The Founder's Tech Stack: Why I Deleted Everything and Went Back to Excel

Key Takeaways

  • The Trap: We often confuse "configuring tools" with "building a business." If you spend 20% of your week updating statuses, you are an admin, not a founder.
  • The Pivot: I replaced 5 SaaS subscriptions with one "Boring Excel" document.
  • The System: A breakdown of the exact columns I use for Daily Planning, CRM, Finance, and Idea Filtering.
  • The Result: Zero friction, total data ownership, and a focus on "Energy Management" over "Task Management."

You have a match with a new productivity tool. You are motivated. You spend the weekend setting up the perfect Notion dashboard with interconnected databases and progress bars.

And then happens.

You stop using it.

Or worse: You keep using it, but it feels like walking through mud. Every task requires five clicks. Every idea needs to be tagged, sorted, and linked. You have built a digital dollhouse instead of a business.

Complexity is the silent killer of founder momentum.

It robs you of mental clarity. It fragments your attention across five different browser tabs. It makes you ask: "Where did I put that strategy document?" instead of "How do I grow revenue?"

Here is the hard truth: Tools don't solve problems. Systems do.

In this guide, I will break down why I deleted my entire SaaS stack, the psychology behind why we overcomplicate things, and exactly how I run my life and business on a single, boring Excel sheet.

The Diagnosis: Are You a "Tool Procrastinator"?

Before we fix the stack, we have to fix the mindset. Many founders use tools as a form of procrastination. It feels like work, but it isn't output.

Check yourself for these symptoms:

  • The Migration Addiction: You move your to-do list from Todoist to Things to Asana every 6 months, hoping the next tool will make you disciplined.
  • The "Dashboard" Obsession: You spend more time making your workspace look pretty than actually doing the work inside it.
  • The Data Silo: Your financial data is in QuickBooks, your tasks are in Jira, and your goals are in a Google Doc. Nothing talks to each other.

If this sounds familiar, stop looking for the next AppSumo deal. You need a downgrade.

The Psychology: Why We Love Complexity

Why do smart people build complex systems? Because complexity feels safe.

If you have a complex system, you can blame the system when things go wrong. "Oh, I forgot to update the Jira ticket."

If you have a simple list on a piece of paper, there is nowhere to hide. Either you did the work, or you didn't. Simplicity demands accountability.

By stripping away the features, I forced myself to confront the reality of my execution.

The "Boring Excel" Operating System (BOS)

My entire life—personal brand, HACOY, investments—now lives in one document. It has 12 tabs. Here are the 4 most critical ones.

01. The Daily Planner (The Micro)

Most planners are too rigid. Mine is a simple list with three columns.

  • Column A: The "One Thing": This is the single task that must happen today. Not three things. One. If I do this, the day is a win.
  • Column B: The "Batches": I group small tasks (email, invoices, calls) into a single block. I don't list them individually. I just write "Admin Block (14:00-15:00)."
  • Column C: The Score: At the end of the day, I give myself a score (1-10) on focus. This feeds into my "Energy Log."

02. The Personal P&L (The Macro)

I used to rely on accounting software that gave me automated reports I never looked at. Now, I manually enter every expense.

Why Manual? Because the pain of typing "€50 - Uber" makes you realize you are spending too much on Uber. Automation numbs you to spending. Manual entry creates consciousness.

The Structure:

  • Income (Sales, Consulting, Dividends)
  • Fixed Costs (Rent, Server, Insurance)
  • Variable Costs (Travel, Food, Gear)
  • Net Profit (The only number that matters)
  • Burn Rate (How many months can I survive?)

03. The CRM (The Network)

I realized that having 5,000 contacts in HubSpot is useless if I have no relationship with them. My Excel CRM is small. It has fewer than 100 active rows.

  • Relationship Tier: (Tier 1: Close Friends/Mentors, Tier 2: Business Partners)
  • Last Contacted Date: (Conditional formatting turns red if > 90 days)
  • The "Give": A column where I write down what I can do for them. Not what I want from them.

04. The Idea Filter (The Backlog)

I used to have ideas scattered across Apple Notes, Slack to myself, and random screenshots. Now, they go through a filter.

I still capture them on my phone (Notes app), but once a week, I transfer the good ones to Excel.

  • Column A: The Idea
  • Column B: The Status (Backlog, Validating, Killed)
  • Column C: The "Why" (Why does this exist? If I can't answer this in one sentence, I delete the row.)

The Rule: I am only allowed to have 3 ideas in "Validating" at once. If I want to add a new one, I have to kill an old one. This prevents the "Shiny Object Syndrome" that plagues most founders.

The "Energy Log" (The Secret Weapon)

This is the newest addition for 2026, and it has changed everything. I don't just track what I do; I track how I feel.

The Columns:

  1. Sleep Score: (Quality of recovery)
  2. Wake Up Time: (Did I stick to the routine?)
  3. Morning Energy (08:00): (Rated 1-10)
  4. Midday Energy (13:00): (Rated 1-10)
  5. Evening Energy (19:00): (Rated 1-10)
  6. Deep Work Hours: (Actual hours spent in Creator Mode)

The Insight: After 30 days of this, I saw the pattern. On days I used the Infrared Sauna at 11 AM, my "Evening Energy" was consistently a 7 or 8. On days I had meetings before 10 AM, my "Deep Work Hours" dropped to zero.

This data allowed me to build the Anti-Schedule. I stopped guessing and started optimizing based on my own biological data.

Conclusion: Be a Builder, Not an Admin

The goal of technology is to liberate us, not to enslave us. If your tools require you to work for them, fire them.

Go back to basics. Strip it down to the raw data. You will find that when you remove the noise of the "Perfect Tech Stack," all that is left is the work itself. And that is the only thing that moves the needle.

Start your own "Boring Document" today. You won't regret it.

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