Latest / Solopreneur Sessions with Fexingo: One-Person Businesses, Freelancing, and Independent Work / How One Solopreneur Built a Business on a Single Tool Stack
Transcript
- Lucas: So we talk a lot on this show about finding your one thing — one platform, one product, one client type. But there's another version of that I've been noticing recently that I think deserves its own episode. Luna: What's that? Lucas: The one tool stack. Not a single platform, but a tight set of tools that handle everything — operations, payments, scheduling — and you commit to using just those three or four things, really deeply. Luna: I've seen that. A lot of solopreneurs I know are actually cutting back on tools this year. Subscription fatigue is real. Lucas: Exactly. And I want to look at one specific case: a consultant I'll call Sarah. She runs a solo marketing advisory practice. Last year she did about $180,000 in revenue. And her entire business runs on three tools: Notion, Stripe, and Calendly. Luna: That's it? No CRM, no project management software beyond Notion? Lucas: Nope. And that's the point. She told me she spends maybe five hours a week on admin and operations. Everything else is client-facing work. Luna: Five hours. That's wild. I think a lot of solopreneurs are spending more than that just on invoicing and scheduling. Lucas: Right. So let's break down how she uses each tool. Notion is her command center. She has a database for every client with project briefs, meeting notes, deliverables, and timelines. She also uses it for her content calendar and financial tracking. Luna: So she's using Notion as a CRM, a project manager, and a ledger all in one. Lucas: Exactly. And she's not using any fancy templates. She built it herself over time. The key is she committed to making Notion work for everything rather than adding a separate tool for each function. Luna: What about Stripe? I assume she's using it just for payments? Lucas: Primarily yes, but she also uses Stripe's invoicing feature. So when a client signs a proposal — which is also a Notion doc — she sends them a Stripe invoice link. The client pays, and Stripe handles everything: receipts, tax reporting, payout tracking. Luna: And Calendly for scheduling, I imagine. But does she integrate it with anything? Lucas: She connects Calendly to her Google Calendar and also to a Notion database. When a client books a call, Calendly automatically creates a new page in Notion with the meeting details. So she doesn't manually enter anything. Luna: That's a pretty seamless workflow. But I wonder — what happens if one of those tools changes its pricing or features? She's pretty locked in. Lucas: That's the trade-off. She's aware of it. But her philosophy is that deep expertise in a tool stack makes her faster, and that speed is worth more than the flexibility of being tool-agnostic. Plus, these three are pretty stable products. Luna: I can see the appeal. Especially for someone starting out. Instead of spending weeks evaluating software, you just pick a stack and go. Lucas: Exactly. And I think this is becoming more relevant in mid-2026. We're seeing a lot of tool fatigue in the solopreneur space. People are realizing that having ten apps with overlapping functions doesn't make you more productive. It makes you slower. Luna: There's actually data on that. A survey from last year — I think it was by a company called Coda — found that the average knowledge worker uses eleven apps per day. But the most productive ones use five or fewer. Lucas: That's exactly the stat. And Sarah's stack is even smaller than five. Three core tools. She also uses Gmail and Google Drive, but she considers those infrastructure, not part of her business stack. Luna: So what does she do when a client needs a feature that Notion or Stripe doesn't offer? Lucas: She adapts her process. For example, she used to use a separate tool for client feedback on deliverables. Now she uses Notion comments and inline suggestions. It took her a few weeks to get used to, but now she says it's actually more efficient because everything is in one place. Luna: That's the deep expertise part. You have to be willing to learn the workarounds. Lucas: Right. And she said the biggest unlock was learning Notion's database relations. That's what lets her link a client record to their projects, invoices, and meetings without duplicating data. Luna: I think a lot of solopreneurs hear 'use Notion' but they don't invest the time to learn those advanced features. They just use it as a fancy to-do list. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the difference. Sarah spent maybe forty hours over a few months building out her system. But now she saves that time every single week. Luna: So for someone listening who wants to try this approach, what's the first step? Lucas: She recommends starting with one workflow. Pick a recurring task you do every week — like onboarding a new client — and map out every step. Then figure out how to do all of those steps inside Notion, using Stripe for the payment step and Calendly for scheduling. Luna: So not trying to rebuild your whole business in a weekend. Lucas: No. That's a trap. She did it gradually. First she moved her client notes into Notion. Then her project tracking. Then her invoicing. Each step took a couple of days to set up and a week to get used to. Luna: I also think there's a psychological benefit. When you have a small stack, you stop thinking about tools and start thinking about the work. Lucas: That's exactly how she describes it. She said before she consolidated, she would spend thirty minutes every morning just deciding which app to open first. Now she opens Notion and she's off. Luna: That thirty minutes a day adds up. Over a year that's over a hundred hours. Lucas: Yeah. So the financial case for a small stack isn't just about subscription costs — it's about time. Sarah estimates her stack costs about $60 a month. But the time savings are worth thousands. Luna: And she's not alone. I'm seeing more solopreneurs talk about 'stack minimalism' on LinkedIn and in communities like Indie Hackers. Lucas: It's definitely a trend. And I think it's a healthy one. The default for a lot of people is to add a tool every time they hit a friction point. But often the better solution is to learn your existing tools more deeply. Luna: I want to push back a little though. Doesn't this approach make you more vulnerable to vendor lock-in? If Notion goes down for a day, you're basically paralyzed. Lucas: That's a fair point. Sarah acknowledged that. But she said that in three years of running her business this way, Notion has had maybe one significant outage. And even then, she could still access her data through exports. She has a backup plan — she exports her Notion data to Markdown files once a month. Luna: So she's not completely exposed. That's smart. Lucas: Yeah. And she also points out that with a larger stack, you have more points of failure. If you have ten tools, the chances that at least one is down on any given day is actually higher. Luna: That's a good counterpoint. And I guess if you know one tool really well, you're faster at troubleshooting when something does go wrong. Lucas: Exactly. So I think there's a real case for this approach. And I'm curious how many of our listeners have tried something similar. Luna: We should ask them to share their stacks. Maybe we'll do a follow-up episode featuring listener setups. Lucas: Great idea. But before we wrap, I want to mention something that makes episodes like this possible. We keep Solopreneur Sessions completely ad-free — no sponsors, no mid-roll interruptions. If you've found value in these conversations, and you'd like to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep the show independent. Luna: Yeah, we really appreciate those who chip in. It helps us keep doing deep dives like this one. Lucas: So back to the tool stack idea. I think the takeaway isn't that everyone should use Notion, Stripe, and Calendly. It's that you should deliberately choose a small set of tools and commit to mastering them. Luna: Right. The specifics might differ for you. Maybe you prefer a different note-taking app or payment processor. But the principle is the same: go deep, not wide. Lucas: Sarah's example proves it can work. And I think as we head into the second half of 2026, with all the economic uncertainty and subscription fatigue, this kind of operational minimalism is going to be a competitive advantage for solopreneurs. Luna: Agreed. If you can run your business with fewer tools, you have more time for the work that actually generates revenue. Lucas: And less mental overhead. That's the part people underestimate. Every tool you add is another thing to check, another login to remember, another update to learn. Luna: So I challenge our listeners to look at their current tool stack. How many apps are you using that could be replaced by a feature in something you already have? Lucas: That's a great exercise. And if you find you can cut three or four tools, you'll probably save more than just money. You'll save focus. And that's the real currency for a solopreneur. Luna: Well said. Thanks for digging into this one, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. And thanks to our listeners. We'll be back next time with another solopreneur deep dive.