Tools I Use To Build My Online Business
There are so many tools and resources out there—making it IMPOSSIBLE to keep up with what's good and bad, right?
I can tell you what I use and recommend. Then you can skip the research and jump straight to what's good.
Create Animation Videos
WHAT I USE NOW
Best online animation maker, period. I've tried many explainer tools over the years, and I still use Vyond to this day. If you want to make animations without the technical skills and time needed for AfterEffects, this is the perfect solution.
[15% off yearly subscriptions]
A super interesting animation maker that includes a good-looking 3D style - on top of many others. In my animation maker review, I praise the tool for being solidly built, having great styles, and being quite affordable with its lifetime deals. I'll be diving deeper into this tool in the future, for sure.
An incredible simple template-based animation maker with great styles, a great built, and a fair pricepoint. I reviewed a handful of animation makers, and Biteable ranked at the top alongside Vyond as my favorites. Biteable also has an intuitive user-interface, so it's usable by beginners.
A pretty good and very affordable whiteboard animation maker at $67 (lifetime deal). I like how quickly you can create a video because of the automated drawing paths for all assets and characters. Precise drawing paths too. Learn more about the tool in my review.
Sell Video Courses
WHAT I USE NOW
RuedRiis.com is built on a Kajabi foundation. Everything from this webpage that you're on right now to the email client, payment providers, video hosting, and blogging interface—it's all Kajabi. What I love is that everything is integrated and built to just work.
I've hosted a paid community on Skool, and I was pretty mindblown about the engagement of the members. It's a platform in rapid growth, and probably one of the best community-focused course platforms right now. Watch my full comparison of Kajabi vs. Skool.
One of the most versatile course platforms with the most elaborate set of features. No other platform has the variety of interactive lesson types, which makes it possible to design quite specific learning experiences for your students. Watch my video review of Learnworlds.
To begin with, I hosted my courses at Teachable because of its simple admin interface and all the core features you need as a course business. If you build your website and blog somewhere else, Teachable is probably the most full-fledged course hosting platform out there.
Produce Video Content
My hard-working camera that I shoot all my YouTube videos, course lessons and socials on. It's just such a pleasant, high-quality producing mirrorless camera—PERFECT for the ambitious creator without a crazy budget or the ambition to turn pro videographer.
I finally invested in a good "shotgun" microphone so I can get proper sound on my videos. This Sennheiser MKE 600 is a 'pro-sumer' grade piece of gear, so very crisp sound without being as expensive as the pro microphones. NB: You need an XLR to minijack cable or a sound card with this one.
I recently upgraded to a dynamic LED light. And what a difference! Now, I can control how bright my face is in combination with my camera settings, which is huge. No more overexposed shots—and Amaran 100x is silent, easy to handle and affordable.
I edit all my videos in ScreenFlow. Believe it or not—I use screen-recording software to produce all my content. I don't care about fancy functionality. I just want it to work, be fast and intuitive to use. Oh, and then it produces amazing screen recordings, which I use a lot in my tutorials.
Convert Text to Speech
WHAT I USE NOW
I use this app for many things: to transcribe podcasts, make social media clips from videos, and play around with cool text to speech tools. Descript is my favorite because of the simple interface and the realistic voice-overs it produces.
A powerful text-to-speech engine that also enables you to sync your generated voice-overs to animated human-looking avatars. It's a complete online video platform with PowerPoint-looking functionality, but with the add-on of hyper-realistic TTS and animation functionality. One of the most impressive newer tools out there.
For online text to speech tools, Murf comes in as number 1. The pronunciation and sound quality is outstanding. And the pricepoint is quite affordable, when you consider the product you get. Murf also allows you to add pauses and change pronunciation, if you need it for your voice-over.
Blazingly fast, online, and FREE. What's not to like? I can't believe such a powerful tool is available to anyone with an Internet connection. Speechify also has a Chrome app that allows you to scan and listen to text on websites.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Some of the links on this page (and around the website) are affiliate links. This means I get a small commission, should you decide to click and buy something through them. This has no effect on your price—it just compensates me for spreading the word. AND. That, I'd never do if I'm not currently using or have used the product in the past. I trust and believe in every platform, tool, and piece of gear I recommend. That's why I'm listing them here for you.
If you click any of 'em, thank you!
