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My Lean AI and SaaS Stack for Running a Solo Business
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items Running a one-person business means every hour matters, and every tool has to earn its place. This is the actual AI and SaaS stack I rely on to write, plan, automate admin, and stay on top of clients without hiring anyone. Nothing here is trendy for ...
Disclosure: Some links in this list are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Disclosure: Some links in this list are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Sections
5
Writing, Thinking & Research
Automation & Operations
Client & Business Management
Content & Creative Production
Background Automation & Agents
Writing, Thinking & Research
This is where I draft emails, outline content, and talk through decisions when I don't have anyone else to bounce ideas off. It's the one tool I'd keep if I had to cut everything else.
ChatGPT (Plus)
For longer documents — proposals, contracts, detailed client notes — I actually prefer Claude's output. I keep both this and ChatGPT because they're good at different things.
Claude Pro
When I need a real answer with sources instead of a guess, this is what I open. It's replaced most of my manual Googling for research tasks.
Perplexity Pro
Everything client-facing goes through this first. It's caught embarrassing typos in proposals more times than I'd like to admit.
Grammarly
Automation & Operations
This quietly moves leads, invoices, and notifications between apps so I don't have to copy-paste anything manually. I barely think about it anymore, which is exactly the point.
Zapier
For workflows too complex for Zapier, this is my backup. It took longer to set up, but it now runs a few processes that used to eat an hour of my week.
Make
This is my actual business hub: content calendar, client tracker, SOPs, everything. I stopped losing information across five different apps once I centralized here.
Notion
Client & Business Management
Contracts, invoices, and client scheduling all happen here instead of across separate tools. It's the reason my admin work dropped so much.
HoneyBook
I stopped the back-and-forth "does this time work for you" emails entirely. Clients just book a slot that fits my actual availability.
Calendly
Every payment I take runs through this. It's boring in the best way — it just works, and I don't think about it.
Stripe - Financial Infrastructure to Grow Your Revenue
My email list and automated sequences live here. It's built for solo creators, not enterprise marketing teams, so it stays simple even as my list grows.
Kit
Content & Creative Production
Every graphic, carousel, and thumbnail I ship starts here. It's fast enough that design never becomes the bottleneck in my content schedule.
Canva Pro | Your all-in-one design solution
I edit video and audio by editing text, which sounds strange until you try it. It cut my editing time down dramatically.
Descript
This turns one long recording into several short clips automatically. It's the difference between posting content weekly and barely posting at all.
OpusClip
Instead of hopping on calls for small updates, I record a quick Loom. It's cut my meeting load noticeably.
Loom
Background Automation & Agents
Every call gets recorded and summarized automatically. I stopped taking manual notes mid-conversation, which means I'm actually present in the call.
Otter Meeting Agent - AI Notetaker, Transcription, Insights