First: What Makes a “Good” Early-Stage Stack?

It should be:

1- Simple (you or one person can manage it)

2- Affordable or free

3- Fast to set up and test

4- Clear on performance and metrics

This is about learning fast — not scaling yet.

✅ The Essentials (Must-Have Tools)

1. A Conversion-Ready Landing Page

• Use: Framer, Webflow, or Carrd

• Why: You need one place to tell your story and capture leads or signups.

• Pro Tip: Focus on just one CTA (signup, waitlist, demo, etc.)

2. Analytics (but keep it lightweight)

• Use: Plausible, Fathom, or Google Analytics

• Why: You need to know what pages people visit and what they do.

• What to track: landing page traffic, button clicks, conversion rate

3. Lead Capture + CRM

• Use: Tally, Typeform, or plain email forms → connected to Airtable or Notion

• Why: You need to collect and organize early interest + manually follow up.

• Keep it scrappy. Spreadsheets are fine.

4. One Messaging Channel (to talk to users)

• Use: Email (ConvertKit, Buttondown) or a simple Discord/Slack group

• Why: Start building a feedback loop — even 10–20 early users matter

• Pro Tip: Send raw updates, not newsletters. Keep it human.

5. Optional: Paid Ad Testing

• Use: Meta Ads or Google Search Ads

• Budget: $50–100 max

  Goal: Just test messaging and landing page performance (not scale)

❌ What You Don’t Need (Yet)

1. Full Marketing Automation

You don’t need HubSpot or ActiveCampaign. Manually emailing 30 early users builds more insight than automation ever will.

2. SEO Tools (at scale)

No need for Ahrefs or Semrush right now. Focus on getting your first few quality blog posts out. Use Google Search Console once traffic begins.

3. A Full Social Scheduling Tool

Unless you’re posting daily, just use native Twitter/LinkedIn. Buffer or Hypefury can wait.

4. Advanced Attribution

GA4 or Plausible + a spreadsheet is plenty. Attribution tools become helpful after product-market fit — not before.