Eric Gockel

Written by Eric Gockel

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Last updated April 26, 2025

For more than two decades, cre8 has stayed lean by choosing tools that remove friction—so projects move, invoices flow, and no lead slips through the cracks. Below is the exact tech stack we use today. No sponsorships, just battle‑tested picks our distributed team touches every day.

Lead Management → Zoho CRM

Every new inquiry—whether it starts from a paid-search ad, our website chat, or a referral form—lands directly in Zoho CRM. We tag the source, stage the deal, and set follow‑up reminders inside Zoho. When a lead is qualified, we open a linked task in Asana so the delivery team can prep an estimate—no middleware in the middle.

Why Zoho over bigger suites? Robust APIs, straightforward pricing, and the option to connect with QuickBooks if we ever need a deeper finance sync, without forcing us into an all‑in subscription today.

Project Management → Asana

Our projects live in Asana list view. Each task carries a custom Status field (e.g., In Dev, Ready for QA, Client Review, Done). When a task’s status changes, an Asana Rule automatically

  • re‑assigns it to the next owner (dev → QA → PM),
  • sets the due‑date offset, and
  • drops a checklist comment so nothing slips.

This rule‑driven flow replaces kanban boards and removes manual hand‑offs.

Time Tracking & Billing → Harvest + QuickBooks Online

Time starts right where the work happens: the Harvest timer button lives inside every Asana task, thanks to the native integration, so devs can click once and get coding. Hours roll into Harvest, and approved time entries convert to invoices in two clicks.

On the money side, QuickBooks Online pulls those Harvest invoices and auto‑matches them to deposits, so reconciliation is hands‑off. We’ve trial‑ballooned Everhour and Zoho Books, but for our volume, Harvest’s lightweight timers plus QBO’s painless invoice sync win every time.

CMS & Dev Workflow

  • Primary stack: PHP/WordPress builds are our bread‑and‑butter, but we still handle DotNetNuke (DNN) as well
  • CI/CD: GitHub 
  • Backups: Nightly database and file snapshots land in a private Dropbox folder with 30‑day retention and server‑side encryption. Disaster recovery drills take <10 minutes.

Design & Prototyping → Figma + Photoshop

Figma handles wireframes, UI comps, and interactive prototypes clients can click through; Photoshop still shines for hi-fi comps and quick social cut‑downs.

QA & Testing

We validate releases on a curated matrix of real devices and browsers—Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari across desktop and mobile—so we catch quirks early without relying on screenshot farms.

For email templates, Mailchimp’s built‑in Inbox Preview covers the major desktop and mobile clients, keeping layouts bullet‑proof without a separate Litmus subscription.

Analytics & Tagging

All managed sites run Google Analytics 4 alongside Microsoft Clarity heatmaps and session recordings. Clarity lets us watch real‑user journeys and spot UX friction that the numbers alone can’t show.

We route marketing pixels through Google Tag Manager—and spin up server‑side tagging when PII rules demand it. Monthly growth reviews pair GA4 explorations with Clarity recordings so clients see the what and the why without jumping into another dashboard.

Communication

  • Google Meet for video calls, screen shares, and the occasional “can‑you‑see‑my‑code” emergency.
  • Loom for one‑minute how‑to or bug‑repro videos we drop straight into Asana comments or client emails—faster than typing walls of text.
  • Email (of course) and shared Google Docs for anything that needs a paper trail.

Asana comments + Meet handle 95 % of collaboration.

Mobile & Wearables

I’m back on an iPhone 8 (small phones forever!) with a Garmin watch that shows GitHub deploy alerts and body‑battery stats. Keeping wrist vibration to truly critical notifications helps deep‑work blocks stay sane.

Social Scheduling

Hypefury handles the calendar for both Twitter/X and LinkedIn—queuing posts, recycling evergreen wins, and even sending auto‑DM lead magnets after engagement. When a post needs custom partner tags or rich media tweaks, we still jump in natively, but 90 % of scheduling runs on autopilot.

File Backups & Version History

Outside of web‑app repos, our internal file server syncs to Dropbox. Every change is mirrored off‑site within seconds and versioned for up to 180 days.

Want a stack like this behind your next build?

Tools are only half the story; process is the other. If you’d like to see how cre8’s workflow can accelerate your roadmap, book a free 15‑minute consult here. No pressure—just real talk about what’s working (and what isn’t) in your current setup.

Have a favorite tool we didn’t mention? Drop us a note—continuous improvement is kind of our thing.

Hero image generated with DALL·E (© 2025 OpenAI), concept & art direction by cre8.