Wow that took me back aways, I had to double-check if it was Netscape Navigator or IE 1, man those were the days!

I found this image helpful:

which came from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_web_browsers

After my first integration within Airtable using Zapier to move data and automate things my whole world changed. I had heard people singing the praises of Airtable before but I always struggled to find a use case for it. Once I enabled the automations with Zapier it was a no-brainer and now I cannot imagine running my business or my clients' businesses without it.

(I know I could use smartsheets, knack, or quickbase etc as well, but the Airtable/Zapier was the first low/no code Saas that changed how I use and see software. )

And now I see data portability, and MVP and data storage as simple and should work the way I want it to instead of just the SQL way.

I love bootstrapping, but when dealing with clients and prospective clients, technical and non-tecnical alike I find that the more serious tools I use the better experience I and my clients have.

In the specific case of Zoom I find it much easier than hangouts because I can automate a lot around it, I have a personal meeting room number/name and so I can predict what the URL/phone numbers are going to be. I find that Zoom is better at group calls and informing me (and others) whose internet is struggling. (I hate the "is my internet bad, or is it yours?" stuff on conference calls).

So here's my reasons for using Zoom over Google Hangouts/Meet/Voice/etc. (and I made this call about 2 years ago as a digital nomad, things may have changed by now) - Better compression over bad internet - Simple dial-in options - Consistent Links/branding/etc. (Meet vs Hangouts... Google keeps changing?!) - Simple screen sharing and remote control

And then with Zoom (which has a free plan), I upgrade to remove the time limit and to have the custom meeting ID as well as allowing my staff to schedule their own Zoom meetings as needed.

I know money is money, and this could be bad logic used to justify loads of SaaS subscriptions when there are free alternatives, but as I look at it at $15/month or $180/year I only have to work 1-2 hours/year to pay for this service and it dramatically increases my clients and potential clients' experience.

Plus I find when I'm on bad internet and I can dial in as well as join from my computer I can connect my participant ID so people see the video from my computer when I'm speaking over the phone. This overcomes any bad internet experience my clients might have because I can always hear them and they can always hear me.

I loved Trello's approach for years, but my company has recently outgrown the functionality and I needed a more flexible way to visualize projects and tasks. We searched around a bunch and I was really disappointed with the offerings. In short, there are no clear winners, but I started dabbling in monday.com and while I dislike the name I enjoy the functionality the integrations, automations and the speed at which I was able to get everything into it and into a workable system for me and my team.

I do a lot of new business calls via Zoom conferencing and while I have the scheduling automated via oncehub I was struggling with how to remind people if they were late or how to "flag" them as a no-show and to remind them to reschedule.

Then I realized I could add two zaps which are both triggered by the "Push by Zapier" one for 5 minutes late and one for 15 minutes late. They both look for a current event in my calendar and then grab the person's name/email address and the event information, then use that to send the person either a reminder/here's how to connect email OR a hey, so sorry we missed eachother here's how to reschedule email. The coolest part is I can trigger these anytime anywhere and I don't have to go look up the person's contact details or the event information etc.

Seems small, but has already reduced no shows and helped me to be a better (proactive) communicator.

As an advanced user I would like to create loops, copy and rearrange steps inside zaps.

Simple, repeatable workflow processes that are logged and can be approached from a no-code standpoint.