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Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Black Friday is here and I’ve often seen solopreneurs slip into the “maybe I need this…maybe I should buy that” mindset. The shiny object syndrome is real. And so is the belief that you need to spend a lot of money on tools (I remind my clients all the time that you really don’t).
As a former B2B SaaS marketer who has used way too many tools over the years, here’s the key truth I learned:
More tools ≠ more growth.
Sometimes they just add extra friction, noise, and overwhelm.
But the right tools?
They’ll make your business run like butter.
And a lean tech stack gives you more clarity, speed, and focus, which matters so much more when you’re a one-person business or small business.
Originally, I was going to save this for the PDF resource inside my upcoming “Build Your Business Workshop,” but I decided to drop it here early since there are quite a few Black Friday deals floating around!
This post is the culmination of my 8+ years working in B2B SaaS as a marketer and 3+ years as a solopreneur. In my past life as a tech marketer, I researched tools, compared them, bought them, and managed software vendors (I’ve seen everything from the good, the could be worse, to…the too good to be true).
In this post, I’m sharing the tools I currently use, have used in the past, or genuinely recommend for small businesses. Some links are affiliate links (marked with a *), which means I may receive a commission at no cost to you when you click through them and complete a purchase.
Bookmark this post and share it with anyone who might find it helpful. I’ll update it after Black Friday and pin it as an evergreen guide on my Substack homepage.
A lot of solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, or even small business owners tell me their tools came from a friend’s recommendation, an online expert, or the idea that “if I want to look professional, I need a full tech stack.”
But honestly?
Most of the time, when I hear their business challenges, I end up telling them they only need tools that:
support their daily operations
have features that actually save them time
match their current business stage (not enterprise-level complexity)
make financial sense for where they are right now in their business
A quick way to know if your tech stack is becoming a burden:
you feel more overwhelmed and distracted than supported
you’re constantly trying to keep up with new features when you’re still trying to familiarize yourself with existing features
you’re jumping between too many tools in a single workday
I’ll preface this by saying that some of the tools below are not the big-name brands you usually see.
That’s because my recommendations are based on functionality, price, aesthetics (for you and your audience), and overall user experience.
I also put everything into 3 main categories so you can skim what you need, as this is a pretty long list. You don’t need every single one of them; this is to show you my overall recommendations!
The free version of ZCal is way better than many other scheduling tools’ paid versions, with unlimited meeting types and calendar accounts, along with various design features, so you can make it on-brand and aesthetic.
Have a look at mine and give it a try to see what I mean!
I use the Starter version, and it’s already more than enough, since it lets you host up to 100 people and provides 30 GB of storage. It also includes the Google Website, which is great if you don’t want to use another website builder.
You can get started here* and have a look at its pricing plan to determine which one best suits your business needs.
This is my go-to tool for meeting recordings and summaries. It’s what I use alongside Google Meet. It’s also why I only got the Google Starter version and not the Standard version (which includes Google Meet’s built-in recording feature). The other thing I like about this tool is the quick download process, which lets me share a link to the recording with other meeting participants or upload the video to YouTube.
If you need other AI features or have a much bigger team, you can consider their premium pricing plans.
I used to use Loom for quick screen recordings and tutorials. The free Starter plan only allows 5-minute videos and up to 25 videos stored in your account. But you can always delete your video files when needed to make space for new videos.
If you need unlimited videos and recording times, then you can look into their Business plan and beyond!
I also used to use Whereby for video calls because of its design features that make meeting rooms more visually appealing. It’s also a good conversation starter, since most people I have calls with haven’t heard of Whereby and appreciate a “change of scenery”.
Their free plan only gives you 1 meeting room (can host up to 4 participants) and lets you meet for up to 30 minutes. So it’s good for those just starting to build their business or to conduct discovery/intro calls!
They are currently running a Black Friday offer: 25% off their pro plans until December 1, 2025.
The number 1 reason I recommend Asana to my friends and clients is their calendar view feature! Even if you’re not that tech-savvy, you can start with their calendar view, click on a date, start inputting tasks, and move the tasks around if needed. It complements my Google calendar view nicely, so I know exactly what I’m working on every day while staying on track for certain deadlines.
Asana is great for project and task management, so a few use cases include content planning, client workflows, campaign launches, etc.
The free version is already more than enough for solopreneurs and two-person teams, but if you have a bigger team and want more customizations, you can consider their other premium plans.
I’ve used Notion to create documentation, templates, and “landing pages”. Because it’s highly customizable, you can adapt it however you see fit. I only recommend it to people who have a good grasp of creating modules and databases; otherwise, it has a steep learning curve. But! There’s also a lot of Notion templates out there that you can leverage, though it might still take some time to tweak them to your liking.
The free plan should be sufficient when just starting out, but if you have a small team and need access to the “unlimited” features, then their Plus or Business plan might be a good fit!
It’s a great tool for collaborating and communicating not only with your internal team but also with external clients and partners. With the channels feature, it’s easy to keep things organized and know where all your documents and conversations are in the respective categories (such as #marketing, #finance, #legal, #admin, etc.).
It’s also a good option if you're considering starting an online community and/or group programs, as the user interface and UX are pretty sleek.
The free plan’s limitation is that it keeps messages for only 90 days; you’ll need to upgrade to their pro plans to access unlimited message history and other premium features.
Discord is a great option for team collaboration and communication, as well as community building. The features that stand out to me are the built-in video capability and events management. But it does have a slightly higher learning curve than Slack, depending on how Discord is set up, ‘cause it’s highly customizable, so it can either be really simple or really complex.
The free option is more than enough for you, but if you want HD video streaming, custom emojis, and more, you can consider their premium plans.
I also run my own Discord community, and if you are interested in checking it out, just leave a comment! Here’s a sneak peek of how aesthetic a Discord can be (screenshot of my community):
This is a great option if you’re just starting out and want to build something simple with no frills, because the Free version has pretty much everything you need to build a simple, aesthetic one-pager landing page. The user interface might take a little time to get used to, but in the short term, it would be much less of a hassle than building a full site with other website builders. They also have various Pro plans at really good annual prices that allow for multiple “sites”, custom domains, forms, embeds, Google Analytics, and more.
Another highly recommended tool! It’s like a “fancier” version of Google Forms because of how customizable it can be, and there are a bunch of solid features like letting you collect payments, signatures, files…and this is all on the Free plan!
I’ve personally used it for surveys and as “landing pages” for my service offerings.
And you decide to go with Pro or Business plan, you can get 50% off for 3 months on either plan with my referral link here*
My website runs on Squarespace (well, currently my site is under renovation hah!) and the user interface is relatively easy to use. You also get a free custom domain for your first year. And the templates also get you to a solid starting point, unlike other website builders’ templates, which might not be as aesthetically pleasing.
Their Black Friday deal is 20% off any new website plan and the deal ends on November 30, 2025. You’ll see a promo code at the top of the web page.
I find their Free plan to be more than enough as it can host up to 10,000 subscribers and includes unlimited landing pages, email blasts, and more. Which is a lot better starting point than other email marketing tools on the market right now.
Personally, I’m on their Free plan because I don’t really use email sequences, but if you do need unlimited sequences and visual automations, then their Creator plan would be a better fit.
Their Black Friday deal is 50% off the Creator plan for 3 months and the deal ends on Dec 2, 2025.
No overview needed. You’re reading this here. I currently use Substack as my main “email marketing”, newsletter, and “website,” though as Substack posts can be indexed on the Google search engine. Depending on your business stage and needs, you could use Substack in a way similar to how I use it. Feel free to drop a comment or DM me if you have questions on how to structure/set up your Substack!
There’s no “paid” version of Substack; instead, you can enable paid subscriptions (which I did recently), and Substack will take 10% of each subscription, along with Stripe taking its usual service fees.
I personally pay for the Pro version because I need some of the premium features, but when I was starting out, this was a great design tool for those without a design background. Also, it’s great to use when creating slides for workshops and presenting them, as there's a notes section for you to lean on, and a built-in live Q&A feature so people can drop their questions there too.
I run all my virtual and in-person events on Luma. I host two calendars, and you can check out how I set mine up—this one is for my business and this one is for my community.
It’s my number 1 recommended event management tool because it’s aesthetic, simple to use, sends automatic event reminder emails and post-event feedback email, and the free version allows you to create unlimited events!
I’ve tried and used a bunch of different social media schedulers back in my tech marketer days. Buffer has consistently been the one I recommend to clients because it has a simple, clean user interface, so the learning curve is quite low.
The free version is also enough if you only use 3 social media channels and want to schedule up to 10 posts per channel. And the calendar view feature is a great way for you to visualize and organize your content across those channels so you can move things around if needed!
This is for Canadian business owners only. I used it when I incorporated my business and it only took me a few minutes to complete then everything was ready to go. A very streamlined process and it’s a tool that I always recommend to my Canadian peers.
If you’d like to get $50 off the price listed on their website, DM me your e-mail address so I can put you through their referral system.
(*note: I’ll also get a commission from them if you decide to go this route!)
I’ve used legal templates from here since the early days of my business for my consulting work, and eventually, I also got bundles for the website and paid collaborations. The templates are pretty comprehensive and easy to edit, so you can tweak them for your business needs. I appreciate that they send updated versions of the templates/bundles you’ve purchased in the past, so you’re always up to date with the latest legal changes in the US and Canada.
The Black Friday sale prices are currently reflected on the website* which are 30-40% their original price, so it’s a very good deal! Only until Dec 1, 2025.
If you don’t have a complex business model, Wave is a great option for bookkeeping and invoicing because that’s all included in the free plan, which is what I’m using. And you can also easily generate various financial reports to share with your accountant when it comes to your year-end reporting.
Their Black Friday deal this year is 50% off 3 months of their Pro plan. The deal only lasts till Dec 1, 2025.
When it comes to receiving payments from clients, there are a few options to consider:
Stripe → this is a classic payment processing platform that can be used globally and they take a percentage of each payment (for fee breakdown, see here)
Wise → this is another option to get international payments at a much lower fee
E-transfers → for local clients in your country, you can consider this option if available, so you don’t need to pay all those platform fees
Most posts like these wrap up after the list of tools has been shared… but those who know me well know I care about helping people build discernment and regain personal agency.
Because of my background managing software vendors and purchasing tools as a tech marketer, I’ve developed a simple framework to decide what’s actually worth the investment.
I usually create a Google Sheet to compare tools side-by-side and pick the ones that suit business needs. This exercise keeps you grounded and saves you from paying hundreds of dollars for unused, unnecessary subscriptions.
I know some people will say, “Well, I can just use the product comparison pages that those software companies have on their website.”
As a former tech marketer, I can tell you right now that those pages usually skew in the company’s favour and obviously not their competitor(s). It’s not common for them to create those pages from the end user's perspective, but what will get their company the most brownie points. They also usually compare one company at a time rather than multiple companies in a single view, so it’s not easy to get a holistic evaluation that has your best interest at heart.
With that said, here’s how I usually set up a simple Google Sheet for tool evaluation. For visualization purposes, here’s a screenshot of a template I created in the past to show clients how I would evaluate tools (the example was appointment scheduling):
As I mentioned earlier, the recommendations in this post are mainly driven by functionality, price, aesthetics (for yourself and your audience), and user experience.
You’ll see in the screenshot above that price and functionality (or business requirements) are listed there for objective evaluation. I find aesthetics and user experience subjective, so I would just note it later to support the final decision on which tool to go with.
In summary, the Google sheet is set up as such:
one column for your ideal features and price point
one column per brand you’re evaluating
fill in their features, pricing, limitations, and notes
audit how each tool actually fits your business needs
Before gathering info, get clear on your actual business requirements and tool functionality. Otherwise, you’ll be swayed by shiny features that don’t matter at your current stage.
Beyond what is shown on the screenshot above, there are other questions for you to consider during your evaluation:
Is the free plan enough for my current business stage?
How long will it take me to learn/familiarize myself with this tool?
Does it reduce friction or add more of it to my business?
Can it scale with my next stage of business?
Do I like how it looks and will my clients and/or audience have a good user experience with it? (this is more applicable to audience-facing tools like a website, appointment scheduling, event registration, etc)
Finally…do I actually need this? (not “I should get this because it’s on sale OR someone else said I should get OR maybe I need this someday…”)
And like with most things in life, once you practice a skill enough times, then you develop an acumen and discernment that no longer requires you to use a Google Sheet every single time you want to or think you should make a purchase.
You’ll intuitively know which tools fit your business at any point in time.
And that, my friend, is how you stop the shiny object cycle!
(Note: I’m not sharing a template because you can easily replicate this on your own and also because you can make it as simple/complex as you need for your business!)
Comment below and I’ll share my honest thoughts!
This post is meant to give you a starting point and help you build discernment, which is a skill that will serve you across your business and your life.
If you want deeper clarity and support, I offer both short-term and long-term 1:1 guidance. You can book your initial session with me here, or DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram to share your business situation first so I can guide you to the right session type.
Message Michelle Hsu
This free workshop helps you build a grounded foundation for a business that truly reflects who you are. It weaves your experience, passion, and purpose into something both soulful and sustainable.
We’re at a point in the human era where many of us have outgrown the old ways of working. People are quitting, exploring creative paths, moving countries, discovering their purpose, or even rebuilding after chaos. At this stage, most are trying to figure out what their next step is and which direction to take. In this workshop:
You’ll finally connect the dots between:
Who you are → What you’re meant to create in this lifetime → How to bring it to life in a practical, soul-aligned way
RSVP here and feel free to share with friends who might need it too.
This is a 3-week guided journey designed for solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, creators, portfolio careerists, and purpose-driven professionals who feel caught between doing more and finding flow.
Through my own lived experience and years of observing entrepreneurs and the market, I realized something:
To build the skill of discernment and stay grounded even when there’s so much external voices out there, you need a strong inner core.
Because without it, even the best business strategy, spiritual insight, or marketing consultation won’t create sustainable results.
This is a recalibration back to your center so you can create, decide, and move from grounded confidence rather than confusion or burnout.
We meet three times before the holidays. So come join me and close out 2025 with clarity. Step into 2026 feeling rooted, steady, and connected to yourself again.
Black Friday is here and I’ve often seen solopreneurs slip into the “maybe I need this…maybe I should buy that” mindset. The shiny object syndrome is real. And so is the belief that you need to spend a lot of money on tools (I remind my clients all the time that you really don’t).
As a former B2B SaaS marketer who has used way too many tools over the years, here’s the key truth I learned:
More tools ≠ more growth.
Sometimes they just add extra friction, noise, and overwhelm.
But the right tools?
They’ll make your business run like butter.
And a lean tech stack gives you more clarity, speed, and focus, which matters so much more when you’re a one-person business or small business.
Originally, I was going to save this for the PDF resource inside my upcoming “Build Your Business Workshop,” but I decided to drop it here early since there are quite a few Black Friday deals floating around!
This post is the culmination of my 8+ years working in B2B SaaS as a marketer and 3+ years as a solopreneur. In my past life as a tech marketer, I researched tools, compared them, bought them, and managed software vendors (I’ve seen everything from the good, the could be worse, to…the too good to be true).
In this post, I’m sharing the tools I currently use, have used in the past, or genuinely recommend for small businesses. Some links are affiliate links (marked with a *), which means I may receive a commission at no cost to you when you click through them and complete a purchase.
Bookmark this post and share it with anyone who might find it helpful. I’ll update it after Black Friday and pin it as an evergreen guide on my Substack homepage.
A lot of solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, or even small business owners tell me their tools came from a friend’s recommendation, an online expert, or the idea that “if I want to look professional, I need a full tech stack.”
But honestly?
Most of the time, when I hear their business challenges, I end up telling them they only need tools that:
support their daily operations
have features that actually save them time
match their current business stage (not enterprise-level complexity)
make financial sense for where they are right now in their business
A quick way to know if your tech stack is becoming a burden:
you feel more overwhelmed and distracted than supported
you’re constantly trying to keep up with new features when you’re still trying to familiarize yourself with existing features
you’re jumping between too many tools in a single workday
I’ll preface this by saying that some of the tools below are not the big-name brands you usually see.
That’s because my recommendations are based on functionality, price, aesthetics (for you and your audience), and overall user experience.
I also put everything into 3 main categories so you can skim what you need, as this is a pretty long list. You don’t need every single one of them; this is to show you my overall recommendations!
The free version of ZCal is way better than many other scheduling tools’ paid versions, with unlimited meeting types and calendar accounts, along with various design features, so you can make it on-brand and aesthetic.
Have a look at mine and give it a try to see what I mean!
I use the Starter version, and it’s already more than enough, since it lets you host up to 100 people and provides 30 GB of storage. It also includes the Google Website, which is great if you don’t want to use another website builder.
You can get started here* and have a look at its pricing plan to determine which one best suits your business needs.
This is my go-to tool for meeting recordings and summaries. It’s what I use alongside Google Meet. It’s also why I only got the Google Starter version and not the Standard version (which includes Google Meet’s built-in recording feature). The other thing I like about this tool is the quick download process, which lets me share a link to the recording with other meeting participants or upload the video to YouTube.
If you need other AI features or have a much bigger team, you can consider their premium pricing plans.
I used to use Loom for quick screen recordings and tutorials. The free Starter plan only allows 5-minute videos and up to 25 videos stored in your account. But you can always delete your video files when needed to make space for new videos.
If you need unlimited videos and recording times, then you can look into their Business plan and beyond!
I also used to use Whereby for video calls because of its design features that make meeting rooms more visually appealing. It’s also a good conversation starter, since most people I have calls with haven’t heard of Whereby and appreciate a “change of scenery”.
Their free plan only gives you 1 meeting room (can host up to 4 participants) and lets you meet for up to 30 minutes. So it’s good for those just starting to build their business or to conduct discovery/intro calls!
They are currently running a Black Friday offer: 25% off their pro plans until December 1, 2025.
The number 1 reason I recommend Asana to my friends and clients is their calendar view feature! Even if you’re not that tech-savvy, you can start with their calendar view, click on a date, start inputting tasks, and move the tasks around if needed. It complements my Google calendar view nicely, so I know exactly what I’m working on every day while staying on track for certain deadlines.
Asana is great for project and task management, so a few use cases include content planning, client workflows, campaign launches, etc.
The free version is already more than enough for solopreneurs and two-person teams, but if you have a bigger team and want more customizations, you can consider their other premium plans.
I’ve used Notion to create documentation, templates, and “landing pages”. Because it’s highly customizable, you can adapt it however you see fit. I only recommend it to people who have a good grasp of creating modules and databases; otherwise, it has a steep learning curve. But! There’s also a lot of Notion templates out there that you can leverage, though it might still take some time to tweak them to your liking.
The free plan should be sufficient when just starting out, but if you have a small team and need access to the “unlimited” features, then their Plus or Business plan might be a good fit!
It’s a great tool for collaborating and communicating not only with your internal team but also with external clients and partners. With the channels feature, it’s easy to keep things organized and know where all your documents and conversations are in the respective categories (such as #marketing, #finance, #legal, #admin, etc.).
It’s also a good option if you're considering starting an online community and/or group programs, as the user interface and UX are pretty sleek.
The free plan’s limitation is that it keeps messages for only 90 days; you’ll need to upgrade to their pro plans to access unlimited message history and other premium features.
Discord is a great option for team collaboration and communication, as well as community building. The features that stand out to me are the built-in video capability and events management. But it does have a slightly higher learning curve than Slack, depending on how Discord is set up, ‘cause it’s highly customizable, so it can either be really simple or really complex.
The free option is more than enough for you, but if you want HD video streaming, custom emojis, and more, you can consider their premium plans.
I also run my own Discord community, and if you are interested in checking it out, just leave a comment! Here’s a sneak peek of how aesthetic a Discord can be (screenshot of my community):
This is a great option if you’re just starting out and want to build something simple with no frills, because the Free version has pretty much everything you need to build a simple, aesthetic one-pager landing page. The user interface might take a little time to get used to, but in the short term, it would be much less of a hassle than building a full site with other website builders. They also have various Pro plans at really good annual prices that allow for multiple “sites”, custom domains, forms, embeds, Google Analytics, and more.
Another highly recommended tool! It’s like a “fancier” version of Google Forms because of how customizable it can be, and there are a bunch of solid features like letting you collect payments, signatures, files…and this is all on the Free plan!
I’ve personally used it for surveys and as “landing pages” for my service offerings.
And you decide to go with Pro or Business plan, you can get 50% off for 3 months on either plan with my referral link here*
My website runs on Squarespace (well, currently my site is under renovation hah!) and the user interface is relatively easy to use. You also get a free custom domain for your first year. And the templates also get you to a solid starting point, unlike other website builders’ templates, which might not be as aesthetically pleasing.
Their Black Friday deal is 20% off any new website plan and the deal ends on November 30, 2025. You’ll see a promo code at the top of the web page.
I find their Free plan to be more than enough as it can host up to 10,000 subscribers and includes unlimited landing pages, email blasts, and more. Which is a lot better starting point than other email marketing tools on the market right now.
Personally, I’m on their Free plan because I don’t really use email sequences, but if you do need unlimited sequences and visual automations, then their Creator plan would be a better fit.
Their Black Friday deal is 50% off the Creator plan for 3 months and the deal ends on Dec 2, 2025.
No overview needed. You’re reading this here. I currently use Substack as my main “email marketing”, newsletter, and “website,” though as Substack posts can be indexed on the Google search engine. Depending on your business stage and needs, you could use Substack in a way similar to how I use it. Feel free to drop a comment or DM me if you have questions on how to structure/set up your Substack!
There’s no “paid” version of Substack; instead, you can enable paid subscriptions (which I did recently), and Substack will take 10% of each subscription, along with Stripe taking its usual service fees.
I personally pay for the Pro version because I need some of the premium features, but when I was starting out, this was a great design tool for those without a design background. Also, it’s great to use when creating slides for workshops and presenting them, as there's a notes section for you to lean on, and a built-in live Q&A feature so people can drop their questions there too.
I run all my virtual and in-person events on Luma. I host two calendars, and you can check out how I set mine up—this one is for my business and this one is for my community.
It’s my number 1 recommended event management tool because it’s aesthetic, simple to use, sends automatic event reminder emails and post-event feedback email, and the free version allows you to create unlimited events!
I’ve tried and used a bunch of different social media schedulers back in my tech marketer days. Buffer has consistently been the one I recommend to clients because it has a simple, clean user interface, so the learning curve is quite low.
The free version is also enough if you only use 3 social media channels and want to schedule up to 10 posts per channel. And the calendar view feature is a great way for you to visualize and organize your content across those channels so you can move things around if needed!
This is for Canadian business owners only. I used it when I incorporated my business and it only took me a few minutes to complete then everything was ready to go. A very streamlined process and it’s a tool that I always recommend to my Canadian peers.
If you’d like to get $50 off the price listed on their website, DM me your e-mail address so I can put you through their referral system.
(*note: I’ll also get a commission from them if you decide to go this route!)
I’ve used legal templates from here since the early days of my business for my consulting work, and eventually, I also got bundles for the website and paid collaborations. The templates are pretty comprehensive and easy to edit, so you can tweak them for your business needs. I appreciate that they send updated versions of the templates/bundles you’ve purchased in the past, so you’re always up to date with the latest legal changes in the US and Canada.
The Black Friday sale prices are currently reflected on the website* which are 30-40% their original price, so it’s a very good deal! Only until Dec 1, 2025.
If you don’t have a complex business model, Wave is a great option for bookkeeping and invoicing because that’s all included in the free plan, which is what I’m using. And you can also easily generate various financial reports to share with your accountant when it comes to your year-end reporting.
Their Black Friday deal this year is 50% off 3 months of their Pro plan. The deal only lasts till Dec 1, 2025.
When it comes to receiving payments from clients, there are a few options to consider:
Stripe → this is a classic payment processing platform that can be used globally and they take a percentage of each payment (for fee breakdown, see here)
Wise → this is another option to get international payments at a much lower fee
E-transfers → for local clients in your country, you can consider this option if available, so you don’t need to pay all those platform fees
Most posts like these wrap up after the list of tools has been shared… but those who know me well know I care about helping people build discernment and regain personal agency.
Because of my background managing software vendors and purchasing tools as a tech marketer, I’ve developed a simple framework to decide what’s actually worth the investment.
I usually create a Google Sheet to compare tools side-by-side and pick the ones that suit business needs. This exercise keeps you grounded and saves you from paying hundreds of dollars for unused, unnecessary subscriptions.
I know some people will say, “Well, I can just use the product comparison pages that those software companies have on their website.”
As a former tech marketer, I can tell you right now that those pages usually skew in the company’s favour and obviously not their competitor(s). It’s not common for them to create those pages from the end user's perspective, but what will get their company the most brownie points. They also usually compare one company at a time rather than multiple companies in a single view, so it’s not easy to get a holistic evaluation that has your best interest at heart.
With that said, here’s how I usually set up a simple Google Sheet for tool evaluation. For visualization purposes, here’s a screenshot of a template I created in the past to show clients how I would evaluate tools (the example was appointment scheduling):
As I mentioned earlier, the recommendations in this post are mainly driven by functionality, price, aesthetics (for yourself and your audience), and user experience.
You’ll see in the screenshot above that price and functionality (or business requirements) are listed there for objective evaluation. I find aesthetics and user experience subjective, so I would just note it later to support the final decision on which tool to go with.
In summary, the Google sheet is set up as such:
one column for your ideal features and price point
one column per brand you’re evaluating
fill in their features, pricing, limitations, and notes
audit how each tool actually fits your business needs
Before gathering info, get clear on your actual business requirements and tool functionality. Otherwise, you’ll be swayed by shiny features that don’t matter at your current stage.
Beyond what is shown on the screenshot above, there are other questions for you to consider during your evaluation:
Is the free plan enough for my current business stage?
How long will it take me to learn/familiarize myself with this tool?
Does it reduce friction or add more of it to my business?
Can it scale with my next stage of business?
Do I like how it looks and will my clients and/or audience have a good user experience with it? (this is more applicable to audience-facing tools like a website, appointment scheduling, event registration, etc)
Finally…do I actually need this? (not “I should get this because it’s on sale OR someone else said I should get OR maybe I need this someday…”)
And like with most things in life, once you practice a skill enough times, then you develop an acumen and discernment that no longer requires you to use a Google Sheet every single time you want to or think you should make a purchase.
You’ll intuitively know which tools fit your business at any point in time.
And that, my friend, is how you stop the shiny object cycle!
(Note: I’m not sharing a template because you can easily replicate this on your own and also because you can make it as simple/complex as you need for your business!)
Comment below and I’ll share my honest thoughts!
This post is meant to give you a starting point and help you build discernment, which is a skill that will serve you across your business and your life.
If you want deeper clarity and support, I offer both short-term and long-term 1:1 guidance. You can book your initial session with me here, or DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram to share your business situation first so I can guide you to the right session type.
Message Michelle Hsu
This free workshop helps you build a grounded foundation for a business that truly reflects who you are. It weaves your experience, passion, and purpose into something both soulful and sustainable.
We’re at a point in the human era where many of us have outgrown the old ways of working. People are quitting, exploring creative paths, moving countries, discovering their purpose, or even rebuilding after chaos. At this stage, most are trying to figure out what their next step is and which direction to take. In this workshop:
You’ll finally connect the dots between:
Who you are → What you’re meant to create in this lifetime → How to bring it to life in a practical, soul-aligned way
RSVP here and feel free to share with friends who might need it too.
This is a 3-week guided journey designed for solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, creators, portfolio careerists, and purpose-driven professionals who feel caught between doing more and finding flow.
Through my own lived experience and years of observing entrepreneurs and the market, I realized something:
To build the skill of discernment and stay grounded even when there’s so much external voices out there, you need a strong inner core.
Because without it, even the best business strategy, spiritual insight, or marketing consultation won’t create sustainable results.
This is a recalibration back to your center so you can create, decide, and move from grounded confidence rather than confusion or burnout.
We meet three times before the holidays. So come join me and close out 2025 with clarity. Step into 2026 feeling rooted, steady, and connected to yourself again.
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