The AI tool stack behind my one-woman business
Eight tools, what each one actually does for me, and the order I'd learn them in if I were starting today.
People assume running a business with AI means paying for twenty subscriptions. Mine runs on eight tools, and most of them have free plans that are enough to get started.
Here is every tool I use, what it actually does in my business, and the order I'd learn them in if I were starting from zero today.
The short version
| Tool | What it does for me | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | Writes, researches, builds tools and runs my scheduled blog tasks | The engine |
| ChatGPT | Creates the photos for my blog posts | Images |
| Canva | Pins, mockups, product images | Design |
| Netlify | Hosts my websites and interactive products | Hosting |
| GitHub | Stores the files for my websites | Storage |
| Beacons | My shop, checkout and link in bio | Selling |
| Sends people to my posts and products | Traffic | |
| Medium | A second home for my blog posts | Reach |
Claude: the engine
If I could only keep one tool, it would be this one. Claude does three very different jobs for me.
It writes. Long-form blog posts, product descriptions, course lessons. It's best when I give it a detailed brief, the same way I'd brief a freelance writer.
It builds. Every interactive product I sell, from trackers to dashboards to a toddler's alphabet game, started as a description I gave Claude. It writes the code; I test, describe what's wrong and ask for fixes.
It runs on a schedule. My home blog drafts itself twice a week through a scheduled task, and this blog drafts itself on Saturdays. I wrote about how that system works in detail.
ChatGPT: the photographer
I use ChatGPT for one job: images. Each blog post comes with written photo prompts, and I paste them into ChatGPT to create the cover and in-story photos. The trick that made the biggest difference was putting the exact size and the style of shot in every prompt, so images come out consistent and sharp.
Canva: the design studio
Canva is where my Pinterest pins, product mockups and shop images get made. If you already know Canva, you're further along than you think: it's also become a surprisingly capable way to build simple interactive pages.
Netlify and GitHub: the plumbing
These two sound technical, but you only need to understand one sentence about each.
- GitHub stores the files that make up a website, like a very organized folder in the cloud.
- Netlify turns those files into a live website, and updates it automatically whenever the files change.
That pairing is what lets a blog "publish itself": a new post file lands in GitHub, and Netlify rebuilds the site. For single interactive products, I don't even need GitHub. I can drop the finished page straight into Netlify and get a live link.
Beacons: the shop
Beacons is my storefront. It handles checkout and delivery for digital products and doubles as my link in bio, so one link on every social profile takes people to everything I sell. For a solo seller, having one place to send people keeps things simple.
Pinterest: the traffic
Pinterest behaves more like a search engine than a social network. People search for ideas, and a good pin can keep sending visitors for months. That long life is exactly why I pair a weekly blog post with a week of pins: each post gives me several fresh pins, and each pin points back to the post.
Medium: the second shelf
I cross-post my blog stories to Medium, which has its own readers who would never find my site otherwise. If you do this, use Medium's option to point back to the original post on your own site, so search engines credit your website as the source.
The order I'd learn them in
If you're starting from nothing, don't try to learn all eight at once. This is the order that would have saved me the most time:
- Claude. Learn to write a clear brief and to describe fixes in plain language. Everything else builds on this skill.
- Canva. You'll need images for every product and post.
- Beacons. Get a place to sell before you have five products sitting nowhere.
- Pinterest. Start pinning early, because it takes time to build momentum.
- Netlify. The moment you build your first interactive product, you'll need a home for it.
- ChatGPT for images. When your blog or shop needs lifestyle photos.
- GitHub. Only when you're ready for a blog that publishes itself.
- Medium. Once you have posts worth sharing twice.
What I'd skip
The most expensive mistake in this space isn't a bad tool. It's collecting tools. Every new subscription comes with a learning curve, and none of them sell anything on their own. Before adding a tool, I ask one question: what job will this do that nothing in my stack does already? If I can't answer it in a sentence, I skip it.
Want to see the stack at work? Entry No. 02 shows how I build a digital product with it, and entry No. 03 shows the blog that drafts itself.
The Saturday Build
One new build log a week, plus the prompts and tools behind it. No hype, no get-rich-quick promises.
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