I must admit – as many who follow iCreate have noticed as well – bringing Jason on board as our social media / community manager earlier this year has not only been effective, but a lot of fun for me as a founder. At least once a week in my personal blog feed I see a new post by a fellow entrepreneur about how psychologically challenging it is to run a startup…and that’s certainly no secret. I’ve lived the challenges for the last 3 years, and often making it difficult to self-motivate with a goofy, fun, and thoughtful FB post or tweet. However, Jason’s efforts have helped re-energize me on the blogging front, so here goes my own “Top 5” apps to follow his selection last week:

1) Email – is it cheating to select an app that comes already installed on the iPhone? Maybe, but to be honest, you could take away everything on the iPhone and turn it to iEmail and I’d be a happy entrepreneur. Well, until I’m in the car and completely lost…then I’d wish for the iEmail-Map device.

2) Songza – so this is a recent discovery, but I’d say it’s easily moved into the top 3 list. Pick what mood you’re in and they compile a playlist for you! For someone like myself who tends to live in a bubble when it comes to anything related to pop culture, having someone else do the music selection based on my mood is a dream come true. It’s just so efficient for me.

3) CorePower – since moving to Austin I have become quite addicted to Power Yoga…which is a nice break from running, and works muscles that no miles run would ever touch. The franchise studio CorePower has an app that posts daily schedules that – for an entrepreneur with an ever-changing and flexible schedule – are quite valuable. With location of a work day varying along with meetings and events, it’s so convenient to be able to consistently refer to an app with the latest schedule updates. Simple, but just can’t beat it.

4) Hockeyapp – another recent discovery thanks to our CTO Brandon who has an eye for optimizing our IT operations on top of managing our website and products, is a dashboard for our various app versions, usage, and crashes. It’s so difficult to extrapolate app data from iTunes Connect, and so with Hockeyapp we have increased transparency of how we can improve our app.

5) myCreate – for the iPhone?! Yes, it’s finally here… a peak into the myCreate experience on any iPhone device. By October 1st, you will be able to download the myCreate app for their iPhone [free], snap 30 frames, and share to the social channels. For unlimited frames, editing, and audio, the iPad app and SAM software will remain as the only tools for the full experience. Check out a sneak preview below.

Until next week…when Brandon will be up to bat for his top 5!