finish. Higher completion rates. | Data | 🔓 Freemium |
| UTM Generator | Tag your campaign URLs properly so you can actually measure what's working. | Data | 🆓 Free |
| Mailchimp | Email marketing that just works. Don't overthink it early on. | 🔓 Freemium | |
| Milled | Search engine for email newsletters. Great for design inspiration. | 🆓 Free | |
| Verify Email | Bulk email verification. Clean your list before you send to protect deliverability. | 🔓 Freemium | |
| Catalant | Find real experts fast when you need domain knowledge you don't have. | General Tool | 💰 Paid |
| CleanShot X | Best screenshot and screen recording tool on Mac. Period. | General Tool | 🔓 Freemium |
| CustomInk | Custom swag, fast. No minimums drama. | General Tool | 💰 Paid |
| Fiverr | Good for quick tactical work. Don't expect strategy. | General Tool | 💰 Paid |
| Mobile Simulator | Test how your site looks on mobile without grabbing five phones. | General Tool | 🔓 Freemium |
| Plastiq | Pay any vendor with a credit card. Useful for cashflow management. | General Tool | 🆓 Free |
| Zapier | Automate anything between apps. The duct tape of startups. | General Tool | 🔓 Freemium |
| Artboard Studio | Quick mockups for physical products without needing a designer. | Graphic Design | 🔓 Freemium |
| BriefBox | Affordable design courses with real mentor feedback. | Graphic Design | 🔓 Freemium |
| Canva | The non-designer's best friend. Fast, good enough, and free. | Graphic Design | 🔓 Freemium |
| Dribbble | Visual inspiration for any design project. Browse before you brief. | Graphic Design | 🆓 Free |
| Font Joy | AI-generated font pairings. Saves the 'which fonts go together' rabbit hole. | Graphic Design | 🆓 Free |
| Fonts Ninja | Chrome extension to identify any font on any website in one click. | Graphic Design | 🆓 Free |
| GoFullPage | Full-page screenshots in Chrome. Free and dead simple. | Graphic Design | 🆓 Free |
| Jitter | Motion graphics without After Effects. Great for product animations. | Graphic Design | 💰 Paid |
| Lordicon | 8,000+ animated icons that make your product feel more polished. | Graphic Design | 🔓 Freemium |
| Rotato | 3D product mockups and videos. Makes your app look premium. | Graphic Design | 🔓 Freemium |
| The Noun Project | Icons and photos for everything. Saves hours of hunting. | Graphic Design | 🔓 Freemium |
| Zlides | Presentation templates for startups. Skip the blank slide. | Graphic Design | 🔓 Freemium |
| First Round Review | Some of the best operator-written startup content on the internet. | Learning | 🆓 Free |
| Guide | If you're leading B2B marketing at a startup, start here. | Learning | 🔓 Freemium |
| High Growth Handbook | Elad Gil's playbook for scaling. Dense with real tactics. | Learning | 🆓 Free |
| Lenny's Newsletter | The go-to newsletter for product and growth. Worth every penny. | Learning | 🔓 Freemium |
| Lenny's Slack | Active community of product and growth operators. Real conversations, not fluff. | Learning | 💰 Paid |
| Reforge Blog | Advanced growth, product, and engineering content. Not for beginners. | Learning | 💰 Paid |
| Techstars Educational Resources | Free startup fundamentals from one of the top accelerators. | Learning | 🆓 Free |
| Apollo | Fastest way to find B2B contact info without paying enterprise prices. | Sales | 🔓 Freemium |
| Hunter | Find anyone's professional email address in seconds. | Sales | 🔓 Freemium |
| Backlink Checker | Free way to spy on who's linking to your competitors. | SEM / SEO | 🆓 Free |
| Keyword Tool | Real search data for keyword research. Better than guessing. | SEM / SEO | 🔓 Freemium |
| SEMRush | The Swiss Army knife for SEO, PPC, content marketing, and competitive research. | SEM / SEO | 🔓 Freemium |
| Traffic Think Tank | Serious SEO and link-building community. Worth it if SEO is a real channel for you. | SEM / SEO | 💰 Paid |
| Wordtracker | Keyword research tool. Good for finding niche opportunities. | SEM / SEO | 🔓 Freemium |
| Buffer | Simple, reliable social scheduling. Does the job without overcomplicating it. | Social Media | 🔓 Freemium |
| Hashtag Stack | Quick hashtag research for social posts. Saves the guessing game. | Social Media | 🔓 Freemium |
| Pop Pays | Find social media influencers by niche. Cuts the outreach time. | Social Media | 🔓 Freemium |
| Reel | Turn podcast audio into shareable video clips for social. | Social Media | 🔓 Freemium |
| Social Blade | Track YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter stats. Good for influencer vetting. | Social Media | 🔓 Freemium |
| Supershots | Beautiful social media screenshots for case studies and posts. | Social Media | 🔓 Freemium |
| DontGo | Changes your favicon and title when visitors leave. Clever re-engagement trick. | UI / UX | 🔓 Freemium |
| PlusThis | 70+ CRM plugins that add functionality without custom dev work. | UI / UX | 🔓 Freemium |
| WalkMe | Product walkthroughs and tooltips without engineering resources. | UI / UX | 🔓 Freemium |
| Branch | Deep links that actually work across platforms. Saves hours of debugging. | User Behavior | 🔓 Freemium |
| Fomo | Live social proof that actually moves conversion rates. | User Behavior | 🔓 Freemium |
| Fullstory | Watch recorded user sessions to see exactly where your product breaks. | User Behavior | 🔓 Freemium |
| Artlist | Clean, licensable music and sound effects without the royalty headache. | Video | 🆓 Free |
| Loom | Async video that replaces meetings. Use it more than you think you should. | Video | 🔓 Freemium |
| Built With | See exactly what tech stack any competitor is running. Free and instant. | Website | 🆓 Free |
| GoLive | Solid Squarespace templates if you want something beyond the defaults. | Website | 🔓 Freemium |
| Hover | Buy domains without the upsell chaos. Privacy included by default. | Website | 💰 Paid |
| Leadpages | Landing pages without a developer. Good for campaign-specific pages. | Website | 🔓 Freemium |
| Punchlist | Drop feedback directly on live sites, images, and PDFs. Way better than screenshots in Slack. | Website | 🔓 Freemium |