Why You Don’t Need a Tech Stack to Start a Business

In this back-to-basics episode, we bust one of the biggest myths that trips up new entrepreneurs: the belief that you need a full tech stack to start your business.

Spoiler alert: you don’t.

Instead of spending your early energy building systems, websites, and automations, we walk you through what actually matters in the beginning: validating your idea, serving your first customers manually, and proving there’s real demand for what you offer.

You’ll learn:

• Why most new founders over-invest in tools too early
• What you actually need in the first 90 days (hint: it’s less than you think)
• How to build a simple spreadsheet and contact list to kick off sales
• When it makes sense to add a CRM, scheduling app, or website
• Why staying scrappy early on is the smartest strategy
• What kind of business-specific tech to plan for after your idea is validated

This episode is a must-listen for aspiring founders or anyone who’s felt stuck trying to “look official” before they’ve made their first sale. Cut through the noise, simplify your startup approach, and focus on what really moves the needle.

“In the beginning, your cell phone and a spreadsheet are more than enough.” – Anna Angelova

Transcript for “Do you really need a tech stack to start a business?”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

Anna Angelova   0:06
Happy Monday and welcome to a brand new episode of More Than Just Task Management, your favorite daily podcast where we help you build a thriving business with me, Anna Angelova, business coach and consultant, and my co-host, Joris Minsvan, the business consultant. Hey, Joris, Morning.
You’re muted.

Jores Minasvand   0:30
Must be Monday. Happy Monday.

Anna Angelova   0:35
Yes, it is Monday. So absolutely. So today, Speaking of being muted, today we are talking about technology and specifically the tech stack you need when you are starting your business.
And I will be very bold and say that you don’t need a tech stack when you’re starting a business. Doesn’t matter what business you’re starting for the first at least.
2-3 months probably you don’t need, you don’t need any technology, you don’t need a website, you don’t need a CRM, you don’t need All these kind of things because until you validate your idea until you actually start.
Testing it and start running something that I think it came from technology, but now it’s very widely used like an MVP, like that minimum viable product until you start running your MVP.
You don’t need fancy technology having your personal e-mail, your cell phone. This is more than enough for you to take the first steps of starting your business. Because as I said, yes, we All want to have the fancy website and for people to come and purchase.
Directly and we don’t need to do any kind of selling and things like this. But reality is this is not how things start. And even when you look at the biggest, biggest companies out there right now, the most successful ones out there right now, they All started in a small way. They All started without flashy technology.
Without the systems and the technology behind it, and I would highly recommend if you’re thinking about starting your business or if you just started, if you already have a website, OK, you did it. You need it anyway at some point, but focus on validating your idea, making sure that it’s.
Viable and getting those first clients, not just people who say, Oh yeah, it’s a good idea, but people who pay you to deliver value for them.
Unmute yourself. It’s a very mandation.

Jores Minasvand   2:58
I agree and and no need. I would even say three to six months of your business. No need to get fancy until you’ve proven your product service. You have enough. Basically if you get up in the morning and you look at your emails and your invoicing and your CR and the customer.
List in the Excel or the paper and you say, OK, so it’s gonna take me almost 11 hours a day today of my day today just to catch up with this. And by tomorrow I’m gonna have twice this this list. It’s only then you need to start.
Automating and you start using technology. Until then, again, what what happens is you’re going to go for an overkill of an application, you’re going to overpay for that application, and you’ll end up maybe not by the time you actually get to that level when you need it, you may actually need a completely different thing.
So it’s better to to wait. It’s it’s good to make sure that actually the process is OK, the process is is solid, the process can be automated and digitized and digitalized. But the actual tool itself, you don’t need it. Absolutely you can.
Take care of your customers and that’s where you actually need to be. Before we we talked about previous sessions last week, we talked about delegation and and car decoupling yourself from the the the company and not be the bottleneck, but before you get there.
You need to be there because you’re the one that has the passion and the mission and the vision that will tell your customers, yeah, this is the guy I want to work with. This guy will solve my problems. So until then, being involved, be there, be the person. It may be hard.
But that’s what you’re putting the proper foundation. But then when you get to a certain volume, then you can start thinking about automation technology and all that.

Anna Angelova   4:57
And again, when you’re starting and we’re talking about like the early stages, the early days of your business, what do you have right now? Your cell phone, your personal accounts is more than enough.
Is more than enough and whether you’re thinking of selling a product, like even physical products or you’re thinking of creating some kind of a SaaS solution, some kind of an application, this is what you need and.
There are so many examples, especially with again with the technology SaaS world. If you have read the book Lean Startup, there are a few examples of those minimum viable products and a minimum viable product when we talk about it can be.
Anything from a simple video, a simple ad that proves that people come and pay for something to one of the ones that it has a very good description and running lean as well talks about it is the concierge.
Experience where ultimately what you do for your first client and it’s not scalable, it’s not and it doesn’t rely on technology, it relies on you. Like you are ultimately the product because even again, even if you want to deliver whatever it is like a SaaS product application, you want to sell physical.
Products as well. You do things manually until you have the Validation that yes, people are buying and this is what it should look like. This is what they need. This is how I can get people to switch from whatever they’re doing right now, whatever they’re using right now, to to my solution, to my product.
Like what you have is more than sufficient. I would add that it’s a good idea to have a separate bank account, like open a separate bank account to keep track of.
The payments you’re getting just just so you have things set up properly. If you already have registered your business, absolutely have the everything goes to the business account. If you haven’t registered a business yet, have have a separate bank account that personal bank account where you keep the money from from your.
Sales, but ultimately again in the beginning, your cell phone. On your cell phone you can record videos, you can publish, post things on your socials like you can do so many things on your cell phone. And Joris, you mentioned Excel spreadsheet.
One of the things that we when we work with aspiring entrepreneurs, one of the things that we do with them is ask them to write at least 100 people they can Contact in an Excel spreadsheet. That’s it. You go to your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your phone even, and see OK, who are 100 people.
Contact and you don’t need any fancy technology if you don’t have Excel. If you use Google spreadsheets or whatever other spreadsheets, there are piece and paper you can you can get your notebook and write down the names there and.
I really love what you said, Joris, about.
Thinking that you still want to make sure again, validate the idea, make sure that the processes you are creating are good. And at the same time, yeah, you can think about OK, like how are you going to automate this? How are you going to what kind of tools we will you be using? You can start thinking about these things, but they’re not important in the beginning.
Beginning what’s more important is to get sales going and then from there, once you get the sales going, then you can start thinking. And as I was saying, especially if you’re working in a B2B, if this is something that where you’ll be selling to businesses, of course.
Registering your business, having your domain, your professional domain website will come at some point as well. Professional e-mail service where you can send emails to people. It’s a CRM at some point. Absolutely. You can have a business without a CRM of course.
And there are examples even, Joyce, you were saying about one of your clients and they are actually a multi-billion dollar corporation that they they don’t really have a CRM. So you can run your business without a CRM and it’s good like there are tools out there and especially nowadays.
Tools that combine All in one. Like at some point you might want to automate the way that people schedule meetings with you so you don’t go back and forth with All that this time work for you or that time you just send them the link to your calendar and nowadays like even.
We we do use Microsoft products and with Outlook and with Teams we can create different calendars even there where people can come and see when we’re available. We do have another service as well, but even without the other service, even without using a QE team.
Or any of the other scheduling systems that could. I can imagine that probably even Google Calendar has scheduling capabilities. So ultimately yes, one by one you will start adding these things.
But in the beginning you don’t need any of them. You’re you don’t need a tech stack. And if you are focusing on technology, if you’re focusing on the website and even building your application or something like this, you’re focusing your effort and energy on the wrong thing.

Jores Minasvand   10:53
It will eventually become a a distraction. That’s what you don’t want. Like you mentioned, you know you’re you need to focus on what you’re delivering, what your service is, and automation is secondary, absolutely.

Anna Angelova   11:09
Yeah, automation is secondary. And then again, it really depends on the business you are starting. Based on the business you’re starting, once, once you get your first sales, once you validate that there is a need and this is what it looks like. Then of course, depending on the business you’re starting, you will need different things like if it’s an e-commerce business.
Having your website up and running and people being able to purchase things and having the whole thing work is probably one of the things you’ll be focusing on. If you’re building a SaaS product as well, like you would want to have something a website ready where people can register and start using at least a better version of.
What you are offering now if you are using some kind of like if you have some kind of a service, whether it’s consulting or or accounting or if you’re a lawyer, you you might need as I said, scheduling like something to automate your scheduling here for your calendar.
Regardless of the business, having an e-mail where you can collect emails and send emails professionally, absolutely like this is this is a must have at some point in today’s world. So one by one you’ll be adding them but as you are starting.
Trust us. Trust the process. Don’t focus on the technology. Get out there and start selling your product. And we’ve do did mention this before. We are launching a brand new program, a brand new service.
To help aspiring entrepreneurs start their businesses. And if you are an aspiring entrepreneur, ultimately listening to this episode and you’re like, yeah, I want to have the business, but I I I don’t know how to start. I I don’t really know what to do.
This is the program for you and we’ll add the link so you can check it in the description of this episode and join the wait list so you can be one of the first people to start on this awesome journey and get your business in a in a matter of like.
For 90 days you can have your first sale without any technology.

Jores Minasvand   13:25
Read. Read. Very well put.

Anna Angelova   13:28
That’s something.

Jores Minasvand   13:29
Focus and move forward.

Anna Angelova   13:32
Absolutely. It is focus on what matters and in the beginning what matters is get out there, do the sales, deliver the value even manually and then focus on the tech stack. So I think we’ve repeated it enough times, hopefully.

Jores Minasvand   13:33
Yeah.

Anna Angelova   13:48
You understand it and again, trust the process. And if you need the help, if you want to, really don’t waste time. Like if you are someone who has been trying to to run your business or start a business in for a while for a few years now and things are not moving well.
Again, go check the description of our program and join the wait list because when you follow the right steps you can have your first or next sale in the next 90 days and.
Then from there it becomes a virtual cycle. From there it snowballs and you can build something amazing. So we look forward actually to seeing you in the wait list and then seeing you in the program itself and in the meantime tomorrow.
We will be back with another wonderful conversation and this one is all about delegating. As we mentioned, this could is a bit of a continuation for our conversation from last week, so.
If you’re just starting your business, this is probably not something that is relevant for you right now, so feel free to skip tomorrow’s episode. If you do have a business, and if you do have work that you’re delegating or you’re managing people, then come back and listen to this episode because.
It’s such an important topic.

Jores Minasvand   15:13
See you tomorrow. Thanks, Anna.

Anna Angelova   15:15
Thanks. See you tomorrow. Bye.