You're probably wondering if Prepare to Catapult is real or another hype newsletter. It's real. We built this business on $1,000, zero employees, and a deliberately chosen tech stack. We're doing this in public because the tools are free or stupid cheap, and if you're a solopreneur, you can replicate this exact system by Friday.
Figure It Out: The Core Tech Stack
Here's what powers Prepare to Catapult. We're not hiding behind mystery, and we're not using enterprise software that costs $50K/year.
Beehiiv (Newsletter + Landing Page) — Your audience lives here. It's your homepage, your CRM, your signup page, all in one. Cost: free tier covers up to 10K subscribers. Setup time: 2 hours. Why it matters: you own your audience. Unlike Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram, your newsletter subscribers are yours — no algorithm can steal them.
Make.com (Automation) — The nervous system. It connects your tools without writing code. Cost: $0–$40/month depending on volume. Setup time: 30 minutes per automation. Why it matters: automation saves 10+ hours per week once set up. You're paying a robot to do repetitive work.
Perplexity (AI Research) — Unlike ChatGPT's knowledge cutoff, Perplexity searches the web in real time. Cost: free tier works; Pro is $20/month. Why it matters: credibility comes from current information, not generic AI fluff.
Claude (Content Generation) — Writes the bones of this newsletter. Not the entire issue — we edit heavily — but the first draft, research summaries, and prompts. Cost: $20/month. Why it matters: cuts 4 hours of writing down to 90 minutes.
Zoho Mail (Email) — Custom domain email ([email protected]). Cost: $2/month. Why it matters: you look professional. That's it.
Total monthly cost: $42–$62. You can start at $0 and add tools as you grow. Total setup time: 6 hours.
Quick Wins
• Use Perplexity's citations feature — every answer comes with source links. Copy those into your newsletter. Readers see you've done real research, not hallucinated facts.
• Set up a Make workflow to capture all emails in one place — route signups, sales inquiries, and customer messages to a single list. No missed leads.
• Create a Claude prompt template and save it — one prompt that generates your newsletter structure. Reuse it every week. Saves 30 minutes per issue.
Your Next Step
Pick one tool from the stack above that you don't use yet. Sign up for the free tier. Spend 15 minutes learning how it works. Report back.
— The PTC Team
P.S. Want the full prompt library we used to build this stack and the exact Make workflows? Join Catapult Pro for $9/month.