Where are you right now?

Circle one. This constrains everything else.

IdeaValidating a problem; no paying customers yet; site is a landing page or notes. Pre-revenueBuilding in public or quietly; waitlist / demos; still shipping the first offer. Early revenueFirst sales or retainers; process is messy; you feel every tool invoice. ScalingRepeatable acquisition; hiring or contractors; downtime and bad data cost real money.

Pick a stage to continue.

Monthly tool budget?

SaaS, hosting, email, SEO, store add-ons. Exclude ads and contractor pay.

$0–49Free tiers + one cheap host. Prefer free/native; pay only for one bottleneck. $50–149Small stack that must earn its keep. One CRM path, one host, light SEO or store tools. $150–399Serious solo / small team. Managed hosting or paid SEO research becomes plausible. $400+Team workflows. Automation, seats, and reporting matter more than sticker shock.

Pick a budget band to continue.

Mark use / skip / later

One choice per row. If you cannot explain the “why,” default to Later.

CRM

Contacts, pipeline, follow-up

Use Skip Later

Hosting

Site that must stay up

Use Skip Later

SEO research

Keywords, competitors, content briefs

Use Skip Later

Storefront / commerce

Checkout, catalog, or no store yet

Use Skip Later

Choose Use, Skip, or Later for each category.

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One-week action — pick one; everything else waits:

Clean CRM stages or spreadsheet columns
Confirm backups / staging on your current host
Publish or refresh one page with Search Console data
Run a full test order (if you have a store)
Re-score when stage or budget band changes

Founder Stack Lab may earn commissions from some product links when programs are approved. This scorecard has no buy buttons — prefer free tiers until a paid tool removes a named bottleneck. Soft guides only: HubSpot Free vs paid, Semrush for beginners, Kinsta vs WP Engine, Shopify first-store checklist.

Founder Stack Scorecard

CRM

Hosting

SEO research

Storefront / commerce