Streamlined Solopreneur: Tips to Help Small Business Owners Grow Without Burnout

“What’s your exit strategy?” Someone actually asked me this when I was starting my business. I didn’t have one. I’m not in it for the exit. 

But the question went to something deeper: how are you going to make actual money? Because the problem is most solo business owners charge hourly. Or they need to hire to scale. OR they need to sell the business. 

But there’s a better way: Value-Based Pricing. And Jonathan Stark...

I am no Luddite. I have three pieces of technology that monitor my health and wellness. I’ve come to rely on many devices.

That is why I am doing a digital detox.

This is Paper and Smoke. It’s a look at how real-world craft happens, through the lens of a technologist going through digital detox. In a society increasingly online (and outsourcing thinking to AI), Paper and Smoke celebrates the real, the tangible, and the analo...

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they’ve consumed too much of something, and they find the very notion of consuming more sickening. This is the very basis for my yearly theme. 2025 was finally the year were I felt my overconsumption of technology was getting the best of me. So this year, my theme is digital detox.

Read the full article here: https://casabona.org/2026/01/2026-yearly-theme-digital-detox/

Show Notes

It's one of my favorite episodes of the year: my Favorites of the year! I'll go through all of my favorite media and tech of the year, as well as some close runners up and honorable mentions. Links below! 

• My Favorites of 2025
• When is it Time to Switch Tools?
• Paper & Smoke
• Book: Fahrenheit 182
  • Runner-up: The Anxious Generation
  • Honorable Mentions: Neverwhere, Tiny Experiments, Listening to the Law
• TV Show: Alex vs...

Knowing when to get help is so, so, so crucial to prevent burnout. Laura Brazan knew this, which is why she decided to hire me for coaching. During our few months together, I was able to save her a ton of time, help her create process automations, and consolidate her tech stack. She even said that she’s saving more than she paid me! 

In this interview, we look at where she was before she hired me, the changes we made, a...

I knew from a young age, I wanted to play the drums. I got my first small kit when I was five, and when my friends and I started a "band," heavy quotes, I played paint buckets. When I was 15 years old, I knew I needed a real kit.

This is the story of how I got it, and how one man's incredible kindness had a profound effect on me.

Show Notes

• Read the Story at Casabona.org

Submit feedback at https://streamlinedfeedback....

I started my Christmas vacation the minute my kids got out of school. I can do that because I’ve built a business that doesn't chain me to my desk. But if I’m being honest, I don’t take those two weeks off just to bake cookies and watch movies—I use that downtime to make next year even better.

When the house is quiet, I run a full self-assessment on my business to figure out how I can further improve my processes, workflows...

It’s a soon-to-be classic Pick 2 episode, where I pick 2 apps or tools I’m using and tell you about them. I say soon to be classic because I’ve wanted to do this for a while, and I’m finally going through with it!

This week, it’s 2 apps I’ve used before and stopped using, but I’m revisiting. They are:

• Bear Notes
• Blinkist
• Thanks to AppStories for the idea

Want to get the tools, apps, and automations I use delivered to y...

It’s no secret I’m a full-on AI skeptic. And while I still use it, I’m very, very worried about the long-term effects of overuse. I saw a number of stories over the summer that point to us losing our ability to connect with other people.

We’ve decided that efficiency and productivity are more important than everything, including accuracy and trust. That we’ve decided to implicitly trust something made wholly by other people...

What if your business could support your life instead of consuming it?
That’s exactly what Liz Wilcox has built — a $9/month membership that supports her family, her sister, and three other families… all while she takes summers off.

In this conversation, Liz shares how she built a half-million-dollar lifestyle business that aligns with her values — without sacrificing her time, her sanity, or her kid’s beach days.

Every year, I put together a massive gift guide for small business owners — but this year, I wanted to do things differently. Instead of rattling off every gadget and tool I’ve ever tried, I’m sharing the handful of products that actually made my life easier in 2025.

From sleep earbuds that help me get more rest (even with kids and a dog) to the smart home lights that let me skip climbing into bushes every December, these a...

Well, we're in the holiday gauntlet now. I've gotten several emails from small, service-based business promoting Black Friday sales, and I'm not sure that's a very good approach. I share my experience with successful, and less successful BF/CM deals I've run.

I also talk about my approach to affiliates,  and what I'm thinking about for that strategy in 2026.

Check out the 3 tools I'm actually promoting for Cyber Week: http...

My oldest daughter loves asking me to tell her a funny story about my wife from when we were dating... and I almost always freeze. It's not because there aren't any funny stories. It's because there are too many to pick from.

This is exactly what happens when you open Zapier without a plan. You're faced with a "blank canvas" and endless possibilities, so you freeze and do nothing.

You've heard about "triggers" and "actions,"...

Remember diagramming sentences back in school? I always thought it was pointless, but the real goal wasn't the diagram itself—it was understanding the structure of a good sentence.

The same exact logic applies to building automations. It's tempting to just jump into a tool like Zapier or Make and start connecting things, but that's like throwing a bunch of random words on a page and hoping it makes sense. If you want to bui...

Ever wonder if your newsletter should be the product…or just promote the product?

I’ve been treating mine more like a magazine than a sales tool — and it’s cost me. So I sat down with Dylan Bridger, who helps course creators and coaches turn their newsletters into profit machines.

We talk about:

• The difference between a “magazine” newsletter and a “sales team” newsletter
• How to actually warm up your audience so the...

When I was a kid, I said things like, “I won’t forget,” or “When I’m a dad, I won’t get mad.” Or…”I’m bored.”

But as you get older, and life puts you in various, unforeseen situations, it’s easy to get blindsided and react in a way you hoped you wouldn’t.

I think about this a lot when I consider what’s changed between turn 20 and turn 40. And there’s a common theme that has cropped up: pruning.

Letting go of what does...