Building The Startup Starter Kit: A Solo Founder's Tech Stack
The Problem
I wanted to help first-time founders avoid the paralysis of choosing tools. Every founder I talked to spent weeks researching the same questions: "What email service should I use?" "Do I need PostHog or Google Analytics?" "Should I use Stripe or Lemon Squeezy?"
The problem wasn't lack of options—it was too many options without context. I needed to build a directory that didn't just list tools, but explained why you'd choose one over another based on your specific situation.
The Stack
My philosophy was simple: use the tools I recommend. If I'm going to tell founders "use Vercel for hosting," I should be using Vercel myself. This meant my stack needed to be:
- Cheap - Under $50/month total so I could validate the idea before revenue
- Fast to ship - I wanted to launch in 2 weeks, not 2 months
- Production-ready - No switching tools later when traffic scales
- Developer-friendly - I'm a solo dev, so great DX was non-negotiable
The result: 6 tools, $47/month, shipped in 14 days.
Why Each Tool
Here's the story behind each tool choice—what I needed, what I considered, and why I made each decision.
hosting
Analytics
version-control
AI & ML Tools
email-marketing
Monthly Costs
| Tool | Plan | Monthly Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 | API Usage | $12 | ~500 AI recommendation requests/month at $0.024 per request |
 | Free Tier | $0 | 100GB bandwidth, unlimited deployments, preview environments |
 | Free Tier | $0 | 1M events/month (using ~300K), includes session replay and feature flags |
 | Free | $0 | Public repo with unlimited Actions minutes |
 | Free Tier | $0 | 3K emails/month (using ~800) |
| Total | $12 | ||
Lessons Learned
1. Free tiers are enough to validate My entire stack costs $12/month (just Claude API usage). Everything else is on free tiers. I shipped to 10K users before paying a cent for hosting, analytics, or email. Don't overpay before you validate.
2. Tool consolidation > best-of-breed early on PostHog gives me analytics + session replay + feature flags + A/B tests. Is it the best at each? No. But it's good enough at all four, which means I only learn one dashboard. As a solo founder, cognitive load matters.
3. Developer experience compounds Vercel's preview deployments mean I ship faster. Resend's React email components mean I iterate on transactional emails in minutes, not hours. Good DX isn't a luxury—it's a force multiplier when you're solo.
4. The "use what you recommend" rule builds trust Founders ask me, "Do you actually use PostHog?" When I say "yes, and here's my session replay workflow," the conversation changes. I'm not a directory listing tools—I'm a founder sharing what works.
What I'd change: Nothing major yet. I might swap Loops for Resend eventually (simplify to one email provider), but Loops' event-based automation is too valuable right now. I'd consider adding Supabase if I build user accounts, but the site is static-first by design, so that's a future problem.
Stack Summary
Tools in this stack