It’s been over 20 years since I started my first home business as a freelance copywriter when my oldest daughter was just two years old.
Since then, I invented two baby blankets called Swaddleaze and Blankeaze, sold them to Summer Infant in 2008, founded, built, and sold The Mogul Mom, developed a WordPress plugin called May We Suggest, created and sold a mobile applications portfolio, and founded Tycoon Mom.
Needless to say, I’ve used many products and services to run my various businesses over the years. This Little Black Book is a list of my timeless favorites, including the top tools I use to run this site.
Some of the links included here are affiliate links, which means that I will earn a small commission if you make a purchase through one of my links. Please know that I only recommend things that I have personally used and loved, and that I feel may be useful to you as well.
ConvertKit
After using many email service providers over the last twenty years, I switched to ConvertKit. ConvertKit offers advanced email automation, customizable forms and email templates, beautiful landing pages, e-commerce functionality, detailed analytics, and much more to help you grow your email list and income. ConvertKit also offers top-notch customer service. I’ve contacted them at least a half dozen times, and they always respond quickly and go above and beyond to answer my questions and provide solutions.
Start your 14-day ConvertKit trial now; no credit card required.
Fathom Analytics
Have you noticed that there are no annoying cookie consent banners on Tycoon Mom? That’s because I use Fathom for site analytics. Fathom Analytics is a privacy-focused website analytics tool that offers simple, fast, and meaningful website analytics without tracking or storing personal data with those annoying cookie banners.
Try Fathom free for 30 days to experience easy-yet-powerful website analytics that protects digital privacy.
Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms help you make fully-secure forms that do really cool things; draft blog posts, manage guest post submissions, accept payments, run contests, integrate with email providers, use conditional logic, and more.
Make your life and business easier with Gravity Forms, starting at just $59.
Siteground
Siteground hosting provides superb security, ultra-fast speed, free SSL, and 24/7 friendly support.
Get your website started with Siteground and use my link for special $2.99/month pricing.
Other Tools
Akismet Anti-Spam: Used by millions of websites, Akismet filters out hundreds of millions of spam comments from the Web every day. Add Akismet to your site so you don’t have to worry about spam again.
Canva: Canva is a free online graphic design tool that makes design easy for people like me who don’t know a thing about Photoshop. Use Canva to build your brand with social media posts, ebooks, presentations, videos, logos, business cards, and more.
Genesis Framework: Genesis is a free WordPress framework that provides a secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible websites with WordPress.
Income + Expense Tracker: When I started my baby blanket business, I didn’t track income or expenses. What a nightmare that turned out to be when I was audited by the IRS and when I sold my inventions to Summer Infant. In 2010, I discovered Outright bookkeeping and used that until they sadly shut down in 2022. Since I don’t need all the bells and whistles of other online bookkeeping services, I use this awesome, easy-to-use income and expense tracker that I bought on Etsy for just $14.
Interact Quiz Maker: Interact is a tool for creating online quizzes that generate leads, segment your audience, and recommend products. They offer a free trial and have a cool quiz that helps you discover the perfect quiz for your business.
SeedProd: SeedProd is an awesome coming soon and maintenance mode plugin that lets you work on your site while generating buzz and collecting emails.
SparkLoop: SparkLoop is a newsletter referral tool that helps you grow your newsletter by rewarding your subscribers for sharing it with their friends. SparkLoop offers quick 2-click integration with email service providers, an in-email referral link for easy subscriber sharing, and automated reward fulfillment for both digital and physical rewards. Start growing your newsletter now with Sparkloop.