TL;DR: Cut your stack to one simple CRM and dashboard. Use BareStack to run leads, projects, time, invoices, and expenses without bloat—free, fast, and in your control.

Introduction

Solopreneurs don’t need a corporate tech stack—they need a reliable one. Every extra tool costs you focus, every pop-up feature costs you time, and every login costs you another slice of your day. The truth: most of what you’ve been sold is bloat. This post shows you how to run your whole operation with a simple CRM for solopreneurs and a minimalist, all‑in‑one business dashboard that won’t fight you.

You’ll learn what “simple CRM” actually means, how to avoid the bloat tax, and how to self-host without pain to keep full control of your data. We’ll compare options, walk through a clean deployment on Hetzner + Coolify, and share quick wins from real users. BareStack’s philosophy is brutally straightforward: speed, simplicity, ownership—no bullshit.

Why this topic matters

Minimalist business tools aren’t just a vibe; they’re a strategic edge. When you’re a team of one (or five), the cost of unnecessary complexity lands directly on your desk. You feel it in the time you waste, the follow-ups you miss, and the invoice you forgot to send because your “system” is split across six apps that don’t talk.

The bloat tax: You’re paying in money, time, and attention for features you never use.

Bloat is expensive. Not just in dollars, but in attention. Most “free” CRMs are an upsell funnel. They hook you with a core feature, then put the basics behind a paywall: custom fields, task automations, integrations, even export. You end up paying $30–$80 per user per month for features that look nice in demos but add zero to your bottom line.

Direct cost: Six tools at $10–$25 each becomes $60–$150 per month without blinking.
Indirect cost: The more knobs and menus, the slower you move. A bloated interface adds cognitive load that compounds across your day.
Hidden cost: Vendor lock-in. Once your data is stuck, leaving is a project you’ll never start.

If a feature doesn’t help you close, deliver, or get paid, it’s likely bloat. Kill it.

Context switching kills output: 6 tools → 6 logins → ~30% productivity loss.

Every switch between tools carries a reset penalty. Your brain reloads context. Studies peg this at minutes per switch. That doesn’t sound like a lot until you do it 20 times per day across CRM, project management, time tracking, invoicing, and expense logging. Conservatively, solopreneurs lose ~30% of their productive time to context switching and waiting on slow UI.

One stack means fewer tabs, fewer API hiccups, fewer “where did that note go?” moments.
A unified view saves seconds per action, and seconds compound into hours per week.
Latency matters: fast apps change behavior. If adding a lead takes two clicks and 300ms, you’ll actually do it.

Control matters: Self-hosting and data ownership keep your business resilient.

SaaS convenience is real—but so is risk. Vendors change pricing. They gate exports. They get acquired or remove features quietly. When you self-host a minimal stack, you own the database and the decisions. You can choose where your data lives, how it’s backed up, and when you upgrade. If you’re a solo or small team, a self-hosted CRM for small teams is not overkill. It’s leverage.

Portability: Postgres-first systems make exports and migrations boring and fast.
Reliability: VPS providers like Hetzner are cheap, simple, and predictable.
Independence: No VC treadmill means no surprise “Starter plan changes.” Your stack shouldn’t be held hostage by someone else’s growth targets.

Definitions that actually help

Most tool marketing is fog. Let’s clear it up with definitions that guide decisions—not fluff.

Simple CRM (what it is—and what it isn’t)

A simple CRM is the shortest path from “lead comes in” to “deal closed” to “follow-up done.” It has a contacts table, a pipeline view, notes, tags, and next actions. That’s it. No weird gamified dashboards. No wizard-driven “journeys.” No modal purgatory. It favors plaintext over page builders, and clarity over novelty.

What a simple CRM is:

A quick way to capture contact info and current status.
A pipeline with stages you understand at a glance.
A place to log notes, outcomes, and next steps.
A link to the rest of your work: projects, time, invoices.

What a simple CRM isn’t:

An all-singing marketing platform with funnels, whitepapers, lead scoring, and 3,000 reports you’ll never read.
An inbox replacement. You don’t need everything in one pane of glass. You need one pane with the right things.
A hostage-taker. You should be able to export everything in minutes.

BareStack leans hard into this definition. Contacts, deals, notes, and next actions are straightforward. You see what matters. You move faster.

Minimalist all‑in‑one business dashboard

A minimalist all‑in‑one business dashboard is one screen that tells you: What needs attention today, what’s in flight, and where money is moving. It connects four daily loops—sales, delivery, time, and billing—without trying to be your bank or your email provider.

Modules: CRM, Projects, Time Tracking, Invoicing, Expenses, and a Dashboard that surfaces next actions.
Design: clean, high-contrast, text-forward, with obvious affordances. BareStack uses a neobrutalist style on purpose—bold borders, no fluff.
Philosophy: Do the core 20% extremely well. Provide hooks to bring your own email, accounting, and files. Respect your time and your data.

Minimalist ≠ missing. Minimalist means no detours. Fewer knobs, more throughput.

Main comparison or analysis

You’ve got options. Some are pretty. Some are powerful. Some are simple and get out of your way. If you value speed, control, and low cognitive load, a minimalist all‑in‑one beats a patchwork of “free” tools that upsell you later. Here’s a pragmatic snapshot.

Option	Focus	Modules	Price	Hosting	Data control	Setup time	Best for
BareStack	Minimalist all-in-one	CRM, Projects, Invoicing, Time, Expenses, Dashboard	Free forever	Self-hosted or BareStack cloud	High (your DB)	15–30 min	Solo–small teams
HubSpot Free	Lead gen + upsells	CRM core, email, limited automation	Free → pricey add-ons	Vendor cloud	Low	1–2 hrs	Marketing-led teams
Notion + add-ons	Flexible docs	Projects, light CRM via templates	$8–$15/user + add-ons	Vendor cloud	Low–Medium	2–6 hrs	Notes-first workflows
Spreadsheets	DIY	Lists, manual tracking	Free	Anywhere	High	1–3 hrs	One-off or ultra-simple

What this means in practice:

BareStack gives you the essentials in one place and lets you self-host. You keep the database, you keep control.
HubSpot Free is great until you hit the paywall—and you will. Then you’re in their world.
Notion can pretend to be anything. That’s both the superpower and the trap. You build an app inside a doc and spend your weekends tuning templates.
Spreadsheets are fantastic until they aren’t. No workflows, no constraints, lots of manual mistakes.

To zoom in on the CRM piece alone, here’s a straight-up comparison that matters for solopreneurs:

Feature	BareStack	Salesforce	HubSpot
Price	Free forever	$25+/user/mo	$15+/user/mo
Setup time	15–30 minutes	2–6 hours	1–2 hours
Hosting	Self-host or BareStack cloud	Vendor cloud	Vendor cloud
Data ownership	High (export Postgres)	Low	Low
Core focus	Minimal CRM + delivery + billing	Enterprise sales pipeline	Marketing + CRM upsells
Cognitive load	Low	High	Medium

Ask this before you adopt anything: “Will this make my next 100 workdays simpler?” If the answer is a squint and a shrug, keep walking.

Deep dive: aspect 1 — CRM that stays out of your way

A simple CRM for solopreneurs should feel like a fast notepad with structure. BareStack’s CRM sticks to the basics that move deals forward. No circus. No “object relationships” lecture. Just work.

Contacts and pipelines without the circus: status, next step, owner—nothing else.

Every contact has the minimum you need to act: name, email/phone, company, status, owner, and next step. Deals flow through a pipeline you define with clear stages, like: New → Qualified → Proposal → Won/Lost. You don’t fill in 20 fields because “someone might need it later.” You fill in what helps you move now.

Inline editing lets you update statuses and next steps without modal fatigue.
Pipeline views are fast and readable—card-based, high contrast, visible tags.
Ownership is simple: a deal has one owner. If you need more, add a tag or an internal note.

When you actually see your pipeline, you work it. When you don’t, it becomes a stale report. This is why visual friction matters: low friction equals more updates, more updates equal more wins.

Notes, tags, and next actions: capture signal, skip the noise and forced fields.

Your CRM should capture conversation outcomes, not vanity. We’ve all seen CRMs that demand you fill in “Industry,” “Region,” and “Lead Source” before you can save a single note. That’s bureaucracy pretending to be insight. In BareStack:

Notes are plaintext-first, timestamped, and searchable.
Tags are flexible: use them for campaign names, product lines, or priority.
Next actions are explicit—each deal has one. Not 12 tasks across 3 boards. One next step, clearly dated, visible on the dashboard.

Productivity isn’t about more fields. It’s about fewer decisions per step.

Email the smart way: log outcomes, not your entire inbox. Privacy > vanity metrics.

You don’t need your CRM to slurp your entire inbox into a timeline. You need to capture outcomes that matter: “Called, left VM, try again Friday,” “Sent proposal, waiting for signoff,” “Intro accepted, call booked.” Log those. Keep your actual email where it belongs, in your email client.

Privacy matters. Not every message should live in a vendor’s cloud.
Speed matters. Logging outcomes is fast; syncing inboxes is slow and brittle.
Auditability matters. You want to see what changed and why without threading through 50 “Thanks!” messages.

BareStack takes the sane path: quick outcome logging, no creepy inbox scraping, and zero vanity metrics.

Deep dive: aspect 2 — Self‑hosting without pain (Hetzner + Coolify)

Self-hosting shouldn’t require a DevOps degree. The truth is, with the right stack, you can run a production-grade app in minutes and keep total costs lower than a single SaaS seat.

The 15‑minute deploy: Coolify on Hetzner lights up a production-grade app fast.

Coolify is a friendly PaaS you run on your own VPS. It gives you “click-to-deploy” for containers, databases, and background workers. Pair it with Hetzner for crazy-good performance per dollar. The flow:

Spin up a Hetzner CX11 or CX22 VPS.
Install docker and Coolify (their script is legit).
Deploy BareStack’s containers from the repo.
Point your domain and set environment variables.
Done. You’re live.

Typical time: 15–30 minutes if you’ve never done it. Less once you’ve set your rhythm. Coolify handles SSL, app restarts, and basic monitoring. It’s not magic—it’s just sane defaults.

Supabase for auth/data: simple, reliable, Postgres-first—your data, portable.

BareStack uses React + Vite + Supabase with Postgres under the hood. That means:

Authentication is modern and battle-tested.
Your data lives in a Postgres database you control. You can snapshot it, export it, or migrate it whenever.
Row-level security and role-based access are straightforward and auditable.

If you prefer, you can run Postgres yourself. Or use a managed Postgres from your provider. The point is: your data is first-class and portable. Not locked in a vendor’s proprietary silo.

Costs that make sense: a realistic $5–$10/mo footprint beats $50/user SaaS.

Let’s be adults about cost. A small VPS on Hetzner is ~€4–€6 per month. Throw in backups and you’re still under €10. That’s for your entire stack, not per seat. Compare that to “Starter” plans that look cheap until you add two teammates and suddenly you’re at $150/month for the basics.

Hetzner CX11: ~€4.15/month for light loads. CX22 if you want headroom.
Coolify: free, open source.
BareStack: free forever.
Your time: you invest an hour to set it up once, then go back to doing your work.

Self-hosting is not about being a hero. It’s about having leverage: speed, privacy, and predictable costs.

Case studies (short and real)

Two quick snapshots from folks who trimmed the fat and got their sanity back.

1) Freelance designer trims stack from 7 apps to 1

Sarah is a freelance brand designer. Before BareStack, she wrangled Notion for notes, Trello for projects, Toggl for time, Harvest for invoicing, Google Sheets for expenses, Wave for accounting, and HubSpot Free for leads. She wasn’t lazy—she was exhausted.

After switching, she moved contacts and deals into BareStack, tracked project tasks and time in one place, generated invoices, and logged expenses. She kept Google Sheets as a weekly CSV backup and left accounting to her accountant.

Time saved: ~5 hours/week from fewer context switches and faster updates.
Money saved: $68/month in subscriptions she didn’t miss.
Outcome: fewer missed follow-ups, faster proposals, and a calmer pipeline review every Monday.

Her words: “I didn’t realize how much time I was spending clicking. Now I just...do the work.”

2) 5‑person agency self‑hosts to cut SaaS by 68%

Mike runs a 5-person dev shop. Their stack was HubSpot Starter for CRM, Asana for projects, Harvest for time, Xero for accounting, and Calendly for bookings. The monthly spend was creeping up. They wanted control without building their own tools.

They deployed BareStack on a Hetzner VPS using Coolify, kept Xero for accounting and Calendly for scheduling, and moved everything else in-house. Setup took an afternoon. By the next week, their weekly sales stand-up took half as long because everyone could see the same pipeline and next actions without diving into three apps.

Cost reduction: ~$2,400/year saved after switching.
Speed: pipeline reviews dropped from 45 minutes to 20.
Control: zero vendor lock-in, with nightly Postgres backups they could restore in minutes.

Their verdict: “We don’t need enterprise. We need predictable and fast. BareStack did that.”

Decision framework you can apply today

You don’t need a week-long discovery to simplify your stack. Use this checklist to make real changes by tonight. Be ruthless.

List your top 5 workflows (leads, proposals, delivery, billing, reporting).
Kill any tool not tied to a workflow you use weekly.
Score tools on: setup (<30 min), speed, offline-friendliness, exportability, cost.
Demand data control: Can you export everything in minutes?
Pilot a minimalist stack for 14 days (BareStack + your accounting tool).
Measure: time-to-update pipeline, time-to-invoice, context switches/day.
Keep only what measurably reduces time or errors.

How to run the pilot:

Import your contacts and current deals as CSV into a simple CRM (BareStack).
Rebuild one active project inside the Projects module.
Track time for a single client for 7 days in one place.
Generate one invoice and log two expenses.
Review your dashboard daily and update next actions.

Define what “good” looks like:

Pipeline updates under 60 seconds.
New invoice under 2 minutes, including line items.
No more than 10 context switches per day across your core tools.
Zero friction exporting your data.

If a tool fails any of these checks, it’s not minimalist—it’s overhead. Replace it or cut it entirely. Minimalist business tools are about results, not purity. Keep what helps. Drop the rest.

You don’t need the “best tool.” You need the tool you’ll still be using in 90 days because it’s fast, boring, and obvious.

Frequently asked questions

Is BareStack really free forever?

Yes. No ads, no VC upsells. Host it yourself or use BareStack cloud. The core modules—CRM, Projects, Time, Invoicing, Expenses, Dashboard—are free forever. That’s the point of anti-bloat software: keep it simple, keep it accessible.

Can I migrate from spreadsheets or Notion?

Yes. Import CSVs for contacts, deals, projects, and expenses. Most solopreneurs start by exporting sheets and bringing them in. If you’re coming from Notion, export your databases to CSV and map columns in a few minutes.

Do I need to be technical to self-host?

Basic comfort with a VPS helps, but Coolify makes it mostly click-and-deploy. If you can set DNS and follow a readme, you can self-host. Or skip it and use BareStack cloud to start immediately.

How does BareStack compare to HubSpot Free?

BareStack is simpler, faster, and not an upsell funnel. HubSpot is great for marketing-led teams that want email drip campaigns and lead scoring. If you want a minimal CRM tied to projects, time, and invoices, BareStack keeps the focus on getting work done.

What about accounting and email?

Use your preferred accounting tool and email provider. BareStack stays focused on the day-to-day: CRM, delivery, and cash flow tracking. Connect output where needed—export CSVs to your accountant, and keep email flows in your client.

Will I outgrow a minimalist CRM?

Unlikely for 1–10 person teams. If you need heavy automation or complex attribution later, add it modularly. The point of a minimalist stack is to keep the core tight and extensible without dragging everything into one bloated monolith.

Can I host BareStack somewhere other than Hetzner?

Yes. Any VPS or container-friendly host works: DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS Lightsail. We highlight Hetzner because it’s performant and cost-effective, but you’re not locked in.

Is BareStack open source?

BareStack is built transparently by one person using AI, with a commitment to democratic access and data ownership. The stack is React + Vite + Supabase, and we expose exports and portability by default. Check the site for licensing details and roadmap.

Internal links and further reading

If you want to dig deeper into the thinking, costs, and trade-offs behind minimalist stacks and self-hosting for small teams, these reads will help you cut through noise and make a call you won’t regret in three months.

Read more: BareStack Manifesto (why anti-bloat matters): https://barestack.org/manifesto
Read more: Compare minimal vs enterprise tools: https://barestack.org/compare
Read more: Best CRM for Solopreneurs (2025): https://barestack.org/blog/best-crm-for-solopreneurs-2025
Read more: Simple CRM vs Enterprise CRM: https://barestack.org/blog/simple-crm-vs-enterprise-crm
Read more: Open-source CRM vs SaaS (no-bullshit): https://barestack.org/blog/open-source-crm-vs-saas-no-bullshit-comparison
Read more: Cut software subscriptions: https://barestack.org/blog/reduce-saas-costs-cut-software-subscriptions
Read more: Self-hosting guide for small business: https://barestack.org/blog/self-hosting-small-business-guide
Read more: Hetzner vs AWS for solos: https://barestack.org/blog/hetzner-vs-aws-cloud-costs-solopreneurs-guide
Read more: Coolify vs Vercel for self-hosting: https://barestack.org/blog/coolify-vs-vercel-self-hosting-solopreneurs
Read more: The Zen of a Simple Tech Stack: https://barestack.org/blog/zen-of-a-simple-tech-stack

Why this matters: decision-making speed. Each piece unpacks a slice of the minimalist puzzle—where the bloat tax hides, when to self-host, and how to stay nimble without duct-taping four tools together. If you’re on the fence, read two of these and you’ll know whether the minimalist route fits your business style.

The best stack is the one you fully understand and can rebuild in a day. These links help you get there.

Conclusion: key takeaway

A simple CRM and minimalist all‑in‑one dashboard will save you time, money, and sanity. If your current stack feels like a Rube Goldberg machine, it’s not on you—it’s the tools. Shrinking from six apps to one or two isn’t just cheaper; it frees your attention so you can sell more, deliver better, and get paid faster. That’s the entire game for solopreneurs and small teams.

BareStack exists for this exact reason: cut the bloat, keep control, and move faster. It’s built by one person using AI, with no VC pressure, no ads, and no growth-hack crap—just a clean, honest product that does the essentials extremely well.

Try BareStack for free at https://app.barestack.org. No credit card. No nonsense. If it doesn’t make your next 100 workdays simpler, don’t keep it. That’s the no-bullshit promise of minimalist business tools.