The Sales Tech Stack Guide for Founders Who Sell

The Sales Tech Stack Guide for Founders Who Sell

When you're the founder and the head of sales, every tool in your stack needs to pull its weight.
No fluff. No friction. No “shelfware.”

Here’s a tech stack built specifically for founders doing their own outbound—lean, effective, and designed to scale with you.

⚙️ The Core 5 Tools You Need

Let’s break down the minimum viable stack to sell smarter as a founder:

1. CRM: Pipedrive or HubSpot

Your source of truth.
Track deals, automate follow-ups, and manage pipeline visibility.

• Easy to use, fast to onboard
• Built-in workflows + integrations
• Visual pipeline and activity tracking

Want bare-bones simplicity? Pipedrive.
Want deeper marketing features? HubSpot.

2. Outbound Sequencer: Instantly, Lemlist, or Mailshake

Scale cold email without hitting spam traps.

• Rotating inboxes
• Multi-step sequences
• Open/reply tracking

Pro tip: Start with Instantly. It’s fast, clean, and integrates easily.

3. Dialer: JustCall or PhoneBurner

Don’t burn time dialing manually.
Click-to-call from your CRM and drop pre-recorded voicemails.

• Auto-logging to CRM
• Local presence calling
• Call cadences and scripts

JustCall = sleek & CRM friendly. PhoneBurner = power dialer mode.

4. Data Source: Apollo or ZoomInfo

You can’t close deals without leads.
Use filters to find your ICP, enrich contacts, and feed your CRM.

• Export to CRM with one click
• Real-time data enrichment
• Email + phone + social

Apollo is more startup-friendly on pricing and UI.

5. Automation Layer: Zapier or Make

Glue it all together.

• Auto-create tasks
• Sync lead status
• Trigger email follow-ups or Slack alerts

Use Zapier to get started. Upgrade to Make when flows get complex.

💡 Optional, But Worth It:

• Slack – Alerts for deal updates, pipeline changes, or hot replies
• Google Sheets / Airtable – Lightweight reporting dashboards
• Looker Studio – For visual KPI tracking if your CRM reports suck

🔄 Sample Sales Flow (Everything Connected):

1. Lead scraped from Apollo
2. Synced to Pipedrive via Zapier
3. Added to cold email sequence in Instantly
4. Called with JustCall if no reply
5. Replies routed back to Slack + CRM
6. Dashboard tracks open rates, deal stages, and meeting conversion

This is the kind of flow you can manage as a team of one—and scale to a team of 5+ without ripping it all apart.

✅ Final Thoughts

If you're a founder wearing the sales hat, your stack should reduce drag, not add it.

Start lean. Automate the busywork. Stay focused on conversations.

Need help wiring it all together? [Mektra builds sales stacks for founders who sell—without the bloat.]