Hey 👋
This newsletter is for independent creators, expression-minded solopreneurs, and makers who want to build meaningful work without losing heart in the process.
This was one of those weeks where I barely left my hotel room. I've been in Ho Chi Minh City for three weeks now, and most of this week I spent sitting in front of my terminal, connecting tools, building infrastructure, and working on client projects. Some nights until 5am. The results were insane. But the energy cost was real too. Let me tell you about it.
🧠 Reflection of the week
The hotel room and the terminal.
I need to be honest. This week I barely moved.
I sat in my hotel room in Saigon, laptop open, terminal running, headphones on. One night I looked at the clock and it was 5am. I was debugging a social media integration on my server. Another night I was setting up an AI agent on my VPS with a Telegram bot. The excitement of watching things work kept me going way past any reasonable bedtime.
And the results were real. I connected 20 tools to my AI setup. I built things that would have taken me weeks a year ago. I got client payments in. I wrote course materials. Productive week by any measure.
But here's what I also noticed. I didn't go to the gym. I went to the pool maybe twice. I could feel myself getting thinner (and not in a good way). My energy started dipping even though I was excited about the work.
There's this trap that happens when the tools are so good that you forget you're a human using them. You skip the walk because you're "almost done." You skip the workout because there's one more thing to connect. You eat at your desk because leaving means losing momentum.
I've been here before. And I know the fix isn't complicated. Go outside. Move your body. See people. The work will still be there when you get back.
If you're a remote worker or solopreneur reading this from your own version of a hotel room, this is your reminder too. The grind is real, but so is the burnout that comes when you forget everything else.
💡 Inspiration of the week
The solopreneur's control room.
Let me paint you a picture of what my setup looks like right now.
I open my terminal. From there, I can manage my Webflow websites, access all my Notion databases, read and send emails through Gmail, check my Google Calendar, browse my Google Drive files, run Meta ads campaigns, schedule social media posts, deploy code to Vercel or Netlify, creating presentation in Gamma.App, manage my VPS server on Hostinger, process payments through Stripe, and talk to an AI agent through Telegram.
20 tools. One terminal. No switching between tabs. No logging into 15 different dashboards.
This is Claude Code with MCP (Model Context Protocol). Each tool gets connected as a "server" that Claude can access directly. So instead of opening Notion in my browser, I just tell Claude "check my content database" and it does.
Instead of logging into Webflow, I say "update the hero section on my landing page" and it happens.
On top of that, I have my own VPS server running a social media scheduler, an automation platform, and an AI agent that I can message on Telegram while my laptop is closed.
I also installed 65 pre-built "skills" that give Claude specific knowledge about things like SEO audits, ad creative, email sequences, pricing strategy. It's like having a team of specialists available on demand.
A year ago I was outsourcing design work, doing a developer work for landing pages, and manually posting on social media. Now all of that runs through one place. And this is where I see things going. Not just for me. For every solopreneur who's willing to learn how to set this up.
The future isn't about hiring a team of 5 people and managing them. It's about one person with the right tools, the right connections between those tools, and the knowledge to use them well. That's the direction I'm building towards, and that's what I'll be talking about more and more in this newsletter.
We're entering the era of the solopreneur control room. And it's just getting started.
🔧 Tool of the week
Postiz: your own social media scheduler, for free
You know Buffer, Later, Hootsuite? You pay $15 to $50 a month to schedule posts across your social media accounts.
Postiz does the same thing, but it's open source and free. The catch? You need to host it yourself. Which sounds scary, but it's actually pretty straightforward if you have a VPS.
Here's how I set it up.
I have a VPS (virtual private server) on Hostinger. It costs me about $10 a month (I paid for 2 years, so it was actually cheaper).
On that server I'm already running my automation platform (n8n) and an AI agent (OpenClaw). Adding Postiz was just another container in my Docker stack.
The setup goes like this. You add Postiz to your server configuration. You create a subdomain to it . The reverse proxy handles SSL certificates automatically. And then you start connecting your social media accounts.
Now here's where it gets interesting and a little painful. Each platform has its own developer portal where you need to create an "app" to get API access.
For X/Twitter, you go to developer.x.com, create a project, get your API keys, and connect them in Postiz. Relatively simple.
For LinkedIn, similar process through their developer portal. Create an app, get credentials, authorize.
For YouTube, you need to set up a project in Google Cloud Console, enable the YouTube API, configure OAuth consent screen, and create credentials. More steps, but doable.
For Facebook and Instagram, this is where it gets real. You go to developers.facebook.com, create a Meta app, configure permissions (there are about 10 different ones you need), set up redirect URIs, and sometimes you need to patch the code because Meta's API has specific requirements with scopes and verification.
I spent one full evening just getting Facebook connected. Three different Meta apps before one worked. But now it's done, and I have X, LinkedIn, YouTube (two channels), and Facebook, Instagram, all connected.
Is it worth the hassle? For me, absolutely. Zero monthly cost. Full control over my data. And once it's set up, it just works.
If you're technical enough to follow a tutorial and have a VPS, give it a try. If not, Buffer is still fine. But if you like owning your tools, Postiz is worth a look.
Link: postiz.com
📈 Business development
I built a landing page in under an hour. Now I'm making a course about it. Actually, big update of my previous course ;]
This week I was finishing up a client project. Small thing. Design of a website. As I was working on it, I knew process could be much faster.
The landing page I just built took me less than an hour. Design and development. Done. Using AI tools for the design (Aura.build) and Claude Code for the code. One hour.
This same work, done the traditional way, would cost a client around 1,500 PLN for the design and another 1,000 to 1,500 for the development. Minimum. That's 2,500 to 3,000 PLN (roughly $600 to $750) and a two/three weeks of back and forth.
I did it in an hour. With tools that are available to anyone.
That realization is what pushed me to actually update my course about building landing page with LLM models.
It's a 5-day challenge called "Build website with AI in 5 days."
The idea is simple: coaches, trainers, consultants, anyone who needs a website but doesn't want to spend thousands on it, can learn to build one themselves using AI tools.
This week I wrote the full email sequence (6 emails, one for each day plus a welcome email). I updated all materials. Also created new prompts and mega-prompt that guides participants through creating their site. I defined the personas and visual cards for the course. The content is taking shape.
The target market is Poland first, English later. The price point will be somewhere below 100 PLN for the challenge, with a bigger course (300 to 500 PLN) coming after for people who want to go deeper.
The core message is this: the tools exist right now for anyone to build a professional looking website in a few hours. The knowledge gap is the only thing standing in the way. And that's what I want to close.
🎧 DJ Journey 🌏 What's new 🎙️
First podcast episode, recording today.
Something new this week. As you're reading this newsletter, I'm sitting down with Jacek, an AI and automation consultant, to record our first podcast episode together.
We're going to talk about Claude Code, about how AI is changing the way solopreneurs and small businesses work, and about what's actually practical versus what's just hype. A casual conversation between two people who use these tools every day.
No name for the podcast yet. No fancy intro. Just two guys talking about what they're seeing and building. I'll share the episode in next week's newsletter once it's edited and published.
If there's anything specific you'd want us to cover in future episodes, hit reply and let me know.
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That's it for this week. Less music, more terminals 😅
But the energy is building towards something bigger.
P.S. If you're a coach, trainer, or consultant who needs a website but doesn't want to spend thousands, Let me know!
It's coming soon.
💬 Any thoughts or reflections? Text me back!
Thanks for being here.
Have a good week and see yaa next Sunday ✌️
Bart
