The Best Slack Apps for Entrepreneurs - From Entrepreneurs

As with many of you, we love Slack! So, we set out to find out what the best Slack apps are, by asking real Entrepreneurs that use Slack for their businesses. The question we asked, was "If you could only use one Slack app for the rest of your life, which one would you choose?"

Here's what we found out.

Most Loved App of All:

Zapier

Easily the most mentioned app that came in from our Entrepreneurs was Zapier. And, we love Zapier too! Zapier + Workast integrate, making it easy for you to import your tasks from another project management system, schedule meetings, and so much more!

Here's what a few of our entrepreneurs had to say about Zapier:

"The best app to integrate with Slack is Zapier. It allows me to automatically moves my information between Slack and 1,000-plus other essential apps that I use like Google Sheets, Evernote, and OmniFocus, helping me with my most important work.  You don’t have to know how to code — in a few simple steps, you can set up automation (Zapier calls these “Zaps”) that will save you time and keep work flowing. Send important emails to Slack based on an inbox label. Turn any message into a task in your favorite task management tool."

Maulik Patel, CEO of Click Matix

"Our marketing team has a Slack channel that is used for tracking new marketing ideas - but it quickly got to be really large. We were having problems using Slack search to find ideas, and it wasn't easy to sort by topic.

Thankfully, we used Zapier’s Slack-to-Google Sheets app to automatically send every message in our brainstorming Slack channel to a google sheet. You find can the app here. 

Getting the Slack messages into Google Sheets with a little structure is great. We now have a huge, searchable database of all of our new ideas."

Healy Jones - CoFounder of Fin vs Fin

Analytics & Marketing Tools:

There is a wide variety of analytics and marketing tools that integrate with Slack. Our entrepreneurs listed these as their favorites, here's the apps that came in:

Baremetrics

“I love the Baremetrics app because it provides valuable customer information. Baremetrics – You can create weekly reports on how you’re doing with your clients, allows you to share updates with employees, and so much more. Baremetrics is customizable, informative, easy-to-use, and extremely helpful. You can’t beat this great Slack app!”

Donny Gamble - Founder of Retirement Investments

Arc Analytics

"I think that one of the best Slack apps/integrations that every entrepreneur should have is the Arc Analytics add-on. This add-on gives you a great little summary and generalization of how well your website is performing and even compared it to previous periods. We find that this is ideal because it offers the key data points at a glance without is having to troll through Google Analytics for the information.

Their selling point is that their system lets you know what you've has a spike in conversions, sessions or the like, so that you don't miss out on anything. This is great because it shows what a fantastic job your marketing and web team are doing. This gives you the opportunity to praise and encourage them further."

Andy King - JamJar

Statsbot

"Measuring the impact of marketing and sales is essential for entrepreneurs, without having to spend too much time actually doing data analysis on a regular business. Slack has an amazing tool called Statsbot, which allows entrepreneurs to automate insights, by running Google Analytics and Salesforce reporting directly from within Slack. 

 For example, automatic weekly and monthly traffic and conversion reporting can be configured to provide marketing and sales leaders a direct message in a private channel- as soon as they get a cup of coffee on Monday morning, or right before a marketing meeting. 

Similarly, alerts may be configured for traffic or goal thresholds, that automatically notify users if visits and conversions don't reach or surpass specific targets, so entrepreneurs can make adjustments to the website or any campaign in real-time. 

If the firm is on an integrated CRM platform, entrepreneurs can query individual leads or accounts with a slash command including “amount won” or “this week's leads by source”, and make marketing or sales decisions on the fly, rather than wait for an ROI report from a marketing or finance analyst. 

Best of all, these reports can be scheduled to run hourly, daily or weekly, and report back in Slack at a specific time, when the information is needed, saving entrepreneurs the most valuable commodity of all: time."

Tigh Loughhead - Forcery

Buffer

"Buffer lets you post on various platforms and plan posts for all of your social networks. This social media automation tool uses a calendar view so you can see what posts are scheduled when, with recommendations on auto-scheduling posting times. The buffer combines collaboration features so your social media team can draft posts for you to confirm. You can also schedule first comments for your Instagram posts."

Brack Nelson - Marketing Manager at Incrementors

Invision

"InVision is a useful app. It is excellent for creative work. Team members can share files and make changes simultaneously or share their individual screens to flesh it out with a team. Moreover, it's possible to store multiple projects and go back to them when necessary. There is no longer a problem with sending many screenshots or sharing a screen via video chat where it's impossible to change anything in the interlocutor's work."

Francois Mommens, CEO of Linkody

Project Management & Operational Tools:

BusyOn

"Never lose track again of the tasks and activity progress of your team. I’m always in a constant dilemma in tracking what my team is working on. And when we shifted to working from home, it was made even more daunting. But by using the BusyOn Slack app, I was freed from that nightmare. With it, I was spoon-fed with real-time updates about where and what my team is working. Each member of the team can shoot a simple “/busyon …”  task message in Slack. These updates go directly not only to the BusyOn dashboard but to the designated channel as well. With it, I always have a bird’s eye view on what’s happening and never missed anything.

The bottom line, Slack alone is not enough. To get more things done, you need to have Slack apps. Without it, you can’t fully enjoy its extra features and still needs to open another app or program. With it, you’ll not only have an enhanced functionality but have a centralized management as well. You’ll be able to do everything from basic to complex tasks right inside Slack."

Israel Gaudette - Founder of Link Tracker Pro

Meistertask

"To-do tasks and time management with a team isn’t an easy thing without help. MeisterTask will nail down this problem for entrepreneurs. The app provides tools for sharing work details and files. Also, team members can make checklists and set deadlines for particular projects or their stages. Moreover, all the changes are visible in real-time for every co-worker. As a result, the workflow is streamlined and more things are done together."

Dima Suponau - Former Microsoft employee, CEO & Founder of NumberForLivePerson

Reclaim

"Entrepreneurs have a lot of things on their plates, and managing daily chores and the task can be chaotic. This is where Reclaim comes to the rescue! This tool comes as a Slack integration and helps entrepreneurs (and other users) manage their schedule without breaking a sweat. If I would have to describe it in a few words, I’d say it’s an assistant you wish you had for years.

This app lets users to automatically block time for daily rituals, tasks and personal events on their calendars. They just need to set the rules for their schedules and leave the app to do the rest. What’s more, Reclaim will automatically sync the Slack status according to the calendar’s schedule."

Stefan Ateljevic - Founder of AhoyGaming

Paymo

"It would be, of course, Paymo. It’s both task management and time tracking tool that helps us to bring everyone in your team on the same page and improve our productivity. With this tool, we won’t only be able to streamline our team’s workflow with software, but also make it easier for us to manage the workload around the team’s time worked to prevent burnout. 

Paymo is available both in desktop and mobile versions, so it’s easy for us to use the tool anywhere and anytime. Not to mention that the clean and easy-to-navigate interface also helps new team members adapt to the tool in no time."

Andre Oentoro - CEO and Founder of Breadnbeyond

Workast

We couldn't go without mentioning Workast. Workast + Slack go together like mashed potatoes and gravy. Listed as one of the "Essential Apps" for project management by Slack, we're proud to help businesses get more done. But don't just take it from us, here's what Christine Ellis had to say:

"As we were growing, we needed the ability to delegate more of our work, as I could no longer manage it alone. Because of covid, we weren't able to travel - which is the main element of our nonprofit - creating pop-up medical clinics around the world to deliver quality healthcare to those who need it most.

Due to covid, we could no longer travel the way we used to, so we decided to get efficient instead. Our executive team tested out Workast and immediately made the decision to switch. By implementing Workast with Slack we are getting so much more done, and the implementation was easy, and the team loves it. I am so grateful for Workast and I recommend it to everyone I know as the best personal to do list for Slack."

Christine Ellis - Director of Medical Missions Outreach

Trello

"If you and your team use Trello for shared to-do lists, adding the Trello bot to Slack can save significant time. The beauty of this app is that you don't need to open Trello in a  separate tab and jump back-and-forth to make updates as you chat with your team. You can add, move and remove cards directly from Slack, as well as assign tasks to new team members.

Essentially, you can handle all Trello basic functions right though Slack as you chat with team members in real time. In my experience, this saves valuable time and is the most efficient means of keeping group-based to-do lists up to date."

John Ross - CEO of Test Prep Insight

Asana

"My favorite Slack App is Asana, a task management software that helps me keep track of tasks in my business. This is my personal favorite because it helps me bring conversations with my team into practical application and ensure nothing gets forgotten."

Melissa Gamarra - CEO of Melissa Gamarra Management

Zoom

"The Zoom integration. Sure, there's screen sharing within Slack, but Zoom has a ton of features which are superior: like annotations, the ability to record meetings, chat functions. We find our team using Zoom more than any other platform. Being able to access Zoom and set meetings directly within Slack might save a minute here and there, but the real benefit is not having our team's workflow interrupted every time we need to use Zoom"

Ivan Andrianko, Founder of Rocketwheel Productions

Nifty

"Nifty is by far my most used slack app by every member on my team it enables us to connect our conversations with our tasks, milestones and documents"

Ken Norensberg - Luxor Financial Group

Doodle

"One of the difficult parts of being an entrepreneur is arranging important meetings with different teams that need to be scheduled at times that work for everyone. For only $69 per year, Doodle makes scheduling meetings super-simple by creating a "Doodle Poll" for specific time options that are shared with team members. The response comes in a single private message on Slack which makes it a breeze to decide on a specific time for a meeting that's ideal for all parties."

Kevin Mercier - Founder of Travel Blog 

Yodel

"The Yodel Phone System has solved one of the major problems of busy entrepreneurs by allowing them to answers phone calls directly from Slack and talk either via a browser of landline."

Atta Ur Rehman - Physicians Thrive

Hive

"One of the best Slack apps. There are many features that make this app a major reason in business thrivings. It allows you to manage all the projects in your business, track them, enhance the communication between team staff. and facilitate the process of giving instructions. It makes sending e-mails and messages way easier, through the drag and drop action instead of retyping them again! It saves a lot of time, effort, and rise productivity at the workplace. "

Harpal Singh - CEO of Blimpp

Meekan

"Scheduling meetings can be difficult, especially if everyone in the team is working remotely. However, with Meekan, you can match your members’ calendars with ease. You can speed up the time-consuming task by letting you swiftly find common free times."

David Shell - Founder & CEO of TradesmenCosts

Monday

"I would go for Monday.com. As most of our teams work remotely, it's easier to deliver and delegate projects with the app. Monday.com allows us to connect with teammates in real-time. 

The conversation within teammates is seamless as direct notification is pushed like Slack messages. We don't need to bounce between applications to address the issues anymore. As a result, we tend to finish projects sooner without any interference."

Natasha Rei - Digital Marketing Manager of Explainerd

Survicate

"Survicate is the best Slack app for entrepreneurs. Its integration with Slack helps provide clever solutions on how else you can listen to our customers' needs. The app gives you customers’ feedback in real-time which can also be shared across your entire company through Slack channels. Survicate has been adding value to our business by providing relevant users feedback, helping me and my team provide a better customer experience. Making business decisions has been easier for us since it lets us know how our customers feel about our service. Survicate has been connected to our Slack for over 5 years now. In fact, our customers’ loyalty increased by 89% and customers’ satisfaction by 94% just months after integrating it with our channel."

Valentina Lopez - Co-Founder of Happiness Without

Tettra

"One of the best Slack apps for entrepreneurs is called Tettra. It's lesser-known but effective. Basically, it allows you to share info with colleagues and co-workers on a more in-depth basis compared to other methods for information sharing.. it's built for projects and whatnot where you have to go into detail and really dig down on any particular topic. It also comes with features like text search, collaboration, easy set up and use, and more. it also has a robust customer support system in place as well."

David Walter - CEO of Electrician Mentor

GetPocket

"Getpocket is a fantastic time-saving app that allows entrepreneurs to avoid getting distracted.  It enables you to save links that your teammates share and store them in a dedicated place for your downtime.  When you have time, the links are accessible on your phone or computer."

Jo Barnes - Founder of Your Lifestyle Business

idonethis

"This app is essential to me because it allows everyone on the team to create entries directly on slack and the best part is teammates are able to share progress reports and updates within Slack. This improves efficiency and keeps everyone on the team on the same page."

Michael Scott Cohen - CEO and co-founder of Harper+Scott

Kyber

“I used the Kyber app for Slack for a long while and found it very useful. It allowed me to manage my projects inside the Slack app, assign tasks to freelancers I worked with, run organized meetings, and more. It did so much for me at the time and allowed me to keep many of the things I did inside one app, which was Slack.”

Sean Chaudhary - CEO of Alchemy Leads

Google

"I believe Google’s options for Slack include Google Drive, Google Calendar, and Google Hangouts are really handy. Google Drive’s new bot will alert you when someone shares a file with you and will notify you when anyone leaves a comment or makes an edit to your documents. Plus, whenever you share a document in a Slack channel, the bot will automatically check the access permissions for every member of the channel and give you a one-click option to change settings so everyone there can read, suggest, or edit the document."

Julian Goldie - CEO of Goldie Agency

Marker.io

"Marker.io. It’s essentially a screenshot tool that lets you track bugs and easily send images of what you’re working on. It can be used outside of Slack and if you want to improve collaboration with your team, it’s a great and affordable way to do so."

Petra Odak, CMO at Better Proposals

HR Tools:

A lot of Entrepreneur's mentioned some of their favorite Slack apps being HR tools, and it's easy to see why. These apps do everything from managing schedules, connecting your team members, and rewarding team member's contributions. Here's which tools made the list.

ReferralBoard

"Referralboard is an essential tool for any founder of a fast growing business. Hiring is always a challenge, and more importantly expensive. This Slack app turned our employee referral program into a fun competition. With minimal effort it's literally saved thousands of dollars in recruiting agency fees."

Matthew Busel - Makespace

Donut

"Donut is a friendly AI that quickly integrates with Slack and it introduces teammates who are unfamiliar with each other and encourages them to meet, have a video chat over a coffee, or engage over a shared past time. As a business owner, I've always championed office conversation or 'water-cooler chat' as some people call it because real connection leads to real productivity. It's hard to recreate connections in a global world, especially in a pandemic but Donut helps bridge the gap and keep engagement high, we keep it fun with 'meet the Co-Founder lotteries' and 'lunch roulette'. There are many amazing Slack integrations but if you're pro-people, let them have Donut."

James Croad - Co-Owner of Music Grotto

IceBreaker

"Slack is a powerful tool, but the real value comes from the people you bring together: Your team. If you are growing or already have a sizable team, either way, you need to regularly welcome new team members and integrate them efficiently. The Icebreaker app does a great job bringing your new and old team members together by asking little questions and posing challenges."

Peter Thaleikis - Bring Your Own Ideas LTD

MustRead

"With this app, you'll never miss an important message again, and if you're in command of a team you'll be able to see if everyone has read your message, so no more asking 'Have you all read it?'. You can use it to send short important announcements for a whole channel, to bookmark important links for yourself or any member of your team, etc."

Stefan Smulders - Founder & CEO of Expandi

Bonus.ly

"My teams favorite slack app is bonus.ly - it allows my team to share points ($$) based on each team member doing something great, that is in alignment with our core values."

Roy Morejon - President of Enventys Partners

HeyTaco

"Our favorite Slack app is absolutely Heytaco. It's a super simple peer-to-peer recognition system where any employee can honor another employee by sending them a "taco" in Slack so that everyone can see, but those tacos can also be traded in for customizable rewards. We've added everything from the Apple watch to cocktails at our favorite restaurant to the reward store.. It keeps people engage and positive."

Jessica Day - Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of IdeaScale

AttendanceBot

"Businesses whose personnel work virtually and managing them at a single platform is a constant struggle. We used to have people report to us for any vacation or absences through a phone call that was cumbersome and time-consuming to maintain. 

We have now implemented the AttendenceBot app from slack that tracks absences, time offs, vacations, and time tracking. Now employees can remotely log in and out, and the app automatically keeps track of their activities.. 

This is a great time tracking app with several features that any business can implement, including timesheets and payroll reports. We have seen increased use of this app after a trial run. Small businesses can use it free for 5 users. This is a great time management software that helps the company run smoothly while saving them money. "

Mark Kay - GearTrench.com

WaterCooler

"One of my favorite Slack apps is Water Cooler. I have used it since we switched to remote work to keep people connected. Basically, Water Cooler randomly pairs people each day and invites them to chat for a few minutes or even hop on a call. This way, people get an extra break and a chance to get to know their colleagues better. I feel that this kind of app is incredibly important in the online setting where people oftentimes feel alone and isolated."

Malte Scholz - CEO and Co-Founder of Airfocus

Vacation Tracker

"Requesting leave takes only seconds: all employees have to do is to type “/vacation” in their Slack chat, and after filling a few short forms, their request is sent for approval.

Managers are instantly notified whenever someone makes a leave request, and they can approve it on the spot. Furthermore, this software offers setting customized leave policies to fit individual business needs, and businesses can choose among sick leave, a day off, paternity leave, PTO, jury duty, and many more. There’s also a possibility of dividing leave tracking between several managers, each responsible for their team, and multiple offices."

Tom Winter - Co-Founder of DevSkiller

LunchTrain

"I love using the Lunch Train for my company, and team. We plan our team outings quite often, especially lunches. Initially it used to be quite a hassle to plan these lunches, especially considering everyone’s ability or convincing everyone. This app has that task covered for me. All that I need to do is send a “/lunch” command along with the eat out place and time, and that’s all! It’ll send the message out in the group with the option to “board the train”. Whoever is in the plan, will confirm their availability by boarding the train. The app also sends out a reminder for when the lunchtime is near."

Lisa Arlington - Founder of Giftsnerd LLC

Trivia

"Sometimes a bit of fun and games can help build a solid team. It’s also a great way to get to know our colleagues and employees. Trivia is great because it boosts brain skills, breaks the ice at work, and it’s a fun way to bond with other team members.

With remote working, seeing our colleagues isn’t possible and interaction is limited. Thanks to apps like Trivia, working remotely can be a more fun experience."

Ebnu Sudarso - Co-Founder of Milkwhale

Meditation.live

"As an entrepreneur, I need to be highly focused and motivated in order to achieve my goals. 

Mindfulness meditation helps me remain balanced and keep stress levels in check.  Meditation. live has helped me develop a daily meditation habit thanks to recorded and live sessions I can access to fit my busy schedule."

Brandon Wachs - SharkEyes

Timebot

"This helpful app has saved me an enormous amount of time. I used to get so frustrated not being able to tell who had days off and who had upcoming holidays. With Timebot, communication around time management has become seamless."

Jonathan Cohen - Co-Founder of Cohen & Winters

Sales Tools:

Surprisingly only one sales tool was mentioned by the entrepreneurs we polled, but it's a good one. If you run a sales team, check out Troops!

Troops integration with Slack

"Troops is a task manager specifically for salespeople, allowing every member of a sales team to collaborate, manage, and report on their sales pipeline. The tool's most unique feature is its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, which notifies the salesperson as tasks approach or needs to be changed.

Because the sales process moves so fast, it can be difficult to make sure every tool the sales staff is using is kept updated with new leads, calls, deals, and close dates. Troops' integration with Slack allows sales staff to manage their pipeline while collaborating with the rest of their team at the same time."

Peter Schoeman - Founder/CEO of The Dog Adventure

Bonus Tools:

There were a few tools our entrepreneurs recommend and love that don't necessarily have a specific category, but it's easy to see why they are favorites. These tools are just plain fun!

Giphy

"This is actually a little known feature, but if you type /giphy, followed by the GIF you want to insert, you'll be prompted to select and confirm a GIF. This isn't very well documented anywhere but, but given how widespread GIFs are and how they add a lot of character and increase the social element of working together as a team, as silly as it may sound, I consider them an essential part of allowing our team to express themselves. Oh, and don't worry. If you're worried this will sap your team's productivity, you can always disable it from the admin panel! :)"

Mark Webster - Co-Founder of Authority Hacker

Slacker

"I think that the best slack app for everyone is Slacker. With Slacker, you can send funny replies to Slack as your favorite characters. Posting secret celebrity messages to your office’s #fun channel may bring a smile to your coworkers’ faces."

Alek Asaduryan - YesCycling

Do you use Slack for your business? What are your most-loved apps? Send us a line or tweet us @Workast and we'll add your favorite tool to the list!