As a founder of a service-based business (albeit one that’s busy with productisation), I often drift into wondering what it might be like to start a tech business.

Tech is where it’s at, tech gets the bulk of investment, tech is the future.

But what is the definition of a ‘tech startup’?

Read time: 3 minutes

tl;dr: I use around 40 different tech tools to run my business – does this make mine a ‘tech business’? Most of these tools are essential to operating efficiently to deliver a great service.

For me, a ‘tech business’ is a business that creates and builds new technology.

But this is a bit of a loose definition – I notice many tech businesses whose tech is often not much more than a website.

Is Customer IQ a tech business?

Not in the sense that I build tech, but yes in the sense that I use and rely on tech to deliver my work.

This then got me thinking about how much tech I use, in effect what’s my tech stack.

(I know this isn’t exactly what is meant by ‘tech stack’ but I thought it might be interesting to share with you the kind of technology a solopreneur B2B service business might use).

Wanna see my tech stack?

This will now turn into a bit of a listicle but I’ve sectioned it into various themes for you:

📋 Research tech:

• Alchemer – survey scripting, hosting, online reporting
• Purespectrum – survey participants
• Qualzy – my go-to for online qual
• Loops, Incling, Indeemo, Lookback – online qual platforms I also use
• TagCrowd – wordcloud, analysis of text data

🤖 AI tools:

• Otter – auto transcribing
• ChatGPT – I have used it, more as a research assistant, but using it less and less
• Adobe FireFly – image generator

✍️ Design:

• Google slides – my go to for slide decks
• Visme – trialling as an alternative for slide decks
• Canva – use it for design, social media posts
• Elementor – web page builder
• Noun project – icons

🤝 Bus dev:

• Pipedrive – CRM
• Hypefury – social media scheduling/ engagement (actually just lapsed my sub as it’s mainly for Twitter/X and I’ve just decided to focus on LinkedIn).
• Planable – likely I’ll revert to this for post schedulin

📢 Communication:

• Slack – team Comms
• Zoom, Google meet – video calls
• Cex – refurbished smartphones

✅ Productivity:

• Gsuite tools – email, spreadsheets, docs, cloud storage etc
• Calendly – meeting and interview scheduling
• Notion – so much! Lists, project management, second brain storage
• Siteground – web hosting
• WooCommerce – e-commerce
• PayPal, stripe – online payments
• Docusign – contracting
• Eventbrite – event management
• Seatfrog – train tickets
• MailChimp – email design/ distribution
• Loom – video production
• Masteriyo – online course building
• Itsettled – credit control

😀 Personal:

• Audible, Spotify audiobooks – E-learning
• Calm – Wellbeing
• Minderful – all round wellbeing

Ok wow, I’ve counted up around 40 services there. Clearly takes a lot of tech to run a non-tech business.

And what I like about this list, looking back at it, is that I’m not bound to one piece of tech.

Take the example of online qual platforms. 99.9% of the qual I do is now online and I really like the flexibility of being able to offer clients different options, depending on what they need. As these tools operate on a PAYG model, not a saas model, it also really works as a way to keep operating costs low.

Any thoughts or questions on any of this tech, let me know by replying to this email.

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Thanks for reading 😉