Build smarter, not bigger.
A weekly field manual for solo founders replacing teams with AI tools, repeatable workflows, and small systems that compound. Practical. Opinionated. No fluff, no growth-hacking, no AI-generated thinkpieces.
Every Friday morning I write one issue — a workflow I'm actually running, a tool I'm actually paying for, or a system that's actually held up under real customer load. If it doesn't survive a Monday, I don't ship it.
Where to start
Workflows that ship.
The exact Friday-morning sequences I run — content batching, customer ops, ship-Mondays. Stolen and refined over 41 issues.
/ 02 — REALThe exact tools.
The 12-tool stack — what I pay for, what I dropped, what I'd buy first. Honest grades, no affiliate hype.
/ 03 — COMPOUNDINGSystems that compound.
Start here if you're new. The 4-step Starter Kit — small systems that survive a Monday and keep paying off.
| № | Issue | Category | Filed | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 006 | The AI Tools I Use Every Day as a Solo Founder Seven tools I open before I open my email — and exactly what each one is actually doing for the business. | Tools | JANUARY 1, 2026 | 2M |
| 007 | Why One Person Can Now Do the Work of Ten The economics of solo work just changed. Here's what one founder, one stack, and one Friday morning actually looks like in 2026. | Building | DECEMBER 29, 2025 | 2M |
| 008 | My Content Creation Workflow (Start to Publish in 2 Hours) From blank Notion page to a published post in one Friday morning — without an editor, an agency, or a single thinkpiece. | Workflows | DECEMBER 26, 2025 | 2M |
| Role | Tool | Grade | Using since |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI co-founder | Claude My default for thinking, writing, code review, and long context. | A · KEEP | 2024-Q3 |
| Second brain | Notion Editorial calendar, post drafts, the running stack-of-notes. | A · KEEP | 2022-Q1 |
| Newsletter | Kit One Friday email, sent reliably. The form on this site posts directly to it. | A · KEEP | 2024-Q2 |
| Social distribution | Typefully Schedules X/LinkedIn threads from one draft. Buys back two hours a week. | B+ · KEEP | 2025-Q1 |
| Cover art | Midjourney Per-post cover art and the editorial gradient placeholders. | B+ · KEEP | 2024-Q4 |
| Hosting | Vercel Astro builds deploy in under a minute. Edge-cached. Free tier still fine. | A · KEEP | 2024-Q2 |
| Analytics | Plausible Privacy-first analytics, no cookie banner, dashboards I actually read. | B · WATCH | 2025-Q2 |
Build smarter, not bigger. The leverage isn't in the next hire — it's in the workflow you'd hire someone to run. — FROM THE EDITOR · ISSUE 38
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One Friday email. The workflow I'm actually running, the tool I'm actually paying for, or the system that just held up under real load.
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