 is your data insights into your applications on the App Store. It allows you to monitor your app's sales and downloads, reply to Store reviews, and receive notifications.

Add a Team Member to App Store Connect

It's your lucky day! All you need is an account.

 is the platform that allows you to leverage and work with Facebook data. If you want to allow users to login to your product via Facebook, you need to leverage the APIs provided via Facebook Developers.

Add a Team Member to Facebook Developers

It's your lucky day as all you need is a Facebook Developer account!

 is a data tool that helps you better understand your users and site visitors. Over 4 million websites around the world use Google Analytics to power their site-visitor data insights.

Add a Team Member to Google Analytics

It's your lucky day, all you need is your website and a google account!

Google reCAPTCHA is a software service that uses authentication methods to prevent malicious bots and malware from engaging in abusive activity. Google reCAPTCHA has been implemented on and protecting over 5 million sites around the world.

Add a Team Member to Google reCAPTCHA

It's your lucky day, you only need a reCAPTCHA account!

 is a fintech B2B SaaS company that gives companies an easy path to letting their users connect their bank account to their payment profile. Plaid supports over 2000 financial institutions and is leveraged by over 6,000 companies around the world.

Add a Team Member to Plaid

It's your lucky day, all you need is Plaid!

 is a communications platform that allows customers to manage transactional and marketing emails. Popular SendGrid competitors include 

Add a Teammate to SendGrid; Manage SendGrid Teammates

All you need to do is work within your account settings, so no need to worry about any other tools!

Cloudflare is a web performance and security company, ensuring that your website's connection to the internet is secure, private, fast, and reliable.

Cloudflare is servicing over 4 million customers, making them a gold-standard company when it comes to securing your website's up-time and reliability.

Add a User to Cloudflare

Lucky for you, all you need is a Cloudflare account and you're good to go!

 is a data analytics platform that combines quantitative and qualitative data to offer the most complete picture. Over 8,000 companies around the world leverage Full Story.

Add a User to Full Story

It's your lucky day - all you need is a Full Story account!

 is a tech-company that offers a wide range of services. They are most known for being a destination where you can purchase domains. However, they also offer services such as hosting, website building tools, and online marketing.

GoDaddy is one of the largest domain registers in the world. Some of its widely used competitors include Google Domains, NameCheap, and Bluehost.

Add a User to GoDaddy

Luckily, all you need is this article as all the steps and information needed is within GoDaddy!

We'll outline a few competitors to GoDaddy that we recommend looking into as well:

 is a domain registration service offered by Google. It is a competitor to popular services like NameCheap and GoDaddy.

Google Domains allows you to purchase website domains that can then be used as your website as well as provide you a domain for an email address.

Add a User to Google Domains

You're in luck, all you need is Google Domains! No extra tools are needed.

 is the app store for Android devices. There are over 3 million applications available for download via Google Play.

Add a User to Google Play

All you need is an account - it's your lucky day!

 is a tool that helps you analyze your website's search traffic and performance. You can submit up to 1,000 URLs to your Google Search Console.

Add a User to Google Search Console

It's your lucky day! All you need is a website and a google account.

 is a money management fin-tech company, letting users send, receive, and manage their money in one place. PayPal, a market leader, holds over 50% market share of the online payment processing landscape.

Add a User to PayPal

It's your lucky day, all you need is PayPal!

 is an email delivery service that helps businesses send transactional and marketing emails in a reliable manner. Some common competitors of Postmark include 

Add a User to Postmark

Luckily, all you need is your Postmark account. You're good to go!

 is a customer communication platform, allowing its users to leverage their APIs to more easily communicate with their own customers via text and call.

Add a User to Twilio; Manage Twilio Users

All you need here is your Twilio account!

A customer journey map is a tool that is used to help you track the user experiences (UX) of your customer's interaction with your brand (your product or service). A customer journey map is a time-intensive task and requires a lot of critical thinking.

When thinking about customer journey mapping, it is important to think through two central themes before getting too far ahead of yourself:

What is your goal in mapping your customer's journey?

How will you apply these insights to your business?

If you don't first understand the reason as to why you're mapping and how the insights will help you, then your effort will be of less value. So be sure to plan ahead and extract as much value from this process as possible.

Create a Customer Journey Map

Customer journey mapping can be difficult to do alone. It is something that can require a lot of time and even more critical thinking. Thankfully, there are tools and services out there that can help you through this journey. Keep reading below to find out more!

There are three types of tools you can think about when building out your customer journey: Behavior Analytics, Feedback Analysis, and Visual Mapping

Behavior analytic tools will give you the insights into your customer's actual behavior. This will show you the literal actions of the customer experience you currently have. It will allow you to see things such as how much time they spend on your website, where they click, where they come from, what their demographic is, and more. The goal here is to gather all of the data so you can create a data-oriented map rather than a subjective (and in-accurate) 

 map. Here are three powerful behavior analytics tools you can use.

 offers qualitative and quantitative data of your user's experience navigating through your website or application.

 is one of the most mainstream analytics dashboards out there. It's easy to use and shows you an abundance of user behavior.

 is a popular tool used that creates heat maps of your website. You can see where users are spending the most of their team, as well as clicking, in an easy to understand visual report.

Feedback analysis is leveraging tools that help capture the voice of your customers (VoC). So rather than just seeing what they do, it helps define their opinions of your product or service as well as what they would want improved, differentiated, etc. You are now taking one step deeper into the customer experience. These are three VoC tools we recommend taking a look at.

 is an experience management platform helping you to define the voice of all key-stakeholders. Their tool helps you gather solicited and unsolicited feedback, relying on customer surveys, internal customer data and web analytics.

 is a tool that helps companies gather the right information through focusing on experience improvement (XI). They heavily leverage VoC but also utilize social reviews and 

 to further determine what your audience as a whole is saying about you as a company.

 (owned by Qualtrics) leverages an 11-point sentiment analysis to track the VoC throughout the customer journey. They analyze customer effort, engagement, and emotion throughout the customer lifecycle. If you have customer feedback over the phone, they'll transition it to text for you as well.

These tools will help you visually map out your journey, taking your customer experience from action to paper. You can use these customer journey mapping tools and their customer journey map templates to efficiently put together a visual map that you can collaborate on with team members.

 is one of the gold-standards when it comes to visual collaboration. Miro is essentially a digital white-board, letting remote teams brainstorm and work together in abstract manners.

 was built with intention. Leverage any of their tools, including ones focused on journey mapping, persona mapping, and stakeholder mapping. Smaply has customer journey map templates and structures built to make your life easier.

 is a tool specifically built for customer journey mapping. Their collaborative tools give you a step up when it comes to starting off this journey. UXPressia offers customer journey map templates that you can leverage.

An EIN is an Employer Identification Number used by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) to identify a business entity. This nine-digit number is used for tax-filing and reporting purposes - it functions similarly to how a SSN functions for an individual.

A business will typically file for an EIN when they are formed. If your business has employees, then you likely will have an EIN. The common exception to not needing an EIN is if you are a single-member LLC as you can use your social security number to file your taxes. However, if your entity has employees, then even a single-member LLC will need to file for an EIN.

Get an EIN

Filing for an EIN can be an annoying process to do alone. It is something that can require a lot of time and even more critical thinking. Thankfully, there are tools and services out there that can help you through this journey. Keep reading below to find out more!

While you can complete this fairly simply on your own, if you are busy, you can leverage legal services to complete this process. If you are using a legal service to help register your business, then you should leverage that same service to complete your EIN application. You can read more on top legal services to help you establish your business in our blog post on 

Here is a highlight of those legal services we would recommend looking into:

Keep in mind, these prices aren't for only filing your EIN, they include a suite of services that you may need for your business.

A C-Corporation, or C-Corp, is a type of business entity that is legally separate from its owners and shares its profits with shareholders. It is subject to corporate income tax, and its shareholders are also taxed on dividends.

Open a C-Corp

Here are the top 5 tools and services that can help you open a C-Corp:

: A popular online legal service that can assist with filing Articles of Incorporation, obtaining an EIN, and providing registered agent services.
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: Offers customizable legal templates, including bylaws and operating agreements, as well as assistance with incorporation and registered agent services.
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: Provides affordable and comprehensive incorporation services, including EIN registration, bylaws creation, and registered agent services.
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: Offers incorporation services, registered agent services, and assistance with annual compliance requirements.
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: A platform designed to help entrepreneurs form a C-Corporation, open a bank account, and access resources to help grow their business.

The iOS App Store is a digital distribution platform, operated by Apple Inc., where users can browse and download apps for their iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads. It is a popular platform for developers to reach a global audience with their applications.

Publish an iOS App to the App Store

Here are the top 5 tools and services that can help you launch an app on the iOS App Store:

Xcode: Apple's official IDE, essential for iOS app development, testing, and debugging.
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: A dependency manager that simplifies the integration of third-party libraries in your app.
‍

: An Apple service that enables beta testing of your app with a limited number of users before submitting to the App Store.
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: An automation tool that streamlines the app submission process and manages app metadata, screenshots, and deployment.
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App Store Optimization (ASO) tools: Services like 

 can help improve your app's visibility and discoverability on the App Store.

AWS is one of the most widely accepted cloud platforms, leveraged by companies around the world. When working within AWS, you can add an IAM (Identity and Access Management) user. This is an entity that you create in AWS that represents the person or application that uses it to interact with AWS. The purpose here is to control what permissions and account access you provide to people within your account.

Setup An AWS IAM User

Setting up an AWS IAM user can be difficult to do alone. It is something that can require a lot of time and even more critical thinking. Thankfully, all you need is an AWS account and you're good to go!

, is a business entity structure that offers the personal liability protection of a corporation along with the tax benefits of a partnership. In other words, members of an LLC are not personally liable for the liabilities or debts of the company. Furthermore, the company's income is "pass through" meaning that an LLC's revenue gets passed to the members and is taxed as personal income rather than being hit with a double taxation seen by corporations.

Startups and early stage companies will look towards LLCs when forming their business for a handful of reasons:

They are easy and cost-efficient to set-up and maintain

They offer personal liability protection, meaning the member's personal assets are not at risk

If you are starting your business, you likely will want to start off as an LLC.

Start an LLC

Starting an LLC can be difficult to do alone. It is something that can require a lot of time and even more critical thinking. Thankfully, there are tools and services out there that can help you through this journey. Keep reading below to find out more!

There are many services out there that will help you create your LLC and walk you through all the relevant steps in getting your business entity off the ground. We'll walk through five services we recommend looking into, along with their associated costs:

 helps you quickly and easily create your LLC or other business entity. Save money and time with Incfile’s $0 (+ state fee) LLC Registration process. Plus, they have a full suite of startup services (like banking and bookkeeping), which means Incfile not only helps you get started, but supports you in your continued success as your one-stop shop.

 offers a simple way to do business in the US — even if you don't live there! They will help you form your company, get your EIN, and even help you open your business bank account. Thousands of global founders use doola to accurately, safely, and easily incorporate a US-based LLC from anywhere in the world.

' all-in-one platform and team of experts quickly and accurately form your LLC, plus keep you on track as your business grows. Having helped over 400,000 business, they'll walk you through each of the steps, and offer services from just setting you up all the way to maintaining your organization annually. Their basic offering takes care of the filing while their most popular offering includes an operating agreement as well.

Get the legal help you need, with their do-it-yourself services or attorney advice. 

 is the nation's leading provider of personalized, online legal solutions and legal documents for small business, including LLC formations. Having helped over 3.5 million business, LegalZoom is an expert in their space.

 is an online legal technology company that makes the law simpler and more affordable for businesses, families and individuals. As a large institution, RocketLawyer is a go-to service that helps you beyond just LLC formations.

A problem statement is a concise statement outlining the specific problem or issue that you are looking to solve. A problem statement identifies the gap between the current state and desired state of a process or product.

Write a Problem Statement

Writing a problem statement can be difficult to do alone. It is something that can require a lot of time and even more critical thinking. Thankfully, there are tools and services out there that can help you through this journey. Keep reading below to find out more!

Three tools to write a problem statement:

 is a collaboration white-boarding tool. They offer a unique and visualized template that you can leverage in order to build out your problem statement. Start with writing out the WHO to your statement. You then move on to the WHAT. Next you tackle the WHERE/WHEN and finally you wrap things up with the WHY.

 is one of the leading design tools out there on the market. They offer a template as well to writing your problem statement, but this time using a slightly different method. You first start off with identifying who you are. You then walk through what you are trying to do and what is preventing you from doing it properly. You then explain why that issue matters and how it makes you feel.

, a company focused on creating efficient workflows through templates and processes, offers a similar workflow solution to writing a problem statement as Figma. While it doesn't look as pretty, it is just as functional!

A vision statement is a desired future state of the company (and often times the world) that would be achieved if the company is able to complete its mission. Vision statements are a declaration of the company’s “why” and serve as a North Star for the company to strive for. An inspiring vision statement encapsulates the company's aspirations and describes the positive impact on people's lives if the company achieves its full potential.

Vision statements are an important part of a startup's strategic plan because they align key stakeholders, especially employees, with the company’s values and goals. We do this to ensure we have the right attitude, attitude that goes beyond profit and loss and stresses both the opportunity and responsibility to actions.

Write a Vision Statement

Creating a compelling vision statement can be difficult to do alone. It is something that can require a lot of time and even more critical thinking. Thankfully, there are tools and services out there that can help you through this journey. Keep reading below to find out more! Here are some helpful frameworks and best practices that you can use to create your vision statement.

The Golden Circle framework or the Why, How, What framework is a great way to distill and communicate the value of your company. This framework will also help you craft your mission statement, another guiding aspect of your business strategy. 

Click here to watch his TedTalk where he goes into more detail.

According to Sinek, you want to start in the middle of the circle, and reflect on the why. It is the core of your company. Communicating your company’s why effectively (via a vision statement) is crucial for stakeholders to connect with your brand and buy-in.

According to Sinek, the second layer asks how you are going to accomplish this goal. This is where you talk about how your product or service is different from what’s already out there — your value add.

According to Sinek, the outermost layer asks what you do. This is the most superficial and general piece, but it is still useful as it will clearly define your industry.

If you haven’t already considered your brand voice and brand identity, it might be helpful to choose your 

. Brand archetypes will help you decide how you want to communicate your brand’s personality to prospective customers, employees and investors. For vision statements specifically, identifying the right archetype will help you develop your brand voice if you haven’t already.

There are many free worksheets that are available online that ask similar prompts to the brainstorming tips listed in Step 2. We really like this 

 because it provides a concise structure and has a list of vision statements from different industry leaders.

In the context of tech startups, an elevator pitch is a short, 30-second presentation that introduces key stakeholders to your product or business idea. The purpose of an elevator pitch is to capture your audience’s interest and make them curious to learn more.

As a startup founder, it is your responsibility to prepare and practice your elevator pitch so that you can make a great first impression.

Write an Elevator Pitch

Writing an elevator pitch can be difficult to do alone. It is something that can require a lot of time and even more critical thinking. Thankfully, there are tools and services out there that can help you through this journey. Keep reading below to find out more!

Three tools to help you write your elevator pitch:

 will help you structure your elevator pitch in an organized manner. Follow along the templates provided, answering specific questions such as, "Who is this pitch for?" or "What is your solution?" As you work through answering smaller questions, you can then work to put the pitch together through combining your bite-sized responses rather than having to tackle it all at once.

Using this template, you can customize your pitch by audience, type of events you're going to, networking goals, and much more. The beauty here is that you can build an elevator pitch that differs depending on who you talk to, that way you can optimize the quality of each conversation you have. This will help you stand out in the crowd with each interaction you have.
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 was able to reproduce a tool that Harvard Business School once had published on their site. This tool is an elevator pitch builder. Whether you are promoting your company, trying to make a sale, looking to raise capital or just networking for your own benefit, this tool can help you structure your pitch.

After clicking 

, you'll answer a question for each of 4 high-level categories: Who, What, Why, Goal.

This tool is similar to the ones mentioned above, just laid out a bit differently. You'll walk through a series of five summary questions that you will first answer. After doing so, you think will work on your attention grabber. Once completed, you'll finish up by loading your responses and putting it all together into a concise elevator pitch.

A 3rd party refers to an individual, group, or organization that is not directly involved in a transaction, agreement, or project but provides some form of external support, service, or product to the primary parties involved.

Imagine a school project where two students are working together to build a model. They are the primary parties involved. However, they need glue to put the pieces together, so they ask a third student, who is not part of their project, to lend them some glue. This third student acts as a 3rd party, providing a necessary resource without being directly involved in the project.

A 3rd party is an external entity that a company leverages for their services. These 3rd parties can be directly integrated into one's offering.

3rd Party

nterface) is a set of functions and procedures allowing the creation of applications that access the features or data of an operating system, application, or other service.

Imagine that you are sitting down in a restaurant. You are representing the end user. The kitchen that prepares your food is representing the backend. The waiter is who communicates between the two, just like an API.

When you enter the restaurant, you interact with the waiter and place your order. The waiter then walks over to the kitchen and tells them what they need to prepare. Once ready, the waiter will bring your order from the kitchen back to you.

An API is what helps facilitate communication between two applications, whether that be the frontend and backend or the backend or your platform and a 3rd party's services.

An algorithm is a procedure used for solving a problem or performing a computation.

In order to complete a recipe to perfection, you must follow a specific set of steps.

Some recipes are more complex than others. Some recipes are proprietary whereas others are more common knowledge.

An algorithms is an exact list of instructions that conduct specific actions, step by step, in order to accomplish a specific task.

Algorithm

Alpha testing is an initial phase of testing a product or software, conducted by the development team or a limited group of internal users, to identify and fix bugs before moving on to the beta testing phase.

Think of building a house. The alpha test is like the first walkthrough by the architect and construction team, checking the structure for any issues or improvements needed before inviting potential buyers for a tour (beta test).

Alpha testing is the initial testing phase to ensure the product is functional and ready for the next stage of testing with a wider audience.

Alpha Test

Android is an open-source operating system (OS) developed by Google, primarily designed for smartphones and tablets. It is based on the Linux kernel and allows developers to create applications that can run on Android devices.

Imagine Android as a city with various buildings (apps) and infrastructure (hardware). The city's layout and rules (the OS) determine how the buildings are constructed and how they interact with one another. Just as a city provides a common ground for people to live and work, Android provides a platform for apps to run and interact with each other on a device.

Android is the platform that allows apps to run and interact with each other on smartphones and tablets.

Android

Authentication is the verification process of a user's, process', or devices' identity. Authentication commonly is used to restrict access.

Authentication is like your government ID.

In order to fly or drive a car, you need to authenticate that you have the right credentials to do so as a legal citizen or resident.

Authentication is the process of determining whether someone or something is who that someone or something actually is.

Authentication

Backend development refers to the server-side of a web application where the business logic, database interactions, and server configurations take place. It is responsible for managing and processing data, ensuring that the frontend of the application runs smoothly and efficiently.

Imagine a restaurant. The frontend is like the dining area where customers interact with the menu and place their orders. The backend, on the other hand, is like the kitchen where chefs prepare the meals, manage ingredients, and ensure that orders are completed accurately and on time.

Backend development is the "kitchen" of a web application, where all the behind-the-scenes work is done to ensure a smooth and efficient user experience on the frontend.

Backend Development

Backfill is the process of filling in missing data or correcting inaccuracies in a database or system. This is often done to ensure that historical data is accurate and complete, which is essential for making informed decisions and analyzing trends.

Imagine you have a bookshelf filled with books, but some of the books are missing or misplaced. Backfilling would be like going through the bookshelf, finding the missing books, and putting them in their correct spots so that the bookshelf is complete and organized.

Backfill is the process of filling in missing or incorrect information in a database or system to ensure accuracy and completeness.

Backfill

A backup is a copy of data stored on a computer or server, created to ensure that the original data can be restored in case of data loss, corruption, or system failure.

Imagine you have a notebook with all your important notes and ideas for your startup. Now imagine that you accidentally spill coffee on it, making the pages unreadable. To prevent this disaster, you could have made photocopies of your notebook and stored them in a safe place. In this analogy, the photocopies represent the backup of your important data.

A backup is like a safety net for your digital data, ensuring that you can recover your valuable information if something goes wrong.

Backup

Beta testing is a phase in the software development process where a nearly finished product is released to a limited group of users for evaluation and feedback. The primary objective of beta testing is to identify any issues, bugs, or areas for improvement before the final release of the product.

Imagine you're a chef who has created a new dish. Before adding it to your restaurant's menu, you decide to serve it to a small group of your regular customers for a taste test. Their feedback helps you fine-tune the dish, ensuring it's perfect before you offer it to all your customers. Beta testing is like this taste test, where a select group of users gets to try out the software and provide feedback to help improve it.

Beta testing is the process of letting a select group of users try out a nearly finished software product and provide feedback to help improve it before the final release.

Beta Testing

A blockchain node is a computer that participates in a blockchain network by storing, validating, and relaying transactions and blocks to other nodes.

Imagine a game of telephone, where each participant must relay a message to the next person in line. In this analogy, each participant represents a blockchain node, and the message is a transaction or block. The nodes work together to ensure that the message (transaction or block) is accurately transmitted and verified throughout the network.

Blockchain nodes are like participants in a game of telephone, working together to maintain the accuracy and integrity of transactional data in a blockchain network.

Blockchain Nodes

Branching is when you make a copy of the same code base and use the copy to perform your work.

Code branching is like working on a cooking recipe.

A chef will have the base recipe that they start working with. As they test out new ingredients, they will replicate the recipe and make their changes. Rather than changing the master recipe, they will duplicate the recipe to test out their new approach.

If they like the new piece of the recipe, then they will add it to the main recipe. If they don't like it, then they can discard it and go back to the original recipe. This way, their efforts of testing out new ingredients doesn't impact the base recipe itself.

Code branching is a type of version control system in writing code, allowing developers to work on different versions of the same codebase. Once the changes have been made, a developer can merge their branch back into the main codebase, applying their changes without disrupting the workflow of others.

Branching

A software bug is an error, flaw, or unintended behavior in a software program that causes it to produce incorrect or unexpected results.

Imagine you're following a recipe to bake a cake. The recipe is like the code for your software. If there's a mistake in the recipe, such as a wrong ingredient or incorrect measurement, the cake won't turn out as expected. A software bug is like that mistake in the recipe, causing the software to not work as intended.

A bug is a mistake in the code that leads to unexpected or incorrect results in a software program.

CI/CD Pipelines, or Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment pipelines, are automated processes that enable developers to build, test, and deploy software changes quickly and reliably.

Imagine a factory assembly line where each station represents a step in the software development process. As a product moves through the assembly line, it gets tested, assembled, and packaged. CI/CD pipelines work in a similar fashion, with each step in the pipeline representing a stage in the software development process, such as building, testing, and deploying.

CI/CD pipelines streamline the software development process by automating key stages, allowing for faster and more reliable deployment of changes.

	Pre-Product Relevance Score	Live-Product Relevance Score
#1 Elevator Pitch	10	10
#2 Feedback Loop	10	10
#3 Minimum Viable Product (MVP)	10	5
#4 Prototype	10	7
#5 User Story	10	8

	Pre-Product Relevance Score	Live-Product Relevance Score
#1 Elevator Pitch	10	10
#2 Feedback Loop	10	10
#3 Website	10	10
#4 User Experience (UX)	5	10
#5 Frontend Development	4	10

Terms: ELI5

Top Pre-Product Terms by relevance score

Elevator Pitch

Feedback Loop

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Prototype

User Story

Top Live-Product Relevance Terms

Elevator Pitch

Feedback Loop

Website

User Experience (UX)

Frontend Development

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