WhiskeyRiver

The 18 AI tools running my business — and the 4 you actually need.

The complete stack I use to run a marketing agency, a media brand, and a venture studio — mostly by myself. Organized by what each tool does for your business. Free.

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Built for established business owners who'd rather run their business than babysit software. No hype. No jargon. Just what works.

From the mountains to the beach.

The AI Stack — Unlocked

The Exact Tools
I Use to Run Everything.

No hype. No jargon. Just what works. Check your inbox — the stack is on its way there too.

Updated June 2026 · WhiskeyRiver.io

Most "AI tool lists" are noise. Two hundred apps you'll never open, half of them dead in six months.

This isn't that.

This is the working stack — the tools actually running the business right now, organized by what they do for your business, not by what's trendy. Every one of them earns its place or it's gone. I update this monthly, because AI moves fast and so does the river.

Here's the part most people miss: the tools aren't the advantage. Everybody can buy the same software. The advantage is knowing which ones matter for your kind of business, and getting them working together. That's what this is.


01
The Brain
Your strategist, researcher, and second set of hands.

Start here. If you only adopt one category, it's this one. These are the thinking tools — the ones you talk to like a sharp employee who never sleeps.

Claude — Anthropic

My primary. The one I trust with strategy, long-form writing, analysis, and anything that needs real reasoning. If a task matters, it starts here.

ChatGPT — OpenAI

My fast lane. Quick drafts, brainstorming, and image generation when I need something visual in seconds.

Gemini — Google

Research and a second opinion. Lives inside Google's world, so it's strong when I'm working across Docs, Gmail, and the web.

Grok — xAI

My real-time radar. Plugged into X, so it's where I go for breaking news and what's happening right now in my industry.

02
Content & Social
Make it, publish it, track what's working.

This is how one person produces daily content without a content team.

TokScript

Pulls the transcript off any viral video in seconds. I use it to study what's working, then build my own version. Stop guessing what to post.

Canva

Where the graphics, carousels, and posts get designed. The closest thing to a designer-on-demand that a non-designer can actually use.

CapCut

Video editing for Reels and short-form. Cuts, captions, transitions — fast.

Metricool

Schedules everything and tells me what landed. One dashboard for every platform instead of logging into five apps.

03
Video & Voice
Show up on camera and on audio — without a film crew.
HeyGen

AI avatar video. Record once, scale everywhere. Useful when you need to be in fifty places and only have time to be in one.

Higgsfield

AI-generated video and images for social and ads. Visual content on demand when shooting it yourself isn't worth the time.

ElevenLabs

AI voice. Natural narration, voiceovers, and audio for video and podcasts. Sounds human, because it nearly is.

04
Find & Reach Customers
Marketing and lead generation.
Apify

Pulls clean prospect and competitor data off the web at scale. The unglamorous engine behind good outreach lists.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Finds the exact decision-makers worth reaching and keeps the pipeline organized.

Under the hood: Brave Search and the YouTube Data API feed live research and competitor analysis into the rest of the stack. More technical — ask me if you want the setup.

05
Build & Automate
Sites, pages, and tools — without hiring a developer.
Manus

AI website builder. Landing pages and full sites, deployed fast.

Replit

Build working web apps by describing what you want. How I prototype ideas without writing real code.

Cursor

The serious code editor for when a project outgrows the easy tools. Pairs with OpenAI's Codex for heavier work.

06
Run the Business
The back office that keeps everything from falling through the cracks.
Notion

The brain of the operation. Projects, content calendar, strategy docs, client pipelines — all in one place.

Fathom

Sits in every Zoom call, takes the notes, pulls the action items, and writes the summary. I never take meeting notes anymore.


The Part Most People Miss

What actually makes this work

Owning the tools isn't the edge. Connecting them is.

Behind this stack is an orchestration layer — a system that ties the tools together so they hand work off to each other automatically. I run a 24/7 AI assistant on it named Gigi, who manages email, coordinates projects, and keeps the whole machine moving while I sleep. A second agent preps my content before I'm even awake, so a finished package is waiting when I start my day.

That's the difference between using AI and building a business that runs on it. Most owners never get past the first one. They're not missing tools. They're missing the layer that makes the tools work as a team.

That layer is the whole game. It's also exactly what I help business owners build.

The Receipts

This stack, in the last quarter:

116

YouTube videos analyzed and optimized

4+

Client projects run at the same time, by one person

10+

Hours a week clawed back from busywork

Zero

Missed deadlines — the system tracks what I'd forget

The whole thing runs for a fraction of what the equivalent team would cost. The tools above replace what used to take a full-time assistant, a video editor, a developer, and a designer. That's the math that makes a small operation move like a big one.

Where to Go From Here

You don't need all of this.

You need the right three or four for your business, set up correctly, talking to each other. That's what WhiskeyRiver is for. Real tools, real setups, no hype — built for owners who'd rather run their business than babysit software.

From the mountains to the beach. The river keeps moving.

Some links above are affiliate links — if you sign up through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only list tools I actually use. That's the whole rule.