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▲▼
See exactly what ads your competitors are running on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Advertising πŸ†“ Free
See any company's Google ads. Great for competitive research. Advertising πŸ†“ Free
Automates ad creative testing so you're not doing it manually. Advertising πŸ’° Paid
Premium outdoor ads at a fraction of the price. Worth exploring. Advertising πŸ’° Paid
See what TikTok ads are performing. Free competitive intel. Advertising πŸ†“ Free
Find TikTok creators for brand partnerships. Advertising πŸ†“ Free
3,500+ project ideas when you're stuck or brainstorming. Brainstorming πŸ†“ Free
9,000+ email examples. Browse before you design yours. Brainstorming πŸ†“ Free
Curated push notification examples. Small detail, big impact on engagement. Brainstorming πŸ†“ Free
Curated examples from top copywriters and marketers. Study before you write. Brainstorming πŸ†“ Free
Solid free playbook if you're building a community from scratch. Community πŸ†“ Free
Free alerts when someone mentions your brand on Reddit or Hacker News. Community πŸ†“ Free
Find your early adopters in Reddit communities before your competitors do. Community πŸ”“ Freemium
Find what content actually performs before you waste time writing the wrong thing. Content πŸ”“ Freemium
Great Figma resource if you're building or maintaining a design system. Content πŸ†“ Free
Catches the stuff spellcheck misses. Worth it for anything public-facing. Content πŸ”“ Freemium
Custom bars, modals, and sliders for your site. Simple conversion tool. Content πŸ’° Paid
Massive free library of ebooks, guides, and templates. Start here before building your own. Content πŸ†“ Free
10,000+ curated newsletters to promote your business. Underrated distribution channel. Content πŸ”“ Freemium
Free stock videos that don't look like stock videos. Content πŸ†“ Free
See what's trending on Pinterest. Useful for content planning. Content πŸ†“ Free
Create custom interactive maps. Great for local or event-based content. Content πŸ†“ Free
Record podcast interviews in studio quality, remotely. Content πŸ’° Paid
AI-generated videos. Good for internal content and demos. Content πŸ”“ Freemium
2,000,000+ free stock photos that don't look terrible. Content πŸ†“ Free
Free sanity check on your marketing headlines before you ship them. Copywriting πŸ†“ Free
AI copywriting that's better than starting from a blank page. Copywriting πŸ”“ Freemium
The gold standard for traffic, backlink, and keyword intel on your competitors. Data πŸ”“ Freemium
Heatmaps that show you where users actually click, not where you think they do. Data πŸ”“ Freemium
SQL, Python notebooks, and visualizations in one place. Great for data teams. Data πŸ”“ Freemium
Collect data once, send it to 200+ tools. Saves months of integration work. Data πŸ”“ Freemium
Track social shares, likes, and reach of your content. Data πŸ’° Paid
See any website's traffic estimates and key metrics. Essential for competitive analysis. Data πŸ”“ Freemium
Beautiful, interactive forms that people actually finish. Higher completion rates. Data πŸ”“ Freemium
Tag your campaign URLs properly so you can actually measure what's working. Data πŸ†“ Free
Email marketing that just works. Don't overthink it early on. Email πŸ”“ Freemium
Search engine for email newsletters. Great for design inspiration. Email πŸ†“ Free
Bulk email verification. Clean your list before you send to protect deliverability. Email πŸ”“ Freemium
Find real experts fast when you need domain knowledge you don't have. General Tool πŸ’° Paid
Best screenshot and screen recording tool on Mac. Period. General Tool πŸ”“ Freemium
Custom swag, fast. No minimums drama. General Tool πŸ’° Paid
Good for quick tactical work. Don't expect strategy. General Tool πŸ’° Paid
Test how your site looks on mobile without grabbing five phones. General Tool πŸ”“ Freemium
Pay any vendor with a credit card. Useful for cashflow management. General Tool πŸ†“ Free
Automate anything between apps. The duct tape of startups. General Tool πŸ”“ Freemium
Quick mockups for physical products without needing a designer. Graphic Design πŸ”“ Freemium
Affordable design courses with real mentor feedback. Graphic Design πŸ”“ Freemium
The non-designer's best friend. Fast, good enough, and free. Graphic Design πŸ”“ Freemium
Visual inspiration for any design project. Browse before you brief. Graphic Design πŸ†“ Free
AI-generated font pairings. Saves the 'which fonts go together' rabbit hole. Graphic Design πŸ†“ Free
Chrome extension to identify any font on any website in one click. Graphic Design πŸ†“ Free
Full-page screenshots in Chrome. Free and dead simple. Graphic Design πŸ†“ Free
Motion graphics without After Effects. Great for product animations. Graphic Design πŸ’° Paid
8,000+ animated icons that make your product feel more polished. Graphic Design πŸ”“ Freemium
3D product mockups and videos. Makes your app look premium. Graphic Design πŸ”“ Freemium
Icons and photos for everything. Saves hours of hunting. Graphic Design πŸ”“ Freemium
Presentation templates for startups. Skip the blank slide. Graphic Design πŸ”“ Freemium
Some of the best operator-written startup content on the internet. Learning πŸ†“ Free
If you're leading B2B marketing at a startup, start here. Learning πŸ”“ Freemium
Elad Gil's playbook for scaling. Dense with real tactics. Learning πŸ†“ Free
The go-to newsletter for product and growth. Worth every penny. Learning πŸ”“ Freemium
Active community of product and growth operators. Real conversations, not fluff. Learning πŸ’° Paid
Advanced growth, product, and engineering content. Not for beginners. Learning πŸ’° Paid
Free startup fundamentals from one of the top accelerators. Learning πŸ†“ Free
Fastest way to find B2B contact info without paying enterprise prices. Sales πŸ”“ Freemium
Find anyone's professional email address in seconds. Sales πŸ”“ Freemium
Free way to spy on who's linking to your competitors. SEM / SEO πŸ†“ Free
Real search data for keyword research. Better than guessing. SEM / SEO πŸ”“ Freemium
The Swiss Army knife for SEO, PPC, content marketing, and competitive research. SEM / SEO πŸ”“ Freemium
Serious SEO and link-building community. Worth it if SEO is a real channel for you. SEM / SEO πŸ’° Paid
Keyword research tool. Good for finding niche opportunities. SEM / SEO πŸ”“ Freemium
Simple, reliable social scheduling. Does the job without overcomplicating it. Social Media πŸ”“ Freemium
Quick hashtag research for social posts. Saves the guessing game. Social Media πŸ”“ Freemium
Find social media influencers by niche. Cuts the outreach time. Social Media πŸ”“ Freemium
Turn podcast audio into shareable video clips for social. Social Media πŸ”“ Freemium
Track YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter stats. Good for influencer vetting. Social Media πŸ”“ Freemium
Beautiful social media screenshots for case studies and posts. Social Media πŸ”“ Freemium
Changes your favicon and title when visitors leave. Clever re-engagement trick. UI / UX πŸ”“ Freemium
70+ CRM plugins that add functionality without custom dev work. UI / UX πŸ”“ Freemium
Product walkthroughs and tooltips without engineering resources. UI / UX πŸ”“ Freemium
Deep links that actually work across platforms. Saves hours of debugging. User Behavior πŸ”“ Freemium
Live social proof that actually moves conversion rates. User Behavior πŸ”“ Freemium
Watch recorded user sessions to see exactly where your product breaks. User Behavior πŸ”“ Freemium
Clean, licensable music and sound effects without the royalty headache. Video πŸ†“ Free
Async video that replaces meetings. Use it more than you think you should. Video πŸ”“ Freemium
See exactly what tech stack any competitor is running. Free and instant. Website πŸ†“ Free
Solid Squarespace templates if you want something beyond the defaults. Website πŸ”“ Freemium
Buy domains without the upsell chaos. Privacy included by default. Website πŸ’° Paid
Landing pages without a developer. Good for campaign-specific pages. Website πŸ”“ Freemium
Drop feedback directly on live sites, images, and PDFs. Way better than screenshots in Slack. Website πŸ”“ Freemium