Small Business Web Applications
As digitally nomadic entrepreneurs, we use all the web applications below religiously to run The LaC Project, our creative new marketing shop in New York City with staff and clients spanning five continents. Without these web applications, we literally would not be able to operate our circus … err, we mean business the way we do now. 
Do you loathe conference calls as much as we do? We literally use GoToMeeting 10 times a day to eliminate the hassle of coordinating meetings and presentations with staff and partners that are never in the same place. It’s given us the ability to easily communicate with clients and team members on four different continents. And more importantly, it’s given AJ the chance to have client meetings in his boxers while eating cheerios. GoToMeeting is also the awesome company that powers the Workshifting blog we all love so much.
Are you stuck in the stone age of emailing back and forth the newest versions of docs between your team? Box.net introduced us to the cloud based revolution a couple years ago. Since then, we house all of our business content with them. With Box, you can easily and securely share and collaborate on all of your business content is a super duper easy to use web interface. Plus, it plays nice with a litany of other cloud based applications. In short, if Box.net went away tomorrow, we’d throw ourselves off of a building.
Still sending chintzy PDF’s or spreadsheets as invoices? We have been using Freshbooks to help us bring home the bacon since our very first account. And you should too. Freshbooks lets you send seriously sleek invoices, and boasts features like multi-currency, time sheets and our personal favorite – knowing when your client has viewed your invoice. 
For those of you still rocking the rolodex, we suggest you take a very serious look at Batchbook. Batchbook is the only small business worthy Social CRM. Before we met good ole Batchbook, we were managing our client and partner relationships by color coded stars in our email inboxes. With Batchbook, you can can easily build and organize contextual, business and social data on all of your business relationships easily. We’re actually starting an account from scratch just for “Rise of the Cubicle Farmer” to show you how freaking easy and kick ass it is.
Open Office Space is for sure the coolest site you haven’t heard of … yet. It’s basically like a dating service for people who have excess office type space and people who need office type space. It approaches finding and renting office space in a very human centered way – think AirBNB , except for workspace. And in an age of an increasing rank of workshifters and digital nomads, we believe Open Office Space will prove to be an invaluable resource to the new economy workforce.
Product Sponsors
Almost all the sweet gear we’re sporting on this trip was designed and printed by the badasses over at Threadbird. They used to be known as Store Envy Printing, but have now spun off on a solo mission to clothe every American in awesomeness. They’re prices are very reasonable, their work product is phenomenal and they actually care about their customers, which is a refreshing change in the printing industry.
Since the first day we nabbed a bag of Popchips in Manhattan in early September 201o, it was love at first nom nom. When we realized we were going to be on the road for 45 days, we knew were going to need some healthy snacks to stave off the road trip munchies. So we threatened begged Popchips to become our snack sponsor so we don’t turn into little porkers. In addition to being healthy and tasty as hell, they are very social and active in the land of the twitter, which as bonafide geeks, we adore.
As video bloggers we were looking for a simple, high quality video camera to capture content quickly on the road. We are shooting this entire road trip on the Kodak zi8 and the Kodak play sport. They are incredible cameas that shoot up to 1080p and the play sport can be taken under water up to ten feet. Not to mention that Jenny, Kodak’s Chief Blogger is one of the nicest people on the face of the planet.
Let’s be honest, accounting sucks. And that’s coming from a CPA (yes, in a former life). But you know what makes it suck less? Less Accounting. The boys at Less Everything have hand crafted a web service for all of you “receipt in shoe box stuffing” entrepreneurs out there. Not only does the service import bank activity automatically and categorize expenses, they have an army of customer support specialists that are ALL bookkeepers!! Now tell me that’s not the most thoughtful thing you’ve ever heard. If you are a solopreneur or run a small business, and you like people who make your life easier, then we suggest you check out what they have to offer.
If you don’t do email marketing, you are crazy. And if you do email marketing and don’t use Mailchimp, you are even crazier. Mailchimp takes all the complexity and need for design skills out of the email marketing equation. They have unbelievable accounts packed full of features, starting at our favorite price, FREE!! Also, if you are a blogger, we just started using their RSS to Email feature and it has completely changed the way we connect with our readers and community. Plus they have the coolest logo on the web.
Media Partner
If you work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and your home every bit as much as the office, workshifting.com is for you. We’ll feature tips, reviews, and opinions about the world of Web commuting (relying on the Web to get work done at any time, from virtually anywhere.) That’s what workshifting is all about.
Disclosures:
Received GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar and GoToMyPC free of charge.
Received Batchbook free of charge.
Received an ipad from Box.net
Received Car Charger for Ipod, RoadTrip and iPhone mount from Griffin Tech.
Received 24 boxes of Popchips.
