Updated
Nobody sets out to build a complicated software stack. It happens one apparently sensible subscription at a time.
One tool solves an urgent problem. Another connects it to something else. Before long, nobody is entirely sure where the customer record, document or task is supposed to live. The stack did not arrive as a strategy. It accumulated.
A tool needs a job, not a fan club
Running more than one business makes the cost obvious. Every extra login, hand-off and vague ownership point is another place for work to disappear. I am not trying to own the smallest possible stack. I want every tool to have a job somebody can explain without opening a slide deck.
If nobody can explain why a tool is there, that is often the answer.
The three jobs that earn a renewal
The tools that stay tend to do at least one of three things:
- remove repeat manual work
- keep important information together
- help somebody take the next action sooner
GoHighLevel sits around enquiries and follow-up. Make handles workflows with more than one route. ChatGPT helps me turn a blank page, rough notes or a large piece of information into a first version I can work with. None of them removes the need to decide what good looks like or who owns the result.
The irritation test
Every useful tool has an irritation. A limitation is not automatically a reason to remove it. Ignoring the irritation is how a stack fills with undocumented workarounds that only one person understands.
Before I renew, I want to know what the tool replaces, who is responsible for it and what would stop working if we removed it. If those answers are vague, I do not need a better feature comparison. I need a decision.