Founding Tools: Megan and Ethan (Plot)

"As a CTO, I can't imagine working without Claude."

Meet Megan Duong and Ethan Phan, founders of Plot, a creative hub for social media teams.

Megan and Ethan met through Y-Combinator’s co-founder matching platform and started Plot in March of 2022. Plot combines the 20+ tools social media managers typically have to use, and combines it into one AI-powered platform (so you know Megan and Ethan are discerning about streamlining the tools they use themselves). They recently launched AI video social listening, enabling brands to discover untagged mentions, track any topics of interest, and analyze social media videos for community engagement and industry insights.

This is an honest account of the software they chose, why they picked it, and how they feel about it now (including early mistakes and what they would’ve done differently).

💼 CEO STACK – Megan, the creative multitasker

Can't Live Without

• Website: Webflow - Chose for its customization options and quick deployment. They found a great freelancer on Upwork who delivered a fully animated website in a day at a rate of about $40/hr.

• Calendar: VimCal - After a "love-hate relationship with Calendly," Megan switched to VimCal for its selective time-sharing. She explains, "You can choose what times to share with specific people."

• Email: Superhuman - Megan is a “Superhuman girly," using it for managing everything from her sales funnel to automatic reminders. She loves the read receipts, saying, "I'm a lurker, so being able to see people who opened up my emails is really important from a sales perspective."

Wouldn't Recommend

• Outbound Sales: Clay - Found it overly complicated to set up. After watching tutorials for 45 minutes, Megan decided it wasn’t worth the time given all of her other urgent priorities.

• Website Analytics: Google Analytics - Not currently leveraging it effectively. Megan confesses, "I honestly feel like I should be looking at the analytics, but I just don't know what I'm measuring.” Google Analytics gives you a lot of information, but not enough actionable insights.

Honorable Mentions

• Presentation Software: Pitch - Loves it for the aesthetics and analytics features for sales decks. Megan describes it as "beautiful" and "acts as Docsend and Keynote in one."

• Screen Recording: Screen Studio - Preferred over Loom for demos. Screen studio lets you zoom into specific interactions, which helps a ton for detailed sales or implementation videos.

What They Wish They Knew

• HR/Payroll options: Megan has no complaints about Gusto, but they started using it because they assumed it was the default for startups. One of her friends commented that she could be saving a lot of money with Rippling, and she never evaluated all the options when initially deciding on payroll.

• Banking: Which startup bank account to use, and the pros and cons of each (including how they should make sure their cash is not only accessible, but also ideally earning interest).

Wishlist (Open to suggestions!)

• CRM x LinkedIn: Megan's entire sales workflow is on LinkedIn. She wants a user-friendly system for managing growing inbound leads and future outbound strategies, heavily integrated with LinkedIn to streamline her primary sales workflow. They’re currently using Google Sheets linked to Typeform, which Megan admits isn’t scalable. 

• Data Enrichment: Tools to better understand and leverage user data from both their website and their platform.

🤖 CTO STACK – Ethan, the pragmatic builder

Can't Live Without

• AI Assistant: Claude - Ethan can’t imagine working without Claude. He uses it extensively as a sounding board on all aspects of being a technical founder. That includes everything from technical and analytical work to product brainstorming, research and ideation.

• Analytics: June - Appreciates the out-of-the-box analytics, specifically for B2B companies. Ethan loved that he could get automatic dashboards and super fast setup.

• Task Management: Linear - Finds it far superior to Jira and Asana. Ethan loves the UX, the integrations, and the triage management capabilities.

Honorable Mentions

• Cloud: Google Cloud Platform - They’re currently migrating off Heroku because GCP gave generous free credits, which matter a ton to a scrappy startup. They’re making sure their application code can eventually handle multi-cloud as they anticipate taking advantage of the startup credits from AWS and Azure as well.

• Database: PostgreSQL - Preferred for its well-defined structure, NoSQL was always out of the question and Ethan felt that PostgreSQL was the default for most developers he knows.

• User Management: WorkOS - Migrating to WorkOS for simplified authentication and security. Ethan chose it based on references from friends and experience with the docs, noting they were much better (and more of them) compared to Auth0. (Editor’s note: In a prior Founding Tools, Jake from Procuro shared that he regretted choosing Auth0 after getting logged out of an admin account.)

What They Wish They Knew

• Analytics: The challenges of setting up and fully using tools like Amplitude without dedicated resources. That includes getting sophisticated with their product usage data, as well as figuring out the best way to start leveling up their web marketing.

Wishlist (Open to suggestions!)

• Automated Testing: A reliable solution for end-to-end testing, possibly using LLMs.

• Time Management: Tools to better balance focus time with reactive tasks like customer support.

Thank you Megan and Ethan for sitting down to share all about your Founding Tools!