Work setup

Figma

The only design tool I haven’t tried to leave. Auto-layout finally clicked around v2; the rest has been incremental.

Paper

Where rough ideas go before they earn a Figma file. A fast, freeform canvas for thinking a layout out loud.

Pixelmator Pro

The bitmap editor I’d recommend over Photoshop for anyone not doing print. Native, fast, one-time price.

CleanShot X

Replaced the macOS screenshot app the day I installed it. The annotated-screenshot workflow has paid for itself many times over.

Sip

Colour picker that remembers what I picked. The history alone justifies it; the OKLCH support is the bonus.

Raycast

The only launcher I’d pay for. The extension API has me writing one-off productivity scripts in an evening.

Claude Code

The agent loop that actually ships. I run it inside Cursor and from the terminal.

Cursor

Default editor, and the best harness going for working with agents. The chat panel earned its keep; tab-completion is the part I’d miss most.

GitHub

Where the code lives. Actions for CI, Pages for marketing-side experiments, Issues for solo project management.

Linear

How the team keeps every project moving. The discipline of writing the ticket before the code is the value; the speed is what makes everyone actually do it.

iTerm

Terminal with split panes that survive a restart. zsh + a small set of aliases on top.

Portless

Named local URLs (https://sam.localhost) instead of port-juggling. A Vercel Labs tool, and the kind of small fix you don’t realise you needed.

Vercel

Where most of what I ship runs. Preview deploys are the unfair advantage; the docs are the second one.

SERP Lens

What I’m building. I dogfood it on the things I work on, including this site.

Ahrefs

Still the all-in-one I keep paying for. The data is the moat.

PostHog

Product analytics, session replay, feature flags in one place.

Resend

Transactional email that doesn’t fight me. React Email + Resend is the closest 'just works' has felt for SMTP in years.

Apple Passwords

Passwords and passkeys, synced across every Apple device for free. The native option finally got good enough to stop paying for a password manager.

Uplock

Everything that isn’t a password: IDs, cards, recovery codes, insurance docs. End-to-end encrypted through iCloud, no account to create.

Notion

Knowledge base, lightweight CRM, place where half-formed ideas go. Not the prettiest tool I use; the most-used.

Slack

How I talk to clients and partners. Threads in, DMs out, notifications mostly off.

Fantastical

Calendar that respects my time. Natural-language event entry is the one feature every other calendar app should copy.

FreeAgent

UK accounting that an HMRC-compliant solo founder can actually run themselves. Self-Assessment in a few clicks each year.

Stripe

Billing, subscriptions, invoices for the SaaS. The tax engine alone is worth the percentage.