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I used to create a skeptical VC investor persona through prompting whenever I ran ideas and actual business plans through AI. Recently, after working on a business plan for weeks, I used Claude Cowork with Opus 5/High to evaluate the same concept. Instead of prompting for critique and redesign each time, I built a Skill upfront. The concept is the same, but the Skill makes the execution much more effective. It reviews ideas or detailed business plans, researches first, and critiques only after that. It also analyzes and suggests wedges and new moats and, when instructed, generates detailed business plans. It works well as a one-shot analysis, but it is most effective when I push back and challenge it further. I’m sharing the Claude Skill for free under the MIT license: https://github.com/zszendro/vc-teardown Step-by-step: 1. I used to prompt AI to role-play a skeptical VC investor when reviewing ideas and business plans. 2. After working on a business plan for several weeks, I ran the same concept through Claude Cowork with Opus 5/High. 3. Instead of prompting separately for critique and redesign, I built a Skill upfront. 4. I designed the Skill to research first and critique only afterward. 5. I used it to review ideas or detailed business plans, analyze and suggest wedges and new moats, and generate detailed business plans when instructed. 6. I continued the analysis by pushing back and challenging the Skill beyond its initial one-shot response. 7. I shared the Claude Skill for free under the MIT license at https://github.com/zszendro/vc-teardown

A reusable Claude Skill called `trust-due-diligence`, packaged as a `.skill` file. It is not a single report; it is a methodology made up of a `SKILL.md` file and three reference documents that teach Claude a repeatable process for investigating a named person, company, coach, or offer before you commit money or trust to them. Once installed, it activates automatically whenever you ask something like “deep dive on X” or “is this legit,” so you do not need to explain the process each time. Step-by-step: 1. Package the `trust-due-diligence` Claude Skill as a `.skill` file. 2. Include a `SKILL.md` file and three reference documents. 3. Use the files together to teach Claude a repeatable due-diligence methodology. 4. Install the Skill so it activates automatically for prompts such as “deep dive on X” or “is this legit.” 5. Use it to investigate a named person, company, coach, or offer before committing money or trust.

I built a personal daily tracking system called Artifact. It gives me a way to log my days and turn the data into decisions over time. To use it, I copy everything attached—or screenshot the included “green orange red” example—and paste it into my AI assistant, preferably Claude. The assistant briefly interviews me and then builds a personalized daily tracking system.

My calendar is wall-to-wall meetings, so I built a Scheduled Claude Cowork task that automatically preps me for all of them (sort of like an AI Chief of Staff). Every morning, it scans my calendar, then pulls past emails, Slack, and my Granola notes for each call to build a context brief that takes 30 seconds to read before each meeting. It's simple and keeps me sharp for every meeting. Step-by-step: 1. I created a Scheduled Claude Cowork task that runs before my meeting day begins. 2. I had it scan my calendar and identify every meeting that needed preparation. 3. For each call, it pulled relevant past emails, Slack messages, and Granola notes. 4. I asked it to synthesize those sources into a short context brief with the information I would need in the room. 5. I read each brief in about 30 seconds immediately before the meeting.

I’ve been using a simple AI workflow to capture and act on my best ideas before they get lost between meetings. It’s been so useful that I wanted to share it for others to borrow. Here’s what I do: Step-by-step: 1. While walking between meetings, I open Wispr Flow on my phone and dictate every idea and takeaway into an Apple Note, completely unstructured. The goal is to get everything out of my head before the next meeting overwrites it. 2. The notes sync automatically to my Mac, where a scheduled Claude task runs at the end of the day through the Claude Desktop app and simple connectors. It reads all the voice notes I’ve added. 3. Claude structures the notes in Notion, where I do most of my work, turning them into to-do tasks with key ideas, action items, and suggested deep-work blocks in my calendar for the bigger items. I no longer stress about forgetting important meeting takeaways because, by morning, I have actionable next steps waiting for me. I never have to touch my keyboard.

I built an AI meeting-intelligence workflow that turns my meetings, emails, chats, and handwritten notes into one living action tracker. Every action stays linked to its original source, and the workflow automatically generates a prep sheet for each meeting. Two problems drove me to build it. First, provenance: action lists are often disconnected from their sources. A line such as “follow up with vendor on pricing” is much less useful when I can’t open the Teams message or email it came from to review the details or reply. The context disappears as soon as the action is recorded. Second, I take most of my notes by hand because I think better on paper. Those notes used to be a dead end: they never entered any system, so the follow-ups disappeared. The workflow runs on a morning schedule or on demand before a meeting. I use Claude in Cowork with MCP connectors for email, chat, and calendar. It pulls recent messages and upcoming meetings while capturing the deep link or ID for each source item, so every action can be traced back to the exact email or Teams thread. For handwritten notes, I photograph the pages into a OneDrive folder and tag them. The workflow uses OCR and vision to extract the text and action items. Quick shorthand tags—`action`, `prep`, and `done`—on messages and photos tell it what to track or close. A Python layer then deduplicates the actions, assigns each one a stable ID, applies the tags, and updates the master tracker while preserving the source links. The result is one self-maintaining action list. I can click any item to return to its original artifact to reference the details or reply, and my paper notes finally flow into the same system. To recreate it, connect an AI assistant to your mail, chat, and calendar through MCP and store each source link with its action. Add a OneDrive photo drop with OCR for handwritten notes, use a simple tag vocabulary, and separate the responsibilities: let the AI handle capture and OCR, while plain code handles deduplication, IDs, and status updates. Step-by-step: 1. I scheduled the workflow to run each morning and added an option to run it on demand before a meeting. 2. I connected Claude in Cowork to my email, chat, and calendar through MCP so it could gather recent messages and upcoming meetings. 3. I captured the deep link or ID for every source item, allowing each action to trace back to the exact email or Teams thread. 4. I photographed handwritten notes into a tagged OneDrive folder and used OCR and vision to extract their text and action items. 5. I used the shorthand tags `action`, `prep`, and `done` on messages and photos to indicate what to track or close. 6. I used a Python layer to deduplicate actions, assign stable IDs, apply tags, and update the master tracker without removing source links. 7. I used the resulting tracker to return to the original artifact for each action and to bring paper-note follow-ups into the same system.

Take the AI out of AI-written text. We all know its characteristics: it is sometimes overwritten and repeats itself. /humanise

I write murder mysteries, and like every author, I need an editor to help carry a story from the first raw idea to a finished, publishable script. The trouble is that good editors are rare. The insightful, reliable ones are expensive, and they are often slow. My first murder mystery took the better part of six months to edit. Even after all that time, I still found typos and clumsy sentences that should have been caught during the line edit and proofreading. That is not a criticism of editors; it is the reality of a manual, human-paced process that does not scale to the way I want to work. I do not use AI to write my stories. The voice, plot, and subtext are mine. But line editing and proofreading are different jobs, and that is where I started using AI. Basic paid ChatGPT got me part of the way, but it was not enough. In February, I switched to Claude, and it was a quantum leap: sharper suggestions, better reasoning, and output I could actually trust. I wanted more than a clever assistant. I wanted a process. Rather than wait for the perfect human editor—affordable, brilliant, and available precisely when I needed them—I built my own. My Claude Editor-in-Chief contains my entire editing workflow, along with a few innovations of my own. At its heart is a framework I developed: the Tension Coefficient (TC), ReaderGrip, and StoryDrift. These three lenses show whether a scene is pulling its weight, whether it keeps its grip on the reader, and whether the story is quietly wandering off course. Everything feeds into a dashboard, so I can see at a glance what is working and what needs fixing. The result is a workflow that turns editing from a six-month slog into something that takes a fraction of the time and, more importantly, produces a cleaner, tighter manuscript. I stopped waiting for help and built the editor I always wished I could hire. Step-by-step: 1. I kept the creative work—my story’s voice, plot, and subtext—in my own hands and used AI specifically for line editing and proofreading. 2. I started with basic paid ChatGPT, then switched to Claude in February after finding that it provided sharper suggestions, better reasoning, and output I could trust. 3. I built a Claude Editor-in-Chief around my full editing workflow instead of relying on Claude as a general-purpose assistant. 4. I added my Tension Coefficient (TC), ReaderGrip, and StoryDrift frameworks to evaluate whether scenes are effective, maintain reader engagement, and stay on course. 5. I connected those evaluations to a dashboard that shows what is working and what needs fixing. 6. I use the workflow to reduce editing time and produce a cleaner, tighter manuscript.

I turned tedious Google Business Profile spammer tracking into a Claude Skill. It organizes the research and puts all findings into an XLS file that can be submitted through the Google Business Redressal form and the GBP forum for escalation by a Google Product Expert for Google review. Step-by-step: 1. I created a list of suspected spam profiles with each business name and Google Maps URL. 2. I asked Claude to examine each profile, determine its website, and identify any relationships between the domains. 3. I asked Claude to identify other businesses operating at the listed addresses. 4. I asked Claude to determine whether each profile is listed with the country’s primary Google data provider or providers. 5. I asked Claude to determine whether each profile is listed in a state or government registry. 6. I asked Claude to analyze commonalities across the profiles’ reviews, descriptions, and photos. 7. I asked Claude to identify patterns indicating whether the profiles are fake or real and whether they are related in some way. 8. I had Claude compile all findings into an XLS file for submission through the Google Business Redressal form and the GBP forum.

I gave Claude Cowork a list of insurance providers and asked it to get quotes using my specific details, including my house address, number of bedrooms, and security features. I asked for multiple quotes covering extras, monthly versus yearly payments, and different excess levels. I then asked Claude Cowork to review the policy terms and online reviews to identify any potential gotchas. This helped me compare more than 20 quotes from major providers and choose the insurance that best suited my house. Step-by-step: 1. I gave Claude Cowork a list of insurance providers and my specific house details. 2. I requested quotes with different extras, payment frequencies, and excess levels. 3. I asked Claude Cowork to review the policy terms and online reviews for potential gotchas. 4. I compared more than 20 quotes and selected the insurance that best suited my house.

I built a weekly interactive training-course generator for my 10-year-old son and eventually landed on a much simpler final version than where I started. I wanted a way to teach him practical safety and life skills, starting with how to swim confidently and what to do if he gets into trouble in the water. I needed something more engaging than simply talking at him, but writing a polished, interactive lesson from scratch every week was not sustainable. First, Claude and I designed a single interactive HTML course as a proof of concept. It was a swim-safety course with a branded look, including a custom color palette, fonts, and a progress tracker styled like pool lanes. The course was divided into modules: a welcome screen, a comfort-and-basics lesson, a step-by-step skills walkthrough, a safety checklist, a “what to do if something goes wrong” module, a quiz, and a certificate at the end. The “what to do if something goes wrong” module was the most important part. Once the course worked, I wanted to reuse the same format for a new topic every week. Claude first built a version that called the Claude API live from inside the page to generate new content on demand. However, it only worked while the page stayed open inside Claude.ai, and occasionally a section failed to generate cleanly. We pivoted to a simpler approach. Instead of using a live tool, Claude documented the entire course format—including the visual identity, module structure, tone, and content rules—as a standing “brief” document. Each week, I open Claude Cowork, paste in the brief and that week’s topic—bike safety, fire safety, or whatever is next—and Cowork returns a finished, fully self-contained HTML file. There is no app to babysit and no live API call; I can simply open the file and hand it to my son. The result is a repeatable, no-maintenance weekly workflow for turning any topic into a polished interactive lesson for my kid. Step-by-step: 1. I identified a need for more engaging lessons on practical safety and life skills, starting with swimming and water safety. 2. I worked with Claude to create a proof-of-concept interactive HTML swim-safety course. 3. I structured the course into a welcome screen, comfort-and-basics lesson, skills walkthrough, safety checklist, emergency-response module, quiz, and certificate. 4. I tested a live-generation version that called the Claude API from inside the page, then noted that it only worked while open inside Claude.ai and that sections sometimes failed to generate cleanly. 5. I had Claude document the course’s visual identity, module structure, tone, and content rules in a reusable brief. 6. Each week, I open Claude Cowork, provide the brief and a new topic, and receive a finished, self-contained HTML course file. 7. I open the file and give the interactive lesson to my son without maintaining an app or making live API calls.

My Downloads folder had been filled with random files for the last six months, and I'd been procrastinating on cleaning it up. So I gave Claude Cowork access to the folder, and asked it to "help me organize this folder." In a few minutes, it went through almost 100GB of files, arranged them by file type and folders, and removed duplicate files in just a few minutes, something that could have cost me hours of work. Step-by-step: 1. I gave Claude Cowork access to the Downloads folder that had accumulated files for roughly six months. 2. I asked it to inspect the folder and propose a sensible organization rather than specifying every destination myself. 3. I had it group the files into folders based on type and content. 4. I asked it to identify and remove duplicate files. 5. I let the workflow process the full folder, which was nearly 100GB, in one pass.

I quickly capture my thoughts in Apple Notes, which serves as my mobile inbox. A scheduled Claude Cowork skill reads those notes through the desktop connector on my MacBook and processes them into my calendar and Obsidian. I organize notes using either the “Forever Notes” method (https://www.myforevernotes.com/docs/journal) or a simple YYYYMMDD daily-note format. Time-log notes record a start time, end time, and description, then save that information to the calendar app. The calendar holds the raw data, which I can extract into a separate Excel sheet if necessary. Planned schedules are checked against existing calendar entries. If an entry is already present, it is highlighted; if it is missing, it is added. This saves me the time and effort of opening a link or editing multiple fields in the calendar app. Random thoughts are filed into my second brain in Obsidian. They are processed with templates, moved to specific folders, or intentionally tagged. Apple Notes, Obsidian, Apple Calendar, and Google Apps are free. The only subscription I need is a Claude account to use Claude Cowork. Step-by-step: 1. I capture thoughts and other information in Apple Notes on my mobile device. 2. A scheduled Claude Cowork skill reads the notes through the desktop connector on my MacBook. 3. I organize the notes using the “Forever Notes” method or a YYYYMMDD daily-note format. 4. I process time-log notes containing a start time, end time, and description, then save them to the calendar app. 5. I check planned schedules against existing calendar entries, highlighting entries that are already present and adding those that are missing. 6. I extract the calendar’s raw data into a separate Excel sheet if necessary. 7. I process random thoughts in Obsidian with templates, move them to specific folders, or intentionally tag them.

I run operations for my husband’s residential architecture firm, and I have no coding background. After every site visit, dozens of photos landed in Google Drive named `IMG_8834.JPG`. Renaming and filing them took about an hour per visit, when it happened at all. When it didn’t, the photos sat unnamed and unfindable. For an architecture firm, that creates a professional liability gap because the photos document site conditions on a specific date, as well as lost portfolio material and a hole in the firm’s permanent project archive. I solved this by building a Claude skill: a saved set of instructions that runs the same way every time with one command. I trained it to examine each photo through the eye of a residential architect, describe what the image actually shows using our professional vocabulary, and rename the file in a consistent format. `IMG_8834.JPG` becomes `2026-07-17_03_side-elevation-porch-brick-piers.JPG`—searchable, legible, and filed. Because it’s a skill rather than a one-off chat, it’s a file I can hand to anyone in the office. Everyone runs the same process and gets identical output. Step-by-step: 1. I gathered the raw photos into one “unsorted” folder in Google Drive. 2. In Claude’s desktop app, I used Cowork mode, which handles actual files, and connected only that folder—not my whole Drive. This is the safety practice I’d urge anyone to follow: the skill can see and touch only what you connect, so connect the narrowest folder that does the job. 3. I created a skill that tells Claude to read each photo, identify what it shows using the industry’s vocabulary, and rename each file in a standard format. I wrote mine for residential architecture, but the approach also works for real estate, inspections, insurance, and other field work. My format is `date_sequence_description`. 4. I ran the skill with one command, and Claude worked through the folder photo by photo. 5. The renamed photos were filed into a dated site-visit folder, ready to reference by number in reports. 6. I handed the skill file to teammates so they could run it on their machines and get the same result. One caveat for anyone using this on business files: check your client confidentiality obligations and your AI vendor’s data policy before pointing any tool at project files. We did. I wrote up the full build, including how to decide when something should be a skill versus a regular Claude conversation, at The 2040 Studio: https://the2040studio.substack.com/p/every-img_8834jpg-is-snitching-on

For the start of the new school year, I wanted to use the current eastern Washington wildfires near Spokane with my two sixth-grade science classes. I wanted an AI tool to create a website I could upload to my hosting service. The site needed to provide daily updates from verified news sources, along with air quality data comparing Spokane in eastern Washington, Kirkland near Seattle, and Chimacum, where we live, on the western side of the state. I also wanted to include a simulation where students could change different variables to see how they affect the direction of the smoke and air quality. I could not decide which AI service to use, so I entered the same prompt into my personal paid Claude and Gemini Spark accounts, as well as my free teacher ChatGPT and Claude accounts, to compare which one created the best site for students. Here is the prompt I used: "Create a dynamic website with information of the Spokane, WA 2026 wildfires. Information include only verified facts from credible news sources. Information needs to be updated from when the largest fire started until it is completely put out. At that point, this website is complete and done. Include a page with air quality data. Provide air quality data on a daily basis from the onset of the fire to the end of the fire. Include Spokane, Kirkland, and Chimacum to compare the air quality from eastern WA near the fire, mid WA, and western WA. Include factors that explain the air quality such as winds, inversion, altitude of smoke and any other relevant data that students can view to answer questions. Provide a way for students to click on different variables to see how different factors affect the fire, direction of smoke, and air quality. Use the /inversa-design skill to make the website." Here is a portal page with links to all four sites: https://educatoral.com/2026SpokaneFire/ Step-by-step: 1. I identified the eastern Washington wildfires near Spokane as a topic for my two sixth-grade science classes. 2. I defined the website requirements: verified news updates, daily air quality data, comparisons among Spokane, Kirkland, and Chimacum, and a student-facing smoke and air quality simulation. 3. I used the same prompt with my paid Claude and Gemini Spark accounts and my free teacher ChatGPT and Claude accounts. 4. I compared the sites created by the four AI accounts to determine which one would be best to use with students. 5. I collected links to all four sites on this portal page: https://educatoral.com/2026SpokaneFire/

I built a model dispatcher to avoid paying premium usage for simple tasks. In Claude, every task runs on the model used by the current session, so a two-line formatting fix can consume the same level of model capacity as a difficult strategic problem. I had Claude build a scoring system that evaluates each task across six dimensions: required reasoning, the amount of context, the importance of craft or nuance, whether speed is the priority, the number of agentic parts involved, and the potential consequences if something goes wrong. Based on the score, it recommends a model—from a light, fast option for rote work to the most capable option for genuinely difficult tasks—and suggests how much effort that model should apply. The key design choice is that the dispatcher never spends anything automatically. Scoring is free and instant, while sending the task to a model through the API costs real money. Dispatching therefore requires an explicit confirmation flag every time. Nothing runs without me saying go. The payoff is not dramatic from day to day. It comes from many small savings that add up, along with a habit shift: I check the router before sending a task instead of wondering afterward why a simple request cost more than it should have. Step-by-step: 1. I identified the problem: every task in a Claude session uses the current model, even when the task is simple. 2. I had Claude build a scoring system that evaluates each task across six dimensions: reasoning, context, craft or nuance, speed, agentic complexity, and the potential consequences of failure. 3. I used the score to recommend an appropriate model, from a light and fast model for rote work to the heaviest model for genuinely difficult tasks. 4. I included a recommendation for how much effort the selected model should apply. 5. I kept scoring free and separate from dispatching, since sending a task through the API costs money. 6. I required an explicit confirmation flag before dispatching any task, so nothing runs automatically. 7. I check the router before sending tasks and benefit from small savings that accumulate over time.

I built Timelanes so you can type any topic into one text box, such as “The Space Race” or “my grandfather's war years,” and generate a visually engaging, sourced, shareable timeline in seconds. Step-by-step: 1. Type a topic into the text box. 2. Let AI generate the timeline with dated events, short descriptions, and source links. 3. Review citation coverage for each event to see what's verified at a glance. 4. Edit and reorder events, add images and milestones, and choose a theme. 5. Publish the timeline with one click to create a shareable page and embeds that auto-render in Substack and Notion. 6. Export the timeline as a PDF, Markdown file, or CSV. Bonus: Compare mode places two or more timelines on one shared axis so overlaps stand out.

I work with long talking-head videos for my online course and Instagram. Turning them into vertical shorts used to take hours per video: finding the best moments, cropping to 9:16, adding captions, or paying for clipping subscriptions. I built a video-clipping agent as a Claude skill that runs entirely on free, open-source tools. Step-by-step: 1. I drop a long video—either talking-head footage or an already-produced 16:9 video—into a folder and invoke my "clipper" skill in Claude. 2. Claude transcribes the video locally with faster-whisper using word-level timestamps, so no API key is needed. ElevenLabs Scribe is an optional upgrade for tricky audio. Before transcription, the workflow cleans the audio with declipping and normalization because clipped microphone peaks can make Whisper skip words or hallucinate. 3. The skill scores every candidate moment against a rubric: hook strength (30 points), whether it can stand alone (25), emotional charge (20), rhythm (15), and ending (10). Only segments scoring 70 or higher survive, so I do not publish a weak clip simply because it exists. 4. Claude cuts the selected moments with word-level precision and reframes them to 9:16 in one of two modes: face-tracking crop for raw footage, or "pad" mode, which centers the full 16:9 video over a blurred background. The latter lets me repurpose already-edited videos without chopping off centered graphics or captions. 5. ffmpeg masters everything to a fixed specification: 1080x1920, 24fps, H.264 CRF18, and audio normalized to -14 LUFS. The files are ready for Instagram, TikTok, and Shorts. 6. I review the scored shortlist and publish the winners. What used to take hours—or require a monthly subscription—now takes minutes and costs zero. The scoring rubric also makes the agent explain why each clip deserves to exist instead of simply cutting wherever the waveform looks loud.

I use Claude Cowork and Meta MCP to map my existing ad creative data and find winning combinations. Once the data is mapped, I can usually identify one concept that wins more often than the others, has absorbed more spend, and still maintains an efficient CPA. That is the winning concept, and it is where I should focus 60% to 80% of my production time. Step-by-step: 1. I connect Claude Cowork to Meta MCP and Google Drive. 2. I place the brief for every ad I published in the past 365 days into one Google Drive folder. Each brief includes the script, format, offer, and persona it was written for. 3. I prompt Claude to work through the Drive folder and build a spreadsheet tagging every ad by persona, angle, offer, and format. 4. I prompt Claude to pull each ad’s spend and CPA through Meta MCP and add those metrics to the spreadsheet. 5. I ask Claude to turn the spreadsheet into a flowchart in which persona branches into angle, angle branches into offer, and offer branches into format. Each branch includes its spend and CPA. After the data is mapped, I use the flowchart to identify the winning concept and prioritize it in production.