For a solo designer or a studio hiring its first employee, which tools are genuinely essential for projects, finance, sourcing, files, and client communication? Where is it worth paying early, and where is a simple system still enough?
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A project hub, accounting, cloud storage, and one drawing tool covered almost everything in my first year. The biggest improvement came from reducing duplicate entry, not adding more software.
Pay early for the system that protects money and decisions. Budgets, purchase records, approvals, and deadlines become expensive very quickly when they live in separate places.
From the team side, consistent naming and one shared task list made a larger difference than any advanced feature. Everyone finally knew where to look.