People ask me this constantly. “How do you manage everything?” “What’s your actual stack?” “How is it just you?”
Here’s the honest answer. it started with one evening, a tool called Greta, and a real estate calculator idea I couldn’t get out of my head.
How I got here
I bought Greta on AppSumo. Opened it. Started building. Within an hour I had a working real estate calculator app. Twenty minutes after that, Stripe was connected and it could actually take payments.
I’d been building on WordPress for 15 years. I’d never built an app from scratch in an afternoon.
I upgraded to Tier 4 before I went to bed. Not because I hit a limit — because I knew. That’s the test I use for every AppSumo deal. do I feel that pull within two hours? With Greta, absolutely.
That one evening sent me looking for more. Which is how I found Base44. I haven’t left.
The actual stack
WordPress — the foundation that isn’t going anywhere
15 years. I’m not switching. WordPress isn’t broken — it’s just been waiting for AI to catch up. What’s changed is everything that sits on top of it.
10Web — hosting that doesn’t require a sysadmin
10Web handles LoudCow.ai’s hosting. Managed WordPress, Google Cloud infrastructure, built-in optimisation. I don’t think about server stuff anymore. That’s the point.
I’ve tried cheaper options. You get what you pay for with hosting — slow sites kill conversions and I learned that the hard way on a client site years ago.
AppSumo — where I source tools before they get expensive
AppSumo is genuinely how I find most of the tools in this stack. Lifetime deals on SaaS software that would otherwise cost $50-100/month. My filter. who built it, how long have they been around, and can I build something real with it in two hours?
I’ve refunded plenty. The 60-day guarantee is real — use it.
Base44 — where the automation actually happens
Base44 is what runs the parts of LoudCow.ai that run themselves. The AI agents, the content publishing pipeline, the automations. It’s where I build apps now too — proper ones, not just experiments.
I found it chasing the same feeling I got from Greta. Base44 gave me more of it, consistently. That’s a rare thing.
The tools that didn’t make the cut
There have been plenty. Tools I bought, tested for two hours, couldn’t get anything useful out of, and refunded. I don’t talk about those much but I should — it would save you money. I’ll start doing proper “I tested it and got a refund” posts soon because honestly those are more useful than any glowing review.
Heads up — some links in this post are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Nuffin’s for free, right? This post was written by me, a human, after actual research and real tool-testing. AI helps me with the grunt work. The opinions are still mine.
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