Anyone else familiar with these types of content?
“Must-have AI tech stack for solopreneurs”
“This AI tech stack will help your coaching business generate 100 calls in 30 days”
“Modern pipeline-building AI-first tech stack for growing B2B teams”
They never fail to give me the heebie-jeebies!
As a solo marketing consultant, I’m learning as I grow: how to make better use of my time and mental capacity. I realized that I’m managing sales, marketing, finance, ops, and client deliverables all at once. And AI has been an incredible partner in all of these!
But I fell into the classic trap of “more tools = better efficiency.” Lol!
Quick reality check:
I spent time reading guides on “optimizing tech stack” because I genuinely wanted to grow. The problem is that I had not clearly defined what growth actually looks like for my business yet. And without that vision, I fell for the hype!
It made me feel slow, left behind, and somehow… out of the loop.
So instead of spiraling, I discussed this with a few fellow founders. And they reminded me of three important reality checks:
Social media is dramatic for the sake of the algorithm!
Some creators sell dreams instead of actual working systems.
Did you know? There are platforms built specifically to generate fake dashboard metrics?! How did I just learn this? It's beyond me.Bottom line: Invest in tools that solve an immediate challenge at your current stage of growth.
What about hiring? When do I hire consultants or agencies?
This logic does not only apply to software subscriptions but also to hiring external help like agencies, contractors, or consultants like me.
To illustrate, here are two recent prospect scenarios:
A pre-revenue SaaS founder reached out to ask how I could help. After a discovery call and reviewing their current stage, we both recognized their product was not ready, and holding off on hiring a marketing consultant was a smart move. Very fair!
A C-level agency owner reached out to share his operational challenges. When my full retainer exceeded his immediate budget, we pivoted into a targeted hourly advisory package instead. Super fair!
These experiences inspired me.
Whether you’re a pre-revenue founder or an executive scaling your personal brand, you don’t need to invest in everything all at once. We can always start small and slow.
Give a new tool or engagement 30 to 90 days, then evaluate the tangible return on investment. How has it really helped you or your business grow? There’s nothing wrong with trial and error!
How I saved $995+ in subscriptions
So, immediately after the reality check, I audited my own tech stack and asked Claude to analyze the gaps. Turns out, over the past year, I spent nearly $1000 unnecessarily.
Here’s the exact step-by-step on what I did, and how I did it, so you can audit yours too!
Mandatory Step 1: Reflect on your business!
Before you buy anything or hire anyone, this is the step some solopreneurs (like myself!) tend to forget:
I listed my day-to-day tasks and defined where AI can support me. I did this manually without AI assistance so I can stay unbiased as the main human operator.
I then note it down and create a single-source-of-truth document to act as a guardrail before feeding anything to Claude. It contains the details of me, my business, brand, services, how I work, and what I want to avoid (like the use of jargon, for example).
Step 2: Use Claude to audit the gaps
Once I had my reflection all sorted, I fed it to Claude alongside screenshots of my paid subscriptions.
Here’s the exact prompt I used:
You are an ops expert. Your task is to help me visualize, optimize, and build my tools stack for my business ops to achieve these objectives: save time and manual repetitive work, validate or quality check my works with realistic feedback, research, brainstorm, grammar checks, note taking and summarize meetings. My current stack:
Claude and Gemini for almost everythingCalendly and Google One for note taking and summaryCanva for designLinkedIn Premium for outbound, personal brandingStanley AI for brainstorming contentAsana for task trackingI use Gmail for my mails both personally and workI’m still using XLS for my bookkeeping and will only look for a skatteverket approved platform once I have the bandwidth to switch systemsPayments via Wise, Stripe or Swedbank
Workflow context: I do bookkeeping monthly, sales/marketing 2–3 days a week, write weekly on LinkedIn and bi-weekly on Substack, plus client deliverables.
Analyze, audit, and propose how to optimize my stack as a solo marketing consultant. Are there redundant tools, missing APIs, or workflow quick-wins?
The audit showed me key redundancies:
Running two tools with overlapping use cases (like Claude & Gemini).
Paying for tier upgrades whose premium features I never touched.
I thought using AI = everything automated.
What I also learned: Claude pointed out that I didn’t need complex automations yet. My current priority is building audience trust and visibility. So optimizing for content batching, engagements, was far more impactful than wiring up workflow connectors.
Step 3: The Decision Tree
To help me decide what to cut, pause, or keep, I built a decision framework:
Providing clear criteria and a reminder of what I should prioritize, this framework can help me focus on my 12-month business goals without falling for the hype ever again 😂.
The bottom line
So, here are a few false beliefs I’m shedding regarding tools or hiring:
More tools = better? Nope. Learn how to optimize them, connect them where necessary, and always go back to the reason why I subscribed to it in the first place.
AI = complex automation? Not necessarily. I can also use AI to help me prepare my morning briefs, set up my Asana, or brainstorm for content batching.
Claude’s “morning brief” feature I’m just trying on! Am I slow, behind, and somehow missing out on AI tools? No. Businesses scaled long before technology even existed. And for me, steady, sustainable growth beats rushed setup. every. time.
There is no universal stack. No one true playbook. What worked for me might work differently for you. Each business is unique and has its own pace! Give yourself and your progress some grace and really listen to yourself.
“A seed we planted today can’t bear fruit tomorrow” is a quote I always remind myself of whenever I feel the rush-to-grow on my shoulders building up.
Your pace is yours!
Annisa 💙
Having a community of people to talk to about this has really helped me. And if you need someone to talk to over coffee, I’m happy to have a virtual chat with you!
No business attached! I am not currently opening a slot for new clients anytime soon!