You don’t need to spend thousands on tools to land your first ten customers. or your first million in ARR.
Too many founders believe the lie:
“I need a full tech stack to scale.”
That’s backward thinking.
You're not in the scaling mode.. You're building your first repeatable sales engine. And that requires:
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Relevance
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Credibility
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Momentum
To get that, you need just five tools. And they cost roughly $100/month total.
Here are the only tools you actually need to go from zero to your first million:
1. Email: Use Gmail or Outlook with Your Own Domain
You don’t need fancy email automation. You need deliverability and personality.
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Why personal email works: Using a custom domain gives your outreach credibility. You’re not a generic Gmail/Outlook address. It shows you care enough to own your brand every time you send.
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Volume matters: Cap sends at 40–50 per day. Keeping mail volume low prevents deliverability problems. You stay out of spam folders. And you can’t reasonably send a lot more with personalization.
To get started, you don’t need a heavy tech stack, just a few lean tools used intentionally.
Begin with Google Workspace or Outlook 365. For around $6 to $8 per month, you get a professional email address with your own domain, access to calendar scheduling, and the basic productivity tools you'll need to operate.
A custom domain alone increases trust dramatically compared to a generic Gmail address.
To track email performance, you can optionally add Mailtrack or Mixmax. These tools let you see when your emails are opened, whether links were clicked, and help you time your follow-ups. At $0 to $15/month, it’s one of the easiest wins in early sales.
What matters most isn’t the tech. It’s how you use it. A simple inbox, paired with standardized subject lines, clear intros, and personalized value, can outperform fancy automation tools when used with discipline.
This setup keeps you fast, focused, and in control.
2. CRM: Keep It Simple with Google Sheets
You don’t need HubSpot or Salesforce, yet. Even if Hubspot has a great free CRM plan, and they improved a lot over the years.
Here’s what you need:
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Prospect name
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Company
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Last contact date
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Deal status
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Next step
You can track this in a free Google Sheet. You can even add a formula to highlight rows older than a week.
Why it matters:
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Visibility: You never lose track of follow-ups
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Accountability: You always know who’s responsible
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Momentum: You prevent pipeline stagnation
By the time you're working with repeatable revenue, invest in a proper CRM. Until then, be lean and stay in control.
3. Prospecting: LinkedIn Sales Navigator
This one costs around $80/month, but it’s worth every penny.
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Why avoid cold guessing:
Sending generic email blasts to anyone is a recipe for zero attention.
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Smart targeting:
With Sales Navigator filters, you can segment by:
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Industry
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Headcount
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Seniority
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Tenure
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Keywords
This saves you weeks of time and hundreds of emails.
Pro tip: Export your list every week and upload it to Google Sheets. Track when you email, follow up, and next steps.
4. Stand Out with Loom
Video isn’t novel unless it’s personal, direct, and specific.
A 3‑minute Loom in your outreach does more than email copy ever will:
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Shows effort: You’ve done the work
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Builds trust: They see you, hear your tone, know you’re real
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Creates relevance: You point them directly to what matters
Here’s how to use it well:
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Identify one meaningful insight (UX, SEO, pricing, onboarding, etc.)
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Record your screen. Optionally, with your face, walking them through it
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Offer a soft next step (“happy to send this over” or “open to chat if helpful”)
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Embed the thumbnail (GIF) into your email, or offer to send it
That Loom becomes the anchor of your message. No cold pitch. Just clear value and care.
5. Calendly: Eliminate Scheduling Friction
Once they respond, move fast.
Calendly or similar scheduling tools are your friend:
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Reduce friction: One link, zero back-and-forth
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Stay in control: You decide your availability
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Look professional: Everyone expects it by now
It costs around $10/month and is the final cog in a clean, founder-led outreach stack.
Why This Stack Works
This isn’t about being minimal or cheap. It’s about being effective.
Clarity
Every tool in this stack serves a precise purpose, and that’s what makes it powerful.
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Your email client (Gmail or Outlook) ensures high deliverability and presents you as a credible, established founder. Using your own domain signals professionalism and trust from the very first message.
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Google Sheets becomes your command center. It’s where you track who you’ve contacted, when you last followed up, what stage they’re in, and what comes next. It keeps you organized, focused, and accountable.
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LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps you avoid wasting time. Instead of guessing who to target, you get laser-specific with your outreach. This tool alone will save you weeks of trial and error by pointing you to the right people from day one.
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Loom creates human connection. When a prospect sees you on camera, hears your voice, and watches you explain something specific to their business, it builds instant trust. It turns your email into a conversation, not a pitch.
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Calendly eliminates friction. Once someone is interested, they shouldn’t have to chase you down to meet. A single link lets them book a time and keeps your momentum alive.
None of these tools are about flash. They’re about clarity and simplicity. Delivering your message, managing your funnel, and converting attention into progress. They do one thing each, and they do it well.
That’s all you need.
Together, they create a consistent, trusted, founder‑to‑founder message.
Momentum
Momentum doesn’t start with features. It starts with action:
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You sent Loom
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They replied
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You scheduled a call
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You built trust
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The deal moves forward
Momentum compounds. Each email, call, and touch builds on the last. Without these tools, momentum falls apart.
How to Implement This Today
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Step 1: Set up your email with a custom domain
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Step 2: Build a Google Sheet pipeline tracker
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Step 3: Spin up Sales Navigator and build a 50‑lead list
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Step 4: Record and send your first Loom in outreach
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Step 5: Add Calendly to your email signature
Next: refine your messaging, log every step, and aim to move each prospect forward every week. If they stall, follow your own rules, micro-commitments, champion checks, and executive touchpoints.
Real Result from This Stack
Here’s one example:
I coached a founder targeting mid-market SaaS companies. They used this exact stack and moved 7 prospects through discovery toward closed deals, without HubSpot or marketing budgets.
That’s $12,000 ARR from a $100/month investment and a lean, high-signal workflow.
Don’t Overcomplicate
I still see founders paying $500–1,000+/month for:
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Inbound marketing tools they don’t understand
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CRMs they haven’t configured
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Automated outreach stacks that send spam
And they wonder why nothing works.
Here’s what actually works at early stage:
You don’t need to outspend bigger companies. You need to out-think and out-care about your buyers.
What About Lemlist, Attio, or Outreach?
They can wait until you CAN scale
When you don’t yet have traction, smart manual process beats big tools every time.
Use Apollo or Apollo Verified to confirm email addresses, if needed but don’t let it replace Sales Navigator, Loom, or a founder-forward approach.
Final Word: Commitment Beats Tech
This isn’t a tweet thread. This is your minimum viable tech stack to build momentum, credibility, and real sales.
Spend less than $100/month. Spend more time on message and relationship.
That’s how you stand out when founders with bigger budgets send templated spam and generic automations.
Stay focused. Stay intentional.
— Guillaume
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