Four months ago, I gave myself the challenge to switch over to a European tech stack. I'll be sharing my progress and challenges along the way - this is episode 1.

If, like me, you watch/read/listen to US content, you'll be exposed to mostly US companies, which can sometimes make it feel like that's all there is. But once you start looking there are so many European companies out here innovating, they just don't have as big of a platform (or the same expansion challenges, but we'll get to that in a later article).

The problem is, it takes work and time to research and test. If you're like me, most of your software decisions come from word of mouth recommendations under the assumption that the person sharing them has done the research. And B2B buying is the same - research shows that 80% of B2B buyers already have a preferred vendor in mind before they even start their research.

So we're trying to turn the tide with this project - or at least do our part. We'll be sharing interesting European products we test and discover and would love to hear from you as well!

So now you know the problem and we're ready to get into the thick of it. I did not start with the easiest thing to switch over but maybe the most business critical.

In January, I created a Proton account. Why Proton? Frankly because it was the most salient alternative (you're welcome to all marketing teams reading this 😅 ). Some people in my network were already using it and most importantly, it offered the full suite (docs, sheets, meet) making it the most viable all in one alternative to Gmail.

The initial switch over was easy, Proton has a switching services making it easy to move your emails over. But of course the crux of it is going to all the services you have an account for and updating your email there - an activity I sometimes see as a good opportunity to spring clean and most times see as a total nightmare!

This is the third time I'm changing emails (prior transitions: silly hotmail → profesh hotmail → profesh gmail) and this time I did this differently. Because I wasn't sure I would want to stick to Proton long term, I decided now was the time to buy a custom domain and set up an email address that I could take with me across future email providers (and never have to switch over all my accounts again 🙂 ).

I won't go into too many details but there is a price to switching away from Gmail and I assume from other big services (I'll keep you posted).

One is the literal price - Proton has a free plan but very quickly you'll want to switch over to paid (to use their desktop app for example).

And another is convenience. There's a lot to be said about Big Tech but in terms of functionality they are up there. They have the resources and the data to make their services as frictionless as possible and that's not the case (yet) for smaller tech. Not to mention that when you use a service whose main selling point is privacy by design, it's going to be that much harder to integrate with third party services (eg: scheduling tools like TimeTuna are harder to use with Proton as Proton Calendar doesn't have a Public API).

So if you're at the start of your journey, here are some thoughts from someone half a year ahead.

When I started on the journey I wanted to switch everything over in one fell swoop. Incredibly overwhelming. So just like with any Epic, I broke it down. Depending on your trigger, define your smallest increment (or in my case, my most business critical) and work on that. And then let the snowball roll.

Moving to a European tech stack is a lot of work. Some of it is really fun - like testing new tools, reaching out to people to ask for advice - but it's also time consuming. How long do you invest in a tool before testing another one? What conveniences are you willing to give up to feel more comfortable about the way your data is used? You have to make that choice over and over again.

So will I take region as a criteria when choosing software from now on? Absolutely! If I can help local-ish entrepreneurs take on the Goliaths of this world, I am more than happy to.

Will I have a fully European tech stack soon? Maybe. Probably not. Not because it's not possible, but because in the end, testing all these products is about finding the right tool for the job.

This is not a sponsored post. We are not affiliated to Proton in any way (apart from being fans!). However, we do have a referral link which will get you two weeks of the paid plan for free and get us a kickback on our plan.

If you have any recommendations for tool switches that have made you a happy camper, reply to this email and let me know! Right now I'm actively looking for and testing alternatives to Notion.