I want to talk about something that lives at the intersection of tech and business, specifically how the complexity of modern tech stacks is quietly killing solo businesses run by non-technical founders.
The setup
Imagine you're a coach or consultant running a solo business.
Your "tech stack" looks something like this:
CRM you half set up 8 months ago
Email platform that doesn't sync properly with the CRM
Website with outdated pricing
Zapier with 12 active zaps and 6 broken ones
Client onboarding split across Google Docs, Notion, and a folder called "FINAL_v3_ACTUAL_FINAL"
A growing list of "I should automate this" tasks that never get automated
From a technical standpoint, this is a mess that a competent developer could untangle in a weekend.
But here's the thing:
Most of these founders have no developer. No technical co-founder. No one who can say:
"You don't need five tools. You need three simple systems."
Why this matters to the dev community
We built these tools. We understand the complexity they create.
But we often forget that the people using them are operating without the mental models we take for granted.
When a non-technical solopreneur switches CRMs for the third time, they're not being irrational. They're making the best decision they can with incomplete information and no architectural context.
What actually helps
Not more tutorials.
Not another "all-in-one" platform promise.
Strategic technical guidance. Someone who can audit, simplify, and build automations that save 10 to 15 hours a week.
Some people are starting to call this the "fractional CTO" model for small businesses.
I wrote a more detailed breakdown of this problem and what practical solutions actually look like for non-technical solopreneurs over at FoundersBar.
→ Full article: foundersbar.com
Genuinely curious what this community thinks:
How much responsibility do we, as builders and developers, have for the complexity we introduce into the tools we build?
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