Let me guess.
You start your morning trying to “quickly check what’s going on.”
Twenty minutes later, you’ve got 11 tabs open. Two newsletters half-read. Three Twitter threads bookmarked “for later” (that never comes). And now it’s somehow almost lunchtime, and you haven’t written a line of copy, fixed that bug, or touched your product.
Welcome to the solopreneur content vortex. You’re not alone.
Yes, staying informed matters. Big time.
Markets shift. Platforms break. Competitors ship.
And if you miss the right update, you could spend the next month running in the wrong direction.
But trying to “stay on top of everything” manually? That’s a full-time job, and you already have one.
Here’s the shift: You don’t need to consume more. You need a system that filters the noise and surfaces only what’s worth your attention.
And you don’t need code to build that system.
In this guide, I’ll show you how to create a lean, no-code info radar; one that quietly monitors the news, trends, competitors, and events that actually affect your business.
Set it up once. Let it run in the background.
So you can spend less time chasing updates, and more time actually building.
Let’s get into it.
Stop Scrolling. Start Pulling.
Every solopreneur has their “info loop.”
You wake up, check Twitter, maybe scan Product Hunt, open a newsletter or two, peek at Hacker News, and, oh look, it’s already 10:17 AM and you haven’t done anything that moves your business forward.
But here’s the kicker: You don’t even remember half the stuff you just read.
It’s not your fault. The internet doesn’t give you updates, it gives you firehoses.
And when you’re building solo, you don’t need more content. You need less, but better curated, and always relevant.
So let’s flip it.
Instead of chasing information, you’re going to build a “pull system”, one that quietly surfaces what matters to you, while ignoring the rest.
No distractions. No tab overload. Just one clean feed of signal, not noise.
Build Your “Curated Intel Feed” with Feedly + Zapier
This system works like a silent researcher: It gathers updates from your trusted sources, filters them by your exact interests, and delivers them wherever you want; Notion, Slack, email - you choose.
Here’s what it handles:
- Industry updates (e.g., no-code platforms, marketing changes)
- New tools or launches in your space
- Trends or opportunities you're tracking (e.g., “AI for solo founders”)
The Setup (Simple, but Powerful)
1. Start with Sources You Actually Trust
Open a free Feedly account.
Add the blogs, newsletters (via RSS), and YouTube channels you already read when you want to learn, not just what everyone says you “should” follow.
2. Add Keyword Filters That Fit Your Niche
Tell Feedly what you care about:
- “Stripe”
- “indie SaaS”
- “no-code tools”
- “solopreneur marketing”
- “[Insert your competitor’s name]”
Feedly will highlight only posts that include those.
3. Connect It to Zapier (Or Make.com)
Set up an automation:
- When new articles match your filter…
- Send them to a Notion database, a Slack channel, or a private email
This turns your updates into a digest, not a distraction.
4. Optional: Tag or Archive Automatically
You can auto-tag articles by keyword or source, so you can filter later.
What You’ve Built:
You now have a self-cleaning news radar, one that:
- Surfaces only relevant updates
- Cuts your daily content input by 80%+
- Gives you a go-to place for market awareness, without doomscrolling
All without writing a single line of code.
Why This Matters (More Than You Think)
When you’re running solo, your time isn’t just money, it’s momentum.
Every 20 minutes lost in “just checking” mode is a broken flow state.
This system isn’t about staying informed.
It’s about staying in control.
You decide what gets your attention. You choose when to check it.
And you never again wonder, “Wait, where did I see that article?”
Let the Web Tap You on the Shoulder
So your news feed is running on autopilot. You’ve got curated content flowing into one clean place.
Great start.
But what about the stuff that isn’t in your feeds?
Like:
- A competitor quietly launching a new feature
- Your payment platform announcing a policy change
- A niche keyword you care about suddenly getting buzz
These things won’t always show up in the usual sources, and by the time they hit someone’s newsletter, it’s old news.
This is where smart alerts come in.
You don’t need to be online 24/7 to catch the right signals.
You just need the internet to tap you on the shoulder when something important happens.
Build Your Personal Watchdog with Google Alerts + Make
This is your “set it and forget it” surveillance system, except instead of watching everything, it only flags the stuff you’ve pre-defined as critical.
It’s perfect for tracking:
- Your brand mentions (or personal name)
- Product names
- Competitors
- Industry phrases
- Specific tools, APIs, or trends
The Setup (5 Minutes, Zero Code)
1. Create Laser-Focused Google Alerts
Go to Google Alerts and plug in search terms like:
- "no-code for e-commerce"
- "[Your competitor] + pricing"
- "Stripe + fees"
- "freelancer marketplace tools"
Use quotes to lock in exact phrases. Use + to combine keywords.
Set alerts to “only the best results,” and choose “once a day” delivery, unless it’s urgent stuff.
2. Plug It into Make (or Zapier)
Instead of clogging your inbox, send alerts to:
- A private Slack channel
- A Notion “Alerts” database
- A weekly summary doc
Use Make.com (or Zapier) to auto-route the emails to wherever you want.
No manual checking. No email noise. Just signals, where they belong.
Example Use Case: Tracking a Competitor
Let’s say you’re bootstrapping a product in the solo creator space. You want to know if a bigger player suddenly launches something similar.
Create an alert like:
"[competitor name]" + ("launch" OR "new feature" OR "announcement")
Set it to push directly into your Notion workspace.
Now, instead of obsessively checking their site, you’ll know within a day, without lifting a finger.
What You’ve Built:
- A zero-effort research assistant
- A real-time pulse on critical updates
- A system that keeps you aware, not reactive
This is how you scale your awareness without scaling your workload.
Why This Matters:
As a solopreneur, your biggest edge is agility.
You can respond faster than teams with red tape and meetings.
But only if you know what’s happening, when it matters.
Smart alerts give you that edge.
No noise. No guesswork. No inbox clutter.
Just the right signal, right on time.
Build an Economic Radar (Without Becoming a Trader)
You don’t need to obsess over macroeconomics, but you do need to know when the ground is shifting beneath your feet.
Why?
Because even if you’re not “in finance,” you are in business.
And small shifts in the economy ripple directly into how your customers spend, how your ads perform, and how your tools price themselves.
So let’s build a passive economic radar, one that keeps you informed just enough to avoid surprises.
Set Up Economic Alerts with Zapier + Calendar
You’re going to build a dead-simple automation that:
- Tracks major economic events (like inflation reports or rate decisions)
- Pushes reminders to your calendar, Slack, or inbox
- Gives you time to react (not panic)
This takes 10 minutes and saves you from flying blind.
The Setup
1. Choose a Trusted Economic Calendar
Pick one of the platforms that track the same big events. E.g. Investing.com
Such a platform should let you subscribe to economic events via RSS, email, or calendar feeds.
Pro Tip: Curious about how these macro shifts actually affect markets? Watching how key currencies move in response to inflation data or central bank announcements can help you anticipate changes in international transaction fees, pricing sensitivity, or even payment provider policies, giving your business a proactive edge. You could try an online forex platform to explore trends and see how currencies react in real time, no trading required.
2. Pipe Events into Google Calendar or Slack
- Use Zapier to create events or reminders based on the calendar feed.
- Push them into a dedicated “Business Watch” calendar or Slack channel.
- Optional: color-code “high-impact” events so they stand out.
3. Set a Weekly Review Slot
Check the coming week’s events every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes.
Now you’re not just informed, you’re prepared.
What You’ve Built:
- A proactive heads-up system for big economic shifts
- Zero stress, zero noise, just one clean reminder when it matters
- A way to make smarter decisions (pricing, launches, campaigns) with confidence
Why This Matters:
Most founders only realize a macro trend is happening after it wrecks their performance.
- Ad costs spike? “Weird.”
- Conversion drops? “Maybe it’s our landing page?”
- Stripe revenue dips? “Huh. Fewer international sales lately...”
By then, you’re playing catch-up.
But if you know ahead of time that, say, a rate hike or earnings report is coming?
You can pause that ad campaign, adjust your offer, or shift your messaging, before it’s too late.
That’s the kind of awareness that makes solopreneurs feel like they’re flying a jet, not pedaling a tricycle.
Build Your Weekly Founder Digest
By now, you’ve got three solid streams of intel:
- Curated news from trusted sources
- Alerts for important keywords and brand mentions
- Heads-ups for key economic events
But here’s the thing…
Even good information becomes noise if you don’t pause to reflect on it.
Most solopreneurs consume all week, then move on, no highlights saved, no lessons captured, no clarity gained. Just a vague feeling of “I read a lot… but I’m not sure it helped.”
Let’s fix that with a weekly digest system.
Not another newsletter. Not another tab to open.
A personal summary, generated by your own workflows, that helps you retain what matters and let go of everything else.
The “Founder Brief” System
The idea is simple:
- Automatically collect your week’s most relevant content
- Route it into one place (Notion, Google Doc, email - your call)
- Summarize it (optionally with GPT)
- Review once a week, then move on
It’s like having your own chief of staff handing you a 1-pager every Friday.
The Setup
1. Choose Your Storage Hub
Pick where you want to store your digest:
- Notion? Clean and searchable
- Google Docs? Familiar and easy to share
- Email? Great if you want a Friday recap in your inbox
2. Create a Zapier Workflow
- Trigger: New saved content in Feedly / new Google Alert / Slack tag
- Filter: Only high-signal keywords or tags
- Action: Append to your digest doc or send a daily email (which you’ll summarize weekly)
3. (Optional) Auto-Summarize with OpenAI
- Use OpenAI’s API or built-in Zapier GPT tools
- Summarize each saved link into 1-2 bullet points
- Clean up formatting so your doc is skimmable
This step is optional, but adds serious time savings if you’re info-heavy.
4. Block 15 Minutes Every Friday
Open your digest.
Skim the highlights.
Pull any key actions or insights into your actual work (marketing plan, product roadmap, launch checklist).
Then delete or archive it.
Done.
What You’ve Built:
- A single source of truth for your weekly learnings
- A content “drip pan” that collects insight so it doesn’t leak away
- A system that makes your consumption compounding, not chaotic
Why This Matters:
Most solopreneurs operate in reaction mode.
They’re overloaded with content, but under-equipped to use it.
This weekly digest flips that. It gives you:
- A mental reset
- A record of your evolving thinking
- A way to connect dots across different inputs
And, maybe most importantly, it creates space.
Mental space. Strategic space. The kind you need to see clearly and build intentionally.
Social Listening Without the Scroll Trap
You know the pattern.
You open Twitter to check what’s trending in your niche, just for a minute.
Forty-two tweets later, you’re reading about someone’s AI side hustle, a thread about how no-code is dead (again), and a take on pricing psychology that you can’t even remember five minutes later.
Social media is brilliant.
It’s also engineered to hijack your attention, one dopamine drip at a time.
And yet… Some of the best early signals - tool launches, positioning shifts, customer language - show up first on places like Twitter, Reddit, and even LinkedIn.
So what do you do?
You don’t ignore it.
You automate it, and listen from a distance.
The “No-Scroll Social Radar”
This system gives you the good stuff:
- Product launches
- Founder insights
- Audience sentiment
- Competitor activity
Without:
- Getting sucked into the feed
- Losing an hour to "one more scroll"
- Ending your day more distracted than when it started
The Setup
1. Identify the Signals You Want
What do you actually care about?
- Tweets from competitors or top voices in your space
- Mentions of your product or keywords
- Reddit threads about tools, problems, or trends in your niche
Get specific. Fewer inputs = stronger signal.
2. Use the Right Tools to Monitor
- Visualping: tracks changes to specific web pages (great for competitor pricing or product updates)
- Mailbrew: curates newsletters, tweets, and RSS into a daily digest
- NocodeAPI: pulls live Twitter data into Notion or Google Sheets
- F5Bot: free tool that emails you Reddit + Hacker News mentions of keywords
Set them to watch:
- Specific usernames
- Subreddits
- Product mentions
- Hashtags or exact phrases
3. Route the Output
Don’t let these alerts go to your main inbox, that’s a trap.
Send them to:
- A dedicated Slack channel (like #signal-drops)
- A Notion database tagged by source
- Your weekly digest workflow from the last section
Now, the scroll-worthy stuff arrives already sorted, without ever opening the apps.
What You’ve Built:
- A passive pulse on social conversations
- A firewall between insight and addiction
- A competitive advantage that doesn’t cost you your sanity
Why This Matters:
You don’t win by out-consuming others.
You win by spotting what matters before it becomes obvious, and acting on it.
This social radar helps you:
- Hear your market talk in real time
- See competitors pivot in public
- Understand what your audience is actually feeling
And you do it all without becoming terminally online.
Which means more time for building. More focus. More clarity.
Wrap-Up: You Don’t Need to Chase Everything. Just Build Systems That Catch What Matters.
Let’s be honest, most solopreneurs operate like human dashboards.
Always refreshing. Always scanning. Always feeling like they might be missing something important.
But here’s the truth: You’re not a news outlet. You’re a builder.
You don’t need to consume more. You don’t need to “stay plugged in.”
You need a lightweight system that watches the right corners of the internet for you, so you can focus on what actually moves the needle.
And now you have that.
💡 Here’s Your Move:
Pick one system. Just one.
Set it up this week.
Feel the shift - the mental clarity, the regained time, the reduction in “just checking real quick” moments.
This is how solopreneurs scale awareness without burning out.
This is how you become unshakable, not by working harder, but by building systems that work with you.
You don’t need to read everything. You just need to catch what matters, and keep building.
