Part of streamlining life and business is the action of consolidation.
It can start with simple things, just to get the ball rolling.
Here’s a few simple examples I’ve actioned in my personal life this year:
- cancelling a bunch of domain registrations I’ve had for years, but know I’ll never end up using
- cancelling streaming services
- reducing the number of skin care products I use (I’m down to just two)
- downsizing my personal office
- deleting dozens of apps from my phone
- simplifying my clothes, just blue pants and white shirts for pretty much everything now
Consolidating extends into business as well. At XEN, we’ve been consolidating:
- the platforms we use (our XEN tech stack)
- the tools within those platforms (just the items that matter)
- the processes we follow with those tools
- the channels we use (social, ads, messaging)
Our Tech Stack
Thought it might be interesting to detail our current tech stack, both the foundational, and the disposable.
Foundation:
- Google Workspace for Gmail, Calendar, Drive (Docs and Sheets mainly)
- Teamwork for managing all projects and delivery for clients
- Slack for all internal communication and chats
- 1Password for all our passwords and sensitive sharing
- Xero for all invoicing, accounts, tax compliance
- HubSpot for all our CRM, communications, marketing, sales, support, websites, email marketing
Disposable:
- Notion for all our processes, including onboarding
- Claude for AI (previously ChatGPT)
- Gemini for AI
- Canva for design work delivery
- Midjourney for image generation
- Envato for plugins, filters, and other design enhancements
- Loom for recording all our internal and client walkthrough videos
- Riverside for recording podcasts and YouTube videos
The disposable platforms are all easy to switch in and out (eg we replaced ChatGPT with Claude earlier this year, but could just as easily switch it out for something else in the future). Likewise we’ve been using Nano Banana image generation as much as Midjourney lately and could easily switch soon. Our video tools (including Veo, Seedance) are even more fluid.
We’re always reviewing platforms with an eye to remove them if they no longer serve our (our our clients’) needs.
Even our foundational platforms are switchable. For example we moved from LastPass to 1Password a few years ago following a breach in the former. It was a reasonably complex process in hindsight, but worth the effort. We could easily do the same with the other foundational platforms if we needed to (eg Google Workspace to Office 365) but only if it was essential.
Platform Lock-in
Many businesses worry about platform lock-in, as if that is a bad thing.
It can be if prices increase extortionately, or contracts hold a company to an agreement that no longer matches their business needs.
But if the functionality match is the basis for staying locked in then that’s a good thing in my books.
But are we ever really ‘locked in’?
Take Xero, which we use for accounts. We’ve used it since 2009, and at first glance it would be chaotic if we had to switch to MYOB or another provider at this stage. But I’d expect that if our business grew to a certain size it would absolutely make sense. Currently we’re locked in, but at a different stage of business it just becomes a growing pain to switch to another platform.
Same with HubSpot, which is a fundamental part of our business process, as well as the main offering we consult on. But if we, or a client, had to switch from HubSpot, it’s not that difficult a process. We know this because a reasonable chunk of our work is helping move businesses from other systems over to HubSpot – so it makes sense that the reverse can be just as smooth.
Overwhelm
We used to build websites using WordPress. Hundreds of sites over the years. Around 6 years ago we moved all our web design over to using HubSpot. Why? Because WordPress became a nightmare to build, manage and train clients on (and that’s before we got to the hosting and plugin updating issues). It got too complex. Consolidating websites into HubSpot was much simpler.
Most of the tools today are heading down the same path.
Take Canva for example. It used to be so easy to design in it. Now it is overwhelming. Canva is the new WordPress.
Software platforms are so focussed on more. More features, more AI, more, more, more. As if that is a good thing. It doesn’t make sense – at a time when we’re all overwhelmed, the output of platforms is making us even more overwhelmed.
Consolidation is the simplest defense.
