#231 - Tools I Actually Use to Save Time
The Startup CPG Podcast
Startup CPG
4.9 • 642 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this solo episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, founder and CEO Daniel Scharff shares the tools he actually uses every day to save time and run his business more efficiently in 2026. None of these are sponsors or partners—just genuine recommendations from tools that have made a real difference in productivity.
Daniel breaks down his toolkit into four key buckets: Core Operating System (Superhuman for email management with snippets and reminders, Notion for project management, and Surfe for LinkedIn outreach automation), Back Office Solutions (Calendly for scheduling and Bill.com for invoicing), Content Creation Tools (Riverside.fm for high-quality recordings and ChatGPT for brainstorming and analytics), and Team & Talent Resources (Upwork for finding specialized contractors, LinkedIn Jobs for hiring, and offshore contractors for cost-effective team building).
Whether you're looking to master inbox zero, automate repetitive tasks, create better content faster, or build a lean team on a tight budget, this episode offers practical, tested solutions that Daniel uses at Startup CPG every single day.
Listen in as Daniel shares:
- Superhuman: email snippets, automatic reminders, and inbox zero strategy
- Notion: project management dashboards and team alignment
- Surfe: automating LinkedIn outreach with personalized message templates
- Calendly: group calendars and eliminating scheduling back-and-forth
- Bill.com: invoicing with automatic credit card fee pass-through
- Riverside.fm: high-quality content recording with AI-generated clips
- ChatGPT: brainstorming, interview guides, and tighter wording
- Upwork: finding specialized contractors for one-off tasks
- LinkedIn Jobs: promoting job posts to find quality candidates fast
- Offshore contractors: building cost-effective teams in Brazil, Philippines, Argentina
None of these are sponsors or partners of Startup CPG, these are actual tools that we use to save time.
To join our slack community, visit startupcpg.com
Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.
Show Links:
- Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)
- Join the Startup CPG Slack community (30K+ members and growing!)
- Follow @startupcpg
- Visit host Daniel's Linkedin
- Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.com
- Episode music by Super Fantastics
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, startup CPG ears. |
| 0:11.8 | I'm really excited to share with you today, a bunch of tools that I actually use in my business, |
| 0:16.1 | and I want to share them with you to save you time this year. |
| 0:19.8 | None of these are startup CPG sponsors or partners. I'm not |
| 0:23.4 | being paid to say any of this. I just genuinely wish for you to be more productive this year. |
| 0:28.4 | So here we go. Bucket one, core operating system. These are things that I use to help my business |
| 0:34.1 | run better every single day. The first one is superhuman. |
| 0:39.6 | Superhuman is an email app. |
| 0:44.9 | And a lot of the functionality here, honestly, is probably in tools like Gmail. |
| 0:48.0 | But I never figured out how to do these things in Gmail. |
| 0:49.7 | And so probably you haven't either. |
| 0:54.2 | You've probably seen superhuman at the bottom of a lot of people's email signatures. |
| 0:55.9 | Why do we all use it? |
| 0:56.8 | A couple reasons. |
| 0:58.9 | Number one, snippets. |
| 0:59.7 | I love snippets. |
| 1:00.4 | These are templates. |
| 1:06.9 | Typically, if I know I'm going to have to send a similar email more than once, we'll go right away to create a snippet. |
| 1:28.9 | And let's say I'm inviting somebody to an event or my booth, something like that. I'll just write the email once, very beautifully, put images in line, save it as a snippet. Every time I need to send it again to somebody, I just go, type in their email, select the snippet. It's sent. It's beautiful every time. I think rewriting the same email is probably the way that I used to waste the most amount of time. The other thing that I love is that it automatically pings back to you email |
| 1:33.6 | reminders. So let's say you're reaching out to a buyer. Hello, nice to meet you. Can I send you samples? |
| 1:40.0 | It can automatically ping that email back to you if you don't get a response a week later, |
| 1:44.7 | whatever timeline that you want to suggest there. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Startup CPG, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Startup CPG and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.