My Top Tips for Building Your Digital Product Business Tech Stack
Please note that this post contains affiliate links and all links are for products I personally use. 🩷
Hello! I get quite a few questions around the different tools I use to run and grow my business so I decided to put together this post with some tips and insights from my “tech stack” development journey. Let’s start with two different tech stack examples for two different sets of needs/budgets.
Definition of “Tech Stack”:
The combination of software that supports the unique, changing needs of your business.
“As Free as Possible” Tech Stack for a Digital Product Business
With the “As Free as Possible” business toolkit, you’re able to just START and focus on creating and selling. This is what I did when I started out and it was a blessing because I didn’t bog myself down with tools and features I didn’t need in the beginning.
Less than $100/year:
Website: Blogger | Free
Domain Name: Namecheap or Godaddy | $10 - $20/year
Business Email: Google Workspace | $7.20/month
Sell digital products on your own website:
Payhip | 5% of each sale (doesn’t include Stripe and Paypal fees)
Gumroad | 10% fee of each sale (doesn’t include Stripe and Paypal fees)
Email Marketing: Mailerlite or Convertkit | Free for up to a certain number of subscribers
Graphic Creation: Canva | Free plan
Video hosting: Use Youtube and upload your videos as unlisted if you don’t want the general public to view them. You can also use Canva to upload your videos and grab the embed link.
Notes on the downside of free tools:
Watch out for transaction fees
With the “As Free as Possible” tech stack, your business would cost less than $100/year assuming you’re on the free plan for an email marketing software.
However, this does not include transaction fees for selling your products using software like Payhip or Gumroad, which can quickly become expensive. This is why I use Teachery to sell digital products, which is free with my purchase of WAIM.
Bigger list, bigger bills
Also, once you’re on the paid plan for an email software provider, it will get more and more expensive as your list grows. This is why I use Flodesk (get 50% off with my link) - it charges me a flat rate no matter how big my list grows. You can always start with a free email software and then switch to Flodesk later.
Blogger vs. Squarespace
I also want to share my perspective on starting with a free website like Blogger. I LOVE that blogger made it so easy for me to start a website back in 2012. I immediately immersed myself in the joy of sharing my thoughts and creations.
It’s saddening to see so many people get bogged down with trying to “figure out” Squarespace or Wordpress and year after year will pass them by with no progress. I’ll always think that the magic is YOU!
So anything that makes it easy for YOU to just get your magic out there is always the best place to start.
However, it’s worth saying that when I switched from Blogger to Squarespace, I had to get a lot of help redirecting the traffic I was getting from Pinterest. So, in light of all that, my personal advice would be to start with Squarespace and KEEP IT SIMPLE so that you don’t have the worry of “moving to a new website platform” looming over your head.
Even a one page website where you just give people a way to get to know you, check out what you’re selling, and subscribe to you on social or Youtube is enough. Fleshing out your website with product pages, a blog, etc. can come after you hit publish on your one-page website.
P.S. Squarespace used to intimidate me too, but once I dived in with both feet, it is actually so easy to use and it’s only gotten easier and better every year. I’m actually thinking of making my own Squarespace website template for people use soon!
“Room to Grow” Tech Stack for a Digital Product Business
Less than $1000/year
With the “Room to Grow” business tech stack, you can trust that the tools you’re using are in your toolkit for the long haul. You won’t be bogged down with higher subscription plan fees as your business grows. With the exception of Zapier, you’ll pay a flat rate no matter how many subscribers or customers or products you have. If I were to strip my business back to just the essentials , this is what my toolkit would look like.
Website: Squarespace Business Plan: $23/mo
Domain name: Namecheap or Godaddy | $10 - $20/year
Business Email: Google Workspace | $7.20/month
Sell digital products on your own website: Teachery (free with purchase of WAIM or get the lifetime deal for just Teachery by itself HERE.) By having lifetime access to Teachery for selling and hosting my digital products, I have saved and made a significant amount of money. Here are 2 examples of how switching to Teachery saved me money.
Example #1: if I was still using Gumroad to sell my courses, I would be paying 10% to Gumroad for every sale. I have sold over $1,000,000 in digital products since 2020. 10% of $1,000,000 is $100,000!! No thank you.
Example #2: If I was still using Thinkific and paying a flat monthly fee of $99/mo, I would have paid $8316 by now! And I would still be paying today if I had not switched to Teachery.
Email Marketing: Flodesk | $35/mo (or get 50% off with my link)
Graphic Creation: Canva | $10/mo (if you want to access Pro graphics and utilize more features)
Automation: Zapier | $18.85/mo (when you have a lot of subscriber and customer activity in your business, Zapier helps automate things that you may have previously done manually).
Video hosting: Vimeo | $7/mo for the starter plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
QUESTION:
Why do you use Thrivecart to accept payments? Why use Thrivecart instead of just accepting payments through Teachery?
ANSWER:
In the beginning of using Teachery to host and sell my courses, I used Teachery’s payment pages and it was great! I processed over $100k in revenue with Teachery’s payment pages.
After reaching 6 figures in sales, I switched to using Thrivecart because I needed more robust features around my analytics, joint venture contracts, affiliate system, etc. If you’re just starting out, you probably don’t need Thrivecart.
Tip: If you join Thrivecart through my affiliate link, you’ll automatically get access to my Thrivecart template bonus.
QUESTION:
Why do you use Transistor to host your podcast?
ANSWER:
For years I’ve used free software for my podcast, and now that I have a back catalogue of a hundred episodes, it made a lot of sense for me to switch to Transistor. Here are the reasons why:
I can instantly insert a promotion in the audio and description of every episode. This means that when people listen to a podcast episode that I published a year ago, they’ll hear me talk about a promotion that’s happening TODAY. So cool. This makes those older episodes do more for me so I can do less.
It lets me create PRIVATE podcasts. This is great for when I want to create audios just for students of my courses and allows me to let go of another tool that I was subscribed to for this feature.
It gives me a website that is dedicated just to my podcast. It only took a few minutes to set up and every time I publish a new episode, the website is automatically updated too so I don’t have to work to maintain it at all.
It automatically publishes my podcast to Youtube for me! It even let me publish my entire podcast library to YouTube at once.
QUESTION:
Why do I need a website?
ANSWER:
I think of a website as the HOME for EVERYTHING your business has to offer. It can be molded to fit your own unique needs and grow with you. It’s where you where you drive traffic via your email newsletters, Youtube channel, and social media. It’s where you share your blog posts, videos and podcast.
It houses your sales pages, shop, and page of affiliate links. Basically it’s a place where people can enjoy your free content, subscribe to your newsletter and buy your paid offerings. Even if you’re using lots of different types of software to host your products, podcast, email, etc., your website is STILL an important ingredient.
It’s the place where all those pieces come together and where people get a sense of who YOU are and what you’re business is all about.
QUESTION:
Can I just use Teachery for my website?
ANSWER:
Technically you can create a “public” course in Teachery where people can access content without having to sign up, but I don’t recommend using Teachery as a substitute for a website. Teachery is great for hosting and selling digital products. I recommend Squarespace for your website.
QUESTION:
How do you connect Thrivecart and Teachery?
ANSWER:
After a customer checks out in Thrivecart, they get a link on their confirmation page to sign in to their course hosted on Teachery. Easy peasy. I’m going to make a new video on how I do this exactly, so make sure you’re subscribed to my channel!
QUESTION:
Can I sell and host courses directly on Squarespace?
ANSWER:
Yes! Squarespace now has a feature for selling courses. However, it requires locking yourself in to a higher subscription plan. I personally prefer staying on the lower plan with Squarespace for my website and using my lifetime access to Teachery for my courses.
One thing I think about too is the fact that the access that my students have to their courses does not expire. So by having my courses on Teachery, I don’t have to worry about paying forever for the ability to host my courses somewhere.
QUESTION:
What do you use Zapier for?
ANSWER:
I use Zapier to automatically add my customers from Teachery to the correct email list segment in Flodesk. So for example, if someone joins my Piece of Cake Podcast course, then Zapier automatically adds them to my Piece of Cake Podcast email list segment. Segmenting your list allows you to send more targeted emails.
If you use Convertkit or Mailchimp, you won’t need Zapier for this process. Both Converkit and Mailchimp are already integrated with Teachery.
However, a little birdie told me that a Flodesk integration might be coming to Teachery soon! :D When/if that happens, I won’t need Zapier any more.
QUESTION:
Do you have a team?
ANSWER:
Nope! Because I keep my business as lean and as aligned as possible, I’m able to run everything without the need to maintain a team.
I do have an accountant though! :)
Alrighty!
I hope this post was helpful and I just want you to remember that the process of optimizing your “tech stack” is an ongoing journey. Every year, you’re going to outgrow certain tools and dive deeper into others.
There is no all-in-one-platform that is going to fit everyone. We all have unique needs and we are energetically aligned to different aspects of different tools in different seasons.
So get excited about finding out what works for you! And don’t be afraid of technology. I used to be afraid of tools like Zapier and Squarespace. Turns out, there was nothing to be afraid of and these tools only get easier and easier to use because that’s how they keep their customers happy!
So just start and remember, the magic isn’t the tool. It’s YOU!
Like my approach to business and want more? Join me in Say Yes to Desire.
