The Tech Stack Behind Elsiae Creative (And Why Every Tool Earns Its Place)
- Jul 26
- 4 min read
People often ask us what software we use to run Elsiae Creative. It's a fair question, and one we're happy to answer. But it's usually the wrong question to start with.
The more useful question is why. Not which tools, but what job each one is doing, and how it fits into the wider system that keeps the business running. So here's the honest version, tool names included, along with the reasoning behind each one.
Every tool needs one job
Our starting principle is simple. A tool earns its place in the business only if it has one clear job to do. Not five overlapping features we half use. One purpose, done well, connected to the rest of the system.
Before any tool joins our stack, we ask three questions. What specific problem does this solve? How does it connect to the tools already in place? What happens if we remove it?
If we can't answer all three clearly, it doesn't make the cut.
Our stack, organised by job
Notion is the operating hub. It holds our SOPs, project tracking, and internal knowledge base in one searchable place, so nothing depends on memory or scattered documents.
Figma and Canva both handle design, but they're not interchangeable. Figma is for structured, client-facing brand and web design work, where precision and collaboration matter. Canva is for fast, on-brand content creation, the kind of asset we need to produce quickly and consistently for social platforms.
Zapier and Make both sit in the automation layer, and again, they're not doing the same job. Zapier handles our simpler, high-frequency connections, the kind that need to run reliably without much thought. Make handles the more complex, multi-step workflows, where several conditions and tools need to talk to each other in a specific order.
LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest are our distribution channels, and each one is doing a different job rather than receiving the same content on repeat. LinkedIn deepens authority through more detailed thinking. Instagram educates visually, in smaller, more digestible pieces. Pinterest exists for discovery, helping the right people find us in the first place.
Gumroad handles the sale and delivery of our digital resources. Our resource library lives there, and it's where we keep the templates and tools we've built for other business owners who want to shortcut some of this thinking.
Why Fillout does two jobs most businesses split across two tools
Here's where our stack looks a little different from most. Instead of running one tool for forms and a separate one for scheduling, we run both through Fillout.
Every new enquiry comes through a Fillout form, which captures the right details upfront instead of leaving us to chase basic information after the fact. That same enquiry form is where our onboarding sequence actually begins. You can see it in action here: our enquiry form.
Fillout also handles our scheduling, which surprises people who assume everyone defaults to Calendly. The reason we made the switch is simple. Keeping intake and scheduling in the same tool means less handoff, fewer broken links between systems, and one less subscription doing a job another tool could already do.
If you're curious about building something similar for your own enquiry or booking process, this is the tool we'd point you toward.
Why three AI tools, not one
This follows the same one-job principle as everything else.
Claude is our strategic thinking and writing partner. We use it for longer, more nuanced work, where reasoning, tone and structure all matter, things like this article, client strategy documents, and systems thinking.
ChatGPT is our fast ideation and drafting tool. We use it for quick brainstorming, first-pass drafts, and lower-stakes writing where speed matters more than depth.
Gemini supports research and multimodal tasks, particularly where we need to process a mix of information formats quickly.
None of these tools replace strategic thinking. They support it, once the thinking has already been done.
How the pieces actually connect
This is where systems thinking replaces tool collecting. A new enquiry lands in Fillout, which triggers Zapier to create a project space in Notion and notify us of the details. Make handles the more involved onboarding sequence that follows, pulling information across tools so nothing needs to be typed twice. Canva and Figma produce the assets that go out through LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest, each shaped for the platform it lives on. Gumroad handles the transaction if a resource is purchased along the way.
That's the difference between a stack and a system. A stack is a pile of tools. A system is a pile of tools that talk to each other.
A framework you can borrow
If you're looking at your own stack and feeling that low hum of overwhelm, start here. List every tool you currently pay for. Next to each one, write the single job it's meant to do. If you can't name that job in one sentence, that's worth investigating. Then ask which of these tools are talking to each other, and which are sitting in isolation, waiting for you to manually bridge the gap.
You'll often find the problem isn't a missing tool. It's a missing connection.
The takeaway
A good tech stack isn't built by collecting recommendations from other business owners. It's built by understanding your own workflow well enough to know exactly what job needs doing, and then choosing the tool that does that job without asking you to compromise on the rest.
Strategy decides what the business needs to do. Systems decide how it gets done consistently. The tools are simply where that thinking becomes visible.
If your current tools feel more like a pile than a system, that's usually a sign the strategy behind them was never fully mapped out. We help businesses design the systems layer that sits underneath their tools, so growth doesn't depend on more software. It depends on better decisions about how work flows.
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