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Hey, {{first_name | product-preneur}}!
This week I was doing what I always do when I should be shipping something.
I opened every tool and asked AI what the title for my YouTube video should be, researched different topics, and had Claude going full speed.
Did the title make sense to a human? Maybe…
That's the trap. Instead of just doing the thing, I build the thing that helps me do the thing. I called it brain porn in the video coming out this week and I stand by that.
But this time, building the system was actually the job, because with a new job taking up my time, I needed to at least try to be more efficient. Here's what it looks like.
Brewers' Bulletin
🎥 Last week on YouTube: Why dating apps built a $6 billion business by keeping men confused, and I bet your product is making the same mistake. Watch now!
📒 The Leak Ledger: Every Friday for free, I audit three real products from Product Hunt and score them across five UX and conversion categories. View now!
Potion of the Week
Potion Hub inside of Notion in all her glory.
Potion Hub, my lil operating system for this entire brand, and it’s built in two layers.
Layer one is the brain. Before Claude answers anything in the project I created in the desktop app, it reads a collection of documents I've built over time that give AI the keys to my business and myself (sounds scary, I know).
Identity docs that tell it who I am and how I write. Platform OS docs that tell it the rules for each channel: YouTube, newsletter, LinkedIn, Shorts. Brand docs that tell it how everything should look and sound.
Not just one document. A collection organized by purpose to save me time through automation.
Claude reads the relevant ones automatically every chat session. That's what separates a system from an outdated chatbot. A chatbot forgets, but a properly set up system remembers.
Layer two is the production workflow. This is what I have my hands in every week.
It starts with the Content Brain database. One row aka page per video, newsletter, LinkedIn idea. Every piece of content tracked in one place, with Claude as my assistant (connected to Notion using an MCP connection) updating those rows as we work through things together.
Side note: I do use Notion’s native AI for some tasks, but I’ve found using Claude in the desktop app can give me better results.
Inside the main topic of the week lives a Production Brief, auto-generated from one command. I say "Run Production Brief for [title]" and Claude builds the entire pre-production package. Scored title options for YouTube ran through VidIQ and YouTube, beat map of chapters with clip zones, shorts scripts, newsletter outline, LinkedIn posts, Wispr speaking points.
One sentence typed. And it comes into existence. Poof.
From there, the Repurposing Prompt takes the final YouTube script and turns it into everything else for the week. One command, no decisions about what goes where.
The one question that governs every automation decision in this system: what's the one thing only I can do? Everything I've automated is built around that. Everything else stays mine.
This runs in 10 hours a week. It's not perfect. It still needs a touch up in places with my voice on things. It can't replace the moment a real idea hits on a walk. But it helps me ship every week, and that's the only test that matters.
If you want to build your own version of this, or want the full system when I package it up, hit reply and say "system." I'll reach out when it's ready.
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Corking Things Up
One thing this week for homework.
Pick one part of your content or product workflow that costs you 30 minutes or more. Ask yourself: what's the one thing in that step that only I can do? That's what you keep. Everything around it is a candidate for automation.
Hit reply and tell me what you'd automate first if you could. Real answer, I read everything.
👋 I’ll see ya next week! — Dana
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