Ascend 101

Lessons about building a one-person business, writing, and self-improvement

My software recommendations

Running a business can feel overwhelming. But everything becomes 10x easier with the right tools.

The best part? Most of them are free to use.

We live in the digital age. The internet has given us so many new opportunities. Everyone can start their own business for free from home. There’s nothing holding you back anymore.

Let’s jump right into the best tools to build your creator business from anywhere in the world. (Some of these will be affiliate links, so if you sign up, I'll get a small referral bonus.)

Tool 1) Tweet Hunter

This is the foundation of my business. I absolutely cannot live without Tweet Hunter anymore. Everything I do on Twitter happens via Tweet Hunter.

From tweet scheduling and in-depth analytics to a fully functioning CRM where I can engage with others and reply to all the comments I’ve gotten.

Imagine opening Twitter and you see that you have 247 comments to reply to.

It would take ages to complete. But not with Tweet Hunter. It nicely lines up everything. All you have to do is write a reply and press enter.

Let alone the power of the auto DM feature:

Write a tweet mentioning that people have to like, reply, or retweet for you to send them something valuable. Enable the Auto DM option on Tweet Hunter. Fill in the DM you want to send. And watch everything happen automatically.

This feature is a godsend for doing giveaways. You get a ton of engagement and you don’t have to send a single DM yourself.

All-in-all a wonderful tool that I’d suggest anyone gets from day 1.

» Start Your Free Trial Here «

Tool 2) Beehiiv

Have I told you that email is king yet? Well it is. There’s nothing better and more effective than having your own email list.

My go-to choice is Beehiiv. Why? Easy. Scalability.

Beehiiv has the best platform and UI to start with. They also offer web hosting from the get-go. Which is important for content repurposing.

They also offer more growth-focused features that really benefit you as a starting creator. And it’s the most beginner-friendly software I’ve seen so far.

Beehiiv is also quickly catching up in terms of email automation. They’re regularly adding new functionalities each and every week. And they’ve announced that their functionalities will be on par (or even better) than ConvertKit's by the end of this year.

On top of all that. Beehiiv is absolutely free for up to 2,500 subscribers. Much higher than other choices such as Convertkit which is only free for up to 1,000 subscribers. (And gets more and more expensive as you keep growing)

And after your 2,500 subscribers? Well then Beehiiv is a measly $42 a month. You’ll easily be making far more than that every month if you have 2,500 subscribers. You’d be stupid not to accept such a deal.

» Click Here To Create Your Free Beehiiv Account «

Tool 3) Calendly

This one is self-explanatory. You need a way for people to book a call with you.

It’d be a nightmare if you had to send messages back and forth in the DMs to decide on a time when both you and the other person were available.

Calendly does this for you. All you have to do is fill in when you’re available and connect it to your calendar and my Zoom or Google Meet account.

Now people can choose a timeslot and it automatically schedules everything. Show up to the call and that’s that. It’s also free forever. There are upgrade plans, but those aren’t necessary for everyone.

» Click Here To Get Started «

Tool 4) Carrd

You need a landing page (or more). Carrd gives you landing pages.

It’s also entirely free. If you’d like to upgrade to more additional functionalities it’s only $19 per year. (That’s not a typo. It is in fact per year)

Carrd focuses on single-page websites (landing pages) so as to not overwhelm both you and the visitor with other pages that might steal their attention.

Perfect for maximizing conversions.

» Start Making Your Landing Pages For Free «

Tool 5) Stripe

Another self-explanatory one. You want to get paid. Stripe allows you to do so.

You can send invoices and payment links, and integrate them with thousands of other tools to automate everything. It also automatically creates invoices and receipts. Which makes your job a whole lot easier.

If you need anything payment-related. Stripe has got you covered. You only pay a small fee every time you make a sale. So no unpredictable costs.

Stripe isn’t available in some countries, however. Try Wise if that’s the case. I have no experience with it myself. But I’ve heard it does the job as well.

» Start Receiving Money With Stripe «

Tool 6) Gumroad

Gumroad is amazing. You can host your products, courses, services, or memberships on their site. Everything you offer can be done through Gumroad.

Again everything is free of charge, they only include a small service fee. Better yet, you don’t even need your own products to start selling.

Simply create an account and you can start affiliating with other people’s products. This is a great way to start earning when you have an audience but you don’t have your own product to sell yet.

» Create Your Account Here «

Tool 7) Zapier

This is one of the most advanced tools on here. Zapier allows you to connect all of your other tools and create workflows. Zaps they call it.

All with the intention of automating actions you otherwise have to do yourself.

Connect Twitter with Discord or Telegram to automatically share your tweets
Connect Calendly with Slack, email, or even text message anything really, to notify you or others whenever you have a new lead
Use it to automatically add customers from Gumroad to your Beehiiv list

Again it’s completely free for basic consumption which is more than enough for most people.

» Start Automating Here «

Tool 8) Testimonial

Building social proof is the biggest ingredient for success.

One way to do it is by collecting testimonials from people you’ve helped. This allows you to share it on your landing pages or even on your social media.

Testimonial is a perfect tool to do this with. Simply send someone your link and they can fill in a testimonial of how you helped them. They can choose between text or video.

All of your testimonials get neatly saved together and you can then reuse them to share wherever you want. The feature that makes this all worth it is that you can integrate your “wall of testimonials” into the landing page you made with Carrd.

Testimonial is entirely free to start with.

They allow you to collect up to 10 testimonials for free. And by the time you’ve collected 10 great testimonials you’ll be making more than enough to upgrade to a paying subscription and start collecting even more testimonials.

» Start Collecting Testimonials Here «

Tool 9) Grammarly & ProWritingAid

Last but not least we have our spellcheckers. Grammarly & ProWritingAid

Some people have this belief that great writers don’t need a writing tool. But let me tell you otherwise.

I’m not a native English speaker myself. And chances are you aren’t either. And even if you are, we all make spelling mistakes once in a while. So do yourself a favor and get a spellchecker to check your writing.

Nobody wants to make embarrassing spelling mistakes. You don’t even need premium versions of these tools. I use the free versions myself and that’s more than enough.

Reminder: Use it to get rid of those embarrassing spelling mistakes (it even corrected ‘embarrassing’ for me just now). Not to improve the style or voice of your writing. You don’t want to end up sounding like a robot. Do you?

» Get Grammarly Here «

» And ProWritingAid Here «

Wrap-up

I hope it hasn’t been overwhelming.

If you have any questions about any of the tools I mentioned feel free to reply to this mail.

I’ll gladly clear up any questions you might have and help you set everything up.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready. Here’s how I can help you:

Hop on a Clarity Call with me: Remove all of your uncertainty. Get clear on what you have to do, when you have to do it, and how. Let’s get you on the right track to achieving the freedom you deserve.
Work 1-on-1 with me: We’ll determine where you stand and where you want to go. Then we’ll devise a roadmap to get you from A to B that’ll get you there in the next 30–60 days.
Check out my products (free & paid): Ranging from every resource I ever read to everything I know about content creation. It’s all waiting for you to claim it. Start your journey to financial freedom the right way.