With online competition getting fiercer and traffic converting less, finding a steady stream of new customers is tougher than ever. Relying on just one channel is a recipe for disaster – I’ve had a Google update wipe out nearly 50,000 monthly visitors overnight, so I know that pain all too well.
A healthy business needs a balanced approach to growth. That’s why this week, I’m sharing a few powerful (and easy-to-use) tools to help you find new leads and keep your existing audience engaged.
Plus: a sneak peek at a browser that feels like it’s from the future, a look at the next big wave in AI, and a sobering reminder about data privacy.
If you think quizzes are just for BuzzFeed, think again. Involve.me is a powerful tool that lets you create interactive content like quizzes, calculators, and forms to capture and qualify leads.
I use it to generate email subscribers through gamification (and it works). For one of my projects, I built a quiz that recommends the best Spanish bank accounts based on user answers. It’s fun for them and highly effective for me, as it connects directly to Brevo (and other email marketing platforms), making it a seamless way to grow my email list with engaged subscribers.
But Involve.me does much more than just quizzes. You can build payment forms, lead qualification funnels, and even use their new AI features to generate campaigns or analyze submission data. The interface can take a little to master, as it has a zillion options, but it’s a brilliant tool for lead generation. Just note that it can get a bit expensive – sadly, all these tools do.
🛠️ Alternative to: Typeform, Interact, Thrive Themes Quiz Builder
Need a beautiful, single-page website up and running in minutes? Carrd is your answer. It’s a dead-simple site builder designed for creating sleek, responsive landing pages, personal profiles, or portfolios without touching a single line of code.
It’s the perfect tool for quickly spinning up a page to capture leads. Whether you’re validating a new idea, promoting a webinar, or running a special offer, Carrd lets you create a focused landing page. Plus, it integrates smoothly with popular email marketingplatforms like ActiveCampaign, Brevo, and Mailchimp, so you can send new leads straight to your list.
Of course, it’s not meant for building complex, multi-page websites – it’s strictly a one-page builder. But for creating high-converting landing pages without the fuss, Carrd is a serious alternative and an affordable choice.
Building an online community is a powerful way to engage your audience, but platforms like Circle or Mighty Networks can get expensive fast. Honeycommb offers a compelling alternative for creators who want to start building a dedicated community for half of what the big-name platforms charge.
It gives you all the essential features you need to get started: customizable spaces, member profiles, event management, and group chats. It’s a solid solution for creating a private, branded hub where your audience can connect and engage away from the noise of social media.
Based on feedback from my colleague Inka, “it’s a fantastic starting point for anyone who wants a basic, functional community without a hefty price tag. It may not have the design flexibility or advanced engagement tools of its pricier competitors, but it delivers the core features you need to foster a thriving community”.
If you’re looking for an affordable way to bring your people together, Honeycommb is definitely worth a look.
🛠️ Alternative to: Circle, Mighty Networks, Discourse
It’s Comet, a new project from Perplexity that embeds AI and agentic capabilities directly into your browsing experience.
From the moment you install it, Comet feels futuristic, with slick sci-fi motion graphics and sounds. But it’s not just style over substance. It can research topics for you, summarize long articles, and even help you with tasks like comparing products on Amazon, scheduling events in your calendar, or organizing your email inbox.
There is one catch: it’s currently on a waitlist, which only adds to the hype. I’ve been using it for a few days, and it’s already earned a permanent spot in my workflow. It makes me excited (and scared?) for a future where AI can control our entire devices, not just the browser.
🛠️ Alternative to: Arc Browser, SigmaOS, Google Chrome
You’ve probably heard a lot about AI, but have you heard of MCP?
It stands for Model Context Protocol, and it’s a concept that’s set to dramatically change our digital workflows.
You can use MCPs to get AI models like Claude or ChatGPT access to third-party tools – think your business CRM, your accounting software or your email newsletter tool. So you could chat and interact with those tools via your favourite LLM.
The trade-off is that you’re handing over access, so it’s smart to start read-only and only unlock sending or editing once you trust the setup.
You could do things like:
KPI concierge: “Fetch signups, conversions, and churn since Monday, and write a 120-word update for the newsletter author.”
Collections cleaner: “Find invoices older than 30 days that are unpaid, create polite reminders, and schedule send for 9 a.m. tomorrow.”
Customer support sweeper: “Check urgent tickets from the last 24 hours, summarize the top 5, and send the summary to the #support-updates channel.”
Lead refresher: “Pull contacts inactive for 90+ days, and draft a follow-up email suggesting a quick call.”
HR onboarding helper: “Identify new hires starting this week, generate welcome emails, and create Slack intros with their role and start date.”
Right now, Claude offers one of the most polished examples of MCP support, and ChatGPT is starting to experiment with similar features. You can also try apps like Cursor (an AI code editor that plugs into your tools) or AnythingLLM (a desktop app where you can connect your own sources). These are beginner-friendly ways to get a taste of MCP-style workflows without diving into complex setups.
🍿 Plot Twist of the Week
Tea, a women-only dating safety app, launched in 2023. It let verified women anonymously share “red flag” or “green flag” reports about men (a bit like Yelp, but for dating). Features included reverse image search (anti-catfish), background checks, and AI-powered gender verification.
A few weeks ago, it suffered a massive data breach, exposing the confidential information of its users.
This isn’t just another data leak; for many users, this information is incredibly personal and sensitive. The public exposure of these private conversations could have serious real-world consequences for the people involved.
Lesson to learn: It’s a stark reminder of how much trust we place in the apps we use every day, and how, as a society, we still haven’t learned to safeguard our privacy.
Thanks for reading! Next time, we’ll dive into the world of online learning and explore how you can create your own AI tutor with some amazing new tools.
🧰 Smart tools. Useful tips. Weekly. Hola friend 👋, I’m Josep. Each week, I hunt down practical tools and productivity hacks to help digital doers like you do more with less effort. Know someone who’d love this newsletter? 2,000+ readers already do (thanks 🙌). Share it with friends & colleagues so they can join too. This week, we're celebrating a special issue (#20), so I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of just sharing tools I love, I thought it would be fun (and useful) to...
🧰 Smart tools. Useful tips. Weekly. Hola friend 👋, I’m Josep. Each week, I hunt down practical tools and productivity hacks to help digital doers like you do more with less effort. Know someone who’d love this newsletter? 2,000+ readers already do (thanks 🙌). Share it with friends & colleagues so they can join too. This week: tools for the lonely wolf. I love the freedom that comes with being a solopreneur: flexible schedules, the ability to choose what I work on, and exposure to all aspects...
🧰 Smart tools. Useful tips. Weekly. Hola friend 👋, I’m Josep. Each week, I hunt down practical tools and productivity hacks to help digital doers like you do more with less effort. Know someone who’d love this newsletter? 2,000+ readers already do (thanks 🙌). Share it with friends & colleagues so they can join too. This week: tools to master the art of sending emails. Unlike social media, where algorithms decide who sees your content, email gives you a direct line to your audience. It’s one...