While that argument runs, the real choice sits untouched. Both companies build the same three shapes. Picking by logo means you use the wrong shape for the job, then blame the brand for the result.

What you will be able to do

• Name the three shapes both companies build, and match them across brands.

• Read any model name and tell the generation apart from the size tier.

• Pick between the two tools using two questions, in about ten seconds.

• Hand over a whole job instead of asking a question, and get a finished file back.

• Spot the five quiet gates that make a request fail without an error message.

This is for anyone paying for one and wondering about the other, or paying for both and not sure why.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott teaches beginners and non-technical people, and she runs 33 active social brands. She has no loyalty to a logo, and neither does this lesson.

What this lesson is

Lesson 2.4 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 2: Choosing Your AI.

The question people ask is "which one is better." That question has no answer, and asking it keeps you stuck.

Here is what is actually true. Both companies build the same three shapes, and they always have. A chat surface for thinking. A work surface that hands you a finished file or takes a real action in an app you connected. A build surface that makes something that runs.

Anthropic calls those Claude, Cowork, and Claude Code. OpenAI calls them Chat, Work, and Codex. Different names, same three shapes. When one company ships something new, the other usually ships its version within a few months. So whoever is ahead today is a snapshot, not a fact about the world.

Think of it like two supermarkets on the same street. Both sell bread, milk, and eggs. One has better bread this month. Next month the other one hires a new baker. If you have a loyalty card for one and refuse to walk into the other, you eat worse bread for no reason.

What does not flip every few months is the shape of your own work. Some of your work lives in cloud apps: research, docs, decks, reports. Some of it lives on your actual computer: downloads, spreadsheets, PDFs, the mess on your desktop. That difference is stable, and it is the best thing to choose on.

The second stable thing is how clear you are. When you already know exactly what you want, you want a tool that starts moving. When the job is fuzzy or the stakes are high, you want one that asks questions and pauses before it commits.

Those two questions pick your tool. Not the logo.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: Learn the three shapes

Memorize this table and you can drop any new product into it.

The job / OpenAI calls it / Anthropic calls it / What comes out

• Thinking with you

• OpenAI calls it: Chat

• Anthropic calls it: Claude Chat

• What comes out: Answers, arguments, drafts, a second opinion. Nothing is saved or sent.

• Office work, finished files

• OpenAI calls it: Work

• Anthropic calls it: Cowork

• What comes out: A finished file, or a real action inside an app you connected.

• Building things that run

• OpenAI calls it: Codex

• Anthropic calls it: Claude Code

• What comes out: Something that runs. A site, a script, a change to your files.

One line sorts all of it: Chat gives you thinking. Work gives you a finished thing. The build surface gives you something that runs. Name which one you want before you type, and you are ahead of most people.

Inside ChatGPT the first two sit on a toggle right above the box you type in. The build surface sits one level up, in a product selector, not on that toggle. So switching to it means leaving the chat product, not flipping the switch. In Claude, Chat and Cowork are separate places in the desktop app sidebar, and Claude Code is its own thing.

Part 2: Read a model name

Model names carry two pieces of information and beginners mix them up.

The number is the generation. It tells you how new the underlying tech is.

The word is the tier. It tells you how much power you are using and paying for.

So a lineup might ship as one generation with three tier names on it. One example lineup used Sol for the strongest, Terra for the everyday one, and Luna for the fast cheap one. When the next generation shipped, the same three tier names came with it. Same three jobs, newer brains.

That is the whole trick. When you see a new name, ask which of the three sizes from lesson 2.1 it is. The tier names will keep coming back. The numbers will keep going up.

On prices. Guides love to quote model prices as two numbers, like "$5 in and $30 out per million tokens." Those are pay-as-you-go prices for people building software on the API. If you pay a monthly subscription and use the app, those numbers are not your bill. They are still useful for one thing: they tell you the ranking. The tier that costs five times more per token is the tier that costs you more of your monthly limit per message.

On what the tiers share. In a good lineup, all the tiers share the same limits: how much they can read at once, how much they can write at once, and how recent their training goes. The only things that change between tiers are speed, smarts, and price. Check that before you assume the cheap one is crippled.

On the knowledge cutoff. Every model was trained up to a date and knows nothing after it. Ask any of them about something recent and you get a guess, unless you paste in the source or turn search on. That is not a bug in one brand. It is how all of them work.

Part 3: Pick by where the work lives

This is the one that decides most jobs.

Cloud tools are happiest with cloud work. Research, analysis, documents, decks, charts, reports. Anything where the inputs are already online and the output is a polished file.

The Claude side sits closer to your actual machine. Cowork reads and writes the real files and folders on your computer, and it can drive your browser. That makes it strong on the messy stuff: downloads, spreadsheets, PDFs, dashboards, and cleaning up what is already sitting on your desktop.

So ask one question: is this work mostly in the cloud, or mostly on my machine? Cloud work goes to the cloud tool. Local files go to the local one.

If you run a team, there is a second factor. Cowork has had the stronger team controls: folder-level access so it only touches what you allow, approval steps before big actions, team permissions, and spend limits. That is what lets you hand a team an agent without losing oversight. The cloud side leans on its broader ecosystem instead, which is lighter to start and gives you less fine control. Check both before you commit a team, because this is exactly the kind of thing that changes.

Part 4: Pick by how sure you are

Second question: do I already know exactly what I want?

If yes, use the one that just goes. ChatGPT Work tends to start moving with less back and forth. That shows up most when building. Describe a tool or an automation and it makes a first version fast instead of asking ten questions.

If it is fuzzy or high stakes, use the one that checks in. Cowork tends to ask clarifying questions before it starts, explain what it is doing along the way, and pause before a bigger decision. When you want a second brain in the room, that is worth the extra minutes.

These are tendencies, not laws, and they shift with every release. Run one real job through each and trust what you see over what you read.

Part 5: Hand over a job, not a question

Both work surfaces are built to take a whole outcome. Most people still prompt them one question at a time and then wonder what the fuss is about.

The old way is ten prompts and you assemble the result. The new way is one brief and you get the result.

The test for whether a task belongs in a work surface: would you have opened another app to finish it? If yes, it belongs there.

Use the outcome handoff prompt below. It gives the tool the outcome, the context, the rules it cannot break, the deliverable, and what done looks like. Then let it run across as many steps as it takes.

Part 6: Know the five quiet gates

These are the reasons a request fails with no error message. Each one has burned a lot of people.

1. Connections do not work in plain Chat. The pieces that let an AI reach into your email, drive, chat app, or code live in the Work and build surfaces. Ask plain Chat to read your inbox and it cannot, and it will not always tell you why.

2. Writing to your apps is off by default. Even after you connect an app, sending and drafting usually starts switched off, and once on it still asks you every time. On business and enterprise accounts an admin turns it on per app in workspace settings. If your drafts never appear, that is why.

3. Normal folders default to read-only. A build surface can read your files and then quietly fail to change a single one. You have to grant write access when it asks. If it says it did the work and nothing changed on disk, this is it.

4. The work and build surfaces share one usage pool. They are the same engine underneath. A long building session on Tuesday can eat the budget you were saving for Friday's report, and nothing warns you at the time.

5. Features are gated by plan and by country. Some flagship features need a mid or top paid tier, and some are not available in every region. Check before you build a plan around one.

Two extras worth knowing. On Windows, the feature that lets an AI control your screen runs on your actual desktop, so you watch the cursor move and you cannot use the machine for something else. On a Mac you grant Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions first. And if you cannot find the Work toggle on the web, check the desktop app, which has been the more reliable place to find it.

Part 7: Run the comparison yourself

Reading comparisons is not the same as knowing. Do this once and you will stop asking which one is better.

1. Pick one real job you would normally break into ten prompts.

2. Decide where the work lives: cloud apps, or files on your machine.

3. Write one outcome brief using the handoff prompt below.

4. Run it in the matching tool. If it is fuzzy or high stakes, run it in the one that asks questions and answer them honestly.

5. Run the same brief in the other tool.

6. Compare the two finished deliverables. Set your default for that type of job. Not for everything, just that type.

Then keep both accounts. One paid plan and one free account still gets you a second opinion for nothing, which is the whole point of lesson 2.1's review step.

Copy and paste

The which-tool question

Run this in your head, or paste it somewhere you will see it, before any job.

Before starting any job, answer these three:

1. Does this work live in cloud apps, or in files on my machine?
   Cloud -> the cloud work surface.   Local files -> the local one.

2. Do I already know exactly what I want?
   Yes -> the tool that just executes.   Fuzzy or high stakes -> the one that checks in.

3. Does anyone besides me need approval steps or spend limits?
   Yes -> the one with folder access, approvals, permissions, and spend limits.

The model picker rule

Fill in your own current tier names and prices. Use it before you pick a model inside either brand.

Use this rule to pick a model before every task.

Ask: would a wrong answer here cost me real time or real money?
  YES -> the top tier [name: ____]

Ask: is this everyday business work I need a lot of, where speed
and smarts both matter?
  YES -> the middle tier [name: ____]

Ask: is this small, repetitive, and needed right now?
  YES -> the cheap fast tier [name: ____]

All tiers in one generation usually share the same reading limit,
writing limit, and knowledge cutoff. Only speed, smarts, and price change.

The outcome handoff

The main prompt for either work surface. Use it instead of asking a question.

Here is the outcome I want: [the finished thing, named exactly].

Context you need:
- Who this is for: [audience]
- What I already have: [files, apps, data, and where they live]
- Hard rules you cannot break: [budget, tone, format, deadline]
- What good looks like: [an example or a description]

Deliverable: [a spreadsheet / a slide deck / a doc / a small web app].
Done looks like: [what has to be true before you hand it back].

Work across as many steps as it takes. Do not hand me a list of
things for me to go do.

A one-line example of an outcome request

The shortest version of the same idea, for when the job is simple.

Analyze last quarter's sales and give me the three biggest opportunities.

Chat 1: pressure-test a decision

For the decision you keep flip-flopping on.

I keep going back and forth on a decision, and I want you to think it through with me, not just agree with me.

The decision:
[WHAT YOU'RE DECIDING]

What matters most to me here:
[YOUR PRIORITIES / CONSTRAINTS]

What I'm leaning toward, and why:
[YOUR CURRENT LEAN]

Do this:
1. Lay out the real options, including any I haven't named.
2. Give the strongest honest case FOR each one.
3. Tell me the biggest risk I'm underweighting.
4. Ask me up to 3 questions if something important is missing.
5. Then give me your recommendation, how confident you are, and what would change your mind.

Push back if my reasoning is weak. I would rather be challenged now than wrong later.

Chat 2: the message you are nervous to send

For the hard email you have rewritten five times.

Help me write something I'm nervous to send.

The situation:
[WHO IT'S TO AND WHAT'S GOING ON]

My rough draft or bullet points:
[PASTE / NOTES]

The tone I want:
[e.g. warm but firm, kind but honest, short and professional]

Give me:
1. A clean version that says the hard part clearly, with no passive-aggression and no over-apologizing.
2. A softer version and a more direct version, so I can choose.
3. One line I could add if they push back.

Keep it in my voice. Do not make it sound like a corporate template.

Chat 3: rehearse the conversation

For a raise, a negotiation, or a hard personal talk. Practice with nobody watching.

Role-play a conversation with me so I can practice before the real thing.

The conversation:
[WHAT IT IS, e.g. asking for a raise, renegotiating a contract, a hard personal talk]

Who you're playing:
[THE OTHER PERSON AND THEIR LIKELY MINDSET]

What I want to walk away with:
[YOUR GOAL]

Play them realistically and a little resistant. Raise one objection at a time and wait for my answer. Do not go easy on me.

After about 6 exchanges, stop and tell me: where I was convincing, where I got weak, and the two lines I should actually use on the day.

Chat 4: brain dump to plan

For the week where everything is in your head at once.

I'm overwhelmed and it's all in my head. I'm going to dump it, and I want you to turn it into a plan.

Everything on my plate right now:
[BRAIN DUMP, MESSY IS FINE]

Do this:
1. Sort it into: do this week, can wait, and should probably drop.
2. Flag anything that's actually urgent or has a real deadline.
3. Tell me the 3 things to do first, and why those three.
4. Point out anything I'm treating as one task that's really several.

Be honest about what I'm overcommitting to.

Chat 5: teach me this fast

For a contract clause, a health term, or a tool you do not understand yet.

Teach me [TOPIC / THE THING I'M TRYING TO UNDERSTAND] like I'm smart but completely new to it.

Do it in this order:
1. The single most important idea, the one everything else hangs on.
2. A plain, real-world analogy.
3. How it actually works, step by step, no jargon (or define any term you have to use).
4. The most common mistake beginners make.
5. One thing I could do or try today to make it click.

If I've given you something specific to react to, use my real example: [PASTE ANYTHING RELEVANT]

Work 1: research to a finished document

When you want the brief, not the notes you would turn into a brief at 11pm.

Research this and give me back a finished document I could actually use or send, not just notes.

What I need researched:
[TOPIC / QUESTION / LIST]

Who it's for and what they care about:
[AUDIENCE]

What I want at the end:
[e.g. a one-page brief, an 8-slide deck, a comparison table]

Rules:
- Put a short summary and your recommendation at the very top.
- Cite your sources so I can check them.
- Flag anything you're unsure about instead of guessing.
- Export it as [.docx / .pdf / slides] so it's ready to use.

Work 2: clean up a messy file

For the export nobody wants to touch.

Here's a messy [spreadsheet / export / list]: [ATTACH OR PASTE]

Clean it up and give it back to me usable:
1. Remove duplicates and fix the obvious formatting problems (dates, capitalization, blank rows).
2. Tell me exactly what you changed, so I can trust it.
3. Add [a summary at the top / totals / a simple breakdown by [CATEGORY]].
4. Give it back as an editable spreadsheet with real formulas, not a picture of a table.

If something looks wrong or inconsistent, point it out instead of silently fixing it.

Work 3: a recurring update that runs without you

Set once, arrives every week. Needs at least one app connected.

Set this up to run on a schedule so I don't have to remember it.

Every [DAY AND TIME], I want you to:
1. Pull [SOURCE, e.g. a channel, folder, or sheet you've connected].
2. Summarize [what changed / what needs my attention / the numbers that matter].
3. [Email it to me / drop it in a doc] as a short one-page update.

Keep it skimmable: the 3 things I actually need to know at the top, details below. Tell me now if you need me to connect an app first.

Work 4: combine scattered pieces

Six files and a notes doc into one thing you can send.

I have a bunch of scattered pieces and I need one clean [proposal / report / summary / plan] out of them.

Everything I have:
[ATTACH FILES / PASTE NOTES]

The format and tone I want:
[e.g. our house style, formal, friendly]

Who's going to read it:
[AUDIENCE]

Do this:
1. Pull it into one coherent document.
2. Where there are gaps, fill them with clearly-labeled assumptions I can check.
3. Flag anything that contradicts itself across the pieces.
4. Export as [.docx / .pdf] so it's ready to send.

Work 5: inbox triage with drafts written

Sorting is the easy half. The value is the drafted replies.

Go through [my inbox / messages] from [this week] that I haven't dealt with.

1. Sort them into: needs a real reply, can wait, and ignore.
2. For the ones that need a reply, draft a response in my voice, short and human.
3. Flag anything time-sensitive, or anything that could quietly become a problem.

Do not send anything. Just leave the drafts ready for me to review and send.

Build 1: clean up a folder of files

The lowest-risk way into the build surface. Copy the folder first.

Open this folder: [FOLDER]. I have a mess of files I was never going to fix by hand.

What I want:
1. [Rename / reorganize / convert] everything by this rule: [YOUR RULE, e.g. rename to YYYY-MM-Description, sort into subfolders by year].
2. Show me your plan first and let me approve it before you touch anything.
3. Then do it, and tell me exactly what changed.

Grant write access when it asks, or nothing will actually change on my computer.

Build 2: turn a monthly task into a button

For the same tedious hour you spend every month.

Every [WEEK / MONTH] I do this by hand and I'm tired of it: [DESCRIBE THE TASK, STEP BY STEP].

Build me something I can re-run that does it for me:
1. It takes [INPUT, e.g. this kind of file or export] and produces [OUTPUT, e.g. this formatted summary] the same way every time.
2. Explain in plain English how to run it, like I've never done this before.
3. Make it easy to tweak later when the inputs change.

Start by telling me what you'll build and what you need from me.

Build 3: a simple tool people can use

A tracker, checklist, or calculator, published to a link. Publishing may need a paid tier.

Build me a simple [tracker / checklist / calculator / dashboard] for [PURPOSE, e.g. tracking projects, chores, orders, a budget].

1. Let me [add / update / check off] things easily, no spreadsheet skills needed.
2. Keep it clean and obvious to use.
3. Publish it so [only me / my team / my family] can open it in a browser with a link.

Ask me what fields or columns it should have before you build, if that would help.

Build 4: a one-page site

A real page, live, with a form. Publishing may need a paid tier and may not be available in every country.

Build me a clean one-page [website / landing page / event page] for [PURPOSE, e.g. my new service, an event, a portfolio].

Include: [e.g. a headline and short description, an email sign-up form, a simple pricing section, an RSVP button].

Style: [e.g. minimal, warm, bold; match my colors: [COLORS]].

When it's ready, publish it to a link I can share, and walk me through anything I need to do on my end.

Build 5: explain what you own, then improve it

Use the build surface as a tutor on your own setup.

Open [this folder / these files]: [WHAT IT IS].

First, before changing anything: explain in plain English what each part does and how it fits together, like you're teaching me my own setup.

Then make this one improvement: [SPECIFIC CHANGE, e.g. make it work on phones, fix the thing that's broken, add this feature].

Go one step at a time and tell me what you're doing as you go, so I actually learn it instead of just getting a result.

Watch out

You ask which one is better

That question has no answer and it keeps you comparing instead of working. Ask where the work lives and how clear the outcome is.

You prompt a work surface one question at a time

These tools are built to take a whole job. A question gets you an answer and leaves the work with you. Name the finished deliverable instead.

You expect app connections to work in plain chat

They only run in the work and build surfaces. The request will fail quietly. If an AI cannot see your inbox, check which surface you are in before you blame the model.

You assume your files changed

Normal folders start read-only. Grant write access when it asks, then open the folder yourself and look.

You burn one budget on the other job

The work and build surfaces draw from the same pool. If Friday's report matters, do not spend Tuesday on a long building session.

You get loyal to a logo

Whoever is ahead this month may be behind next month. Keep one paid plan and one free account so you always have a second opinion available for nothing.

You read a tier name as a version number

The tier names carry forward into the next generation. The number is what tells you how new the tech is.

You point an agent at your whole computer

These tools can rename, move, and change real files. Grant access to one folder, not everything. Copy anything you care about before the first run. Show me your plan first is a line worth putting in every build prompt.

Check yourself

• [ ] I can name the three shapes and match them across both brands.

• [ ] I know which surface I am in when I type, and I choose it on purpose.

• [ ] I can point at a model name and say which part is the generation and which is the tier.

• [ ] I ran one real job as an outcome brief, not as ten questions.

• [ ] I ran the same brief in both tools and compared the deliverables.

• [ ] I checked whether write access was granted before assuming files changed.

• [ ] I have one paid plan and one free account on the other side.

Do this now

Pick one job from this week that you would normally break into ten prompts. Write it once using the outcome handoff prompt, and run it in whichever tool matches where the files actually live.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 10: Your starter stack, and what to ignore

• Part 11: Day one: the five things to do first

• Part 12: Day two and three: the next ten things

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments which of the two you use, and for what, and I will point you at the right next part.

One of those settings quietly spends your limit on work that never needed it. The other hands you a shallow answer on the decision that mattered most this month. Both feel exactly the same while they are happening.

What you will be able to do

• Decide fast or deep on any task in about ten seconds, using three questions.

• Escalate to a bigger model only when the work has earned it, and know when it has.

• Set the effort level so simple work stays cheap and hard work gets real thought.

• Use your most expensive model to build things a cheaper model can run for months.

• Get an AI to flag what it is unsure about instead of guessing at you.

This is for anyone who wants a rule instead of a guess. Beginner friendly, and the model names are marked as examples, because names go stale in months.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott runs 33 active social brands and runs her whole operation on AI automations across several computers. At that volume you cannot open the biggest model for everything, so the picking rule is not theory.

What this lesson is

Lesson 2.3 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 2: Choosing Your AI.

Lesson 2.1 gave you three sizes: fast, default, deep. This lesson is about picking one, on a real task, in a few seconds.

Here is the thing that makes it simple. Capability costs money. The deep model is not free. It costs more of your usage limit, it takes longer to answer, and on a small job it gives you nothing back for the extra spend. Using it for everything is like taking a taxi to the end of your own driveway.

Compare it to hiring help. For sorting a box of receipts you want somebody fast and cheap who will not stop to philosophize. For deciding whether to sign a five-year lease you want somebody careful, expensive, and slow, and you want them to think out loud so you can follow their reasoning. Same person for both jobs is the wrong answer twice.

So you match the model to the stakes, not to the mood. Most of your week is receipts. A small slice is the lease.

There is a second dial next to the size. Effort, or thinking, or reasoning depending on which app you are in. It tells the model how hard to work before it answers. Turn it up and the answer takes longer and comes back more careful. Turn it down and it comes back quick and cheap. This dial matters as much as which model you picked, and most people never touch it.

One more thing worth knowing before you start. The specific model names in every guide you read, including this one, go stale in months. Prices change. New models ship and old ones retire. The questions below do not change. Learn the questions. The names live in a reference table at the end, clearly marked as examples.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: Ask three questions

Before you type, answer these. It takes about ten seconds.

Question 1: Does this need thinking, or just doing?

Thinking means weighing options, finding a root cause, planning an approach, making a judgment call. Doing means the decisions are already made and something needs writing, formatting, sorting, or summarizing.

Question 2: Is the job long, or short?

Long means a big document, a pile of files, many steps, or work that has to hold a lot in mind at once. Short means one thing, one answer.

Question 3: What happens if it is wrong?

If a wrong answer costs you nothing but thirty seconds, that is a low-stakes task. If it costs money, a client, a deadline, or a legal problem, it is not.

Now read the row that matches.

The job / Model size / Thinking turned up?

• Short and simple. Lookups, definitions, labels, tidying text, sorting a list

• Model size: Fast

• Thinking turned up?: No

• Bulk and repetitive. The same small task fifty times

• Model size: Fast

• Thinking turned up?: No

• Normal daily work. Emails, drafts, reports, summaries, everyday coding

• Model size: Default

• Thinking turned up?: No

• Long documents and long jobs, but the thinking is clear

• Model size: Default or deep

• Thinking turned up?: No

• Hard reasoning. Strategy, root causes, competing options, big plans

• Model size: Deep

• Thinking turned up?: Yes

• High stakes. Money, legal, medical, anything you will cite later

• Model size: Deep

• Thinking turned up?: Yes

• Anything you will not double-check yourself

• Model size: Deep

• Thinking turned up?: Yes

If you do not know, use the default model. That is what it is for. Around eighty to ninety percent of most people's work runs fine there.

Part 2: Escalate on evidence, not on a hunch

Do not open the deep model because the task feels important. Open it when the work has proven it needs it. The ladder:

1. Start on your default model. Every time.

2. If the answer is thin, add context before you switch. Most weak output comes from a weak ask. Give it more detail, say who the output is for, and say what a good version looks like. Try again on the same model.

3. If it is still thin after two honest tries, escalate. Two disappointing answers is your signal, not one.

4. Do not drag the mess with you. If you are twelve messages deep in a tangled thread, do not just switch the model picker. Start a clean chat on the bigger model and paste in a proper brief. A big model gets far more out of a clean, well-structured brief than out of a long messy thread.

5. Drop back down when the hard part is over. Once the plan exists, the writing and building can go to a cheaper model.

Part 3: Move the effort dial

Effort tells the model how hard to think before it answers. Most apps offer something like four levels, and the wording varies.

Effort level / Best for / Watch out for

• Low

• Best for: Quick rewrites, formatting, short summaries, one-off simple tasks

• Watch out for: Do not use it for real reasoning

• Medium

• Best for: Emails, content drafts, normal coding tasks

• Watch out for: A good baseline when you want to keep costs down

• High

• Best for: Analysis, multi-step work, code that has to work, anything where a better answer saves you time

• Watch out for: On some models this is already the default

• Max

• Best for: Big migrations, hard debugging, the genuinely gnarly problems

• Watch out for: Uses far more of your limit, so turn it on deliberately

The pattern to run: start at high, drop to medium when the task is routine, and save max for jobs that have already beaten you once. Do not leave it on max for chat-style work. It burns your limit fast for no gain.

Two notes. Some newer models handle this by themselves and adjust the effort to the question, so there is no dial to find. And in the terminal version of Claude, effort is a slash command: /effort high. In the app, look for a thinking or reasoning setting.

Part 4: Never hand a long document to the small fast model

This is the single most expensive mistake in this lesson, because it fails quietly.

Small fast models lose track of detail across a long file. They do not warn you. They give you a confident summary that is missing the thing in the middle you actually needed. Bulk jobs, yes. Long documents, no.

Long files go to the default or the deep model. If a model advertises a huge memory for one document, that is the one to use for the hundred-page contract.

Part 5: Spend the deep model on things you keep

The best use of an expensive model is not doing one task well. It is building something a cheaper model can run for months. Three moves, in this order.

Move 1: Upgrade the instructions you already use.

You probably have saved instructions somewhere. Project instructions in your AI app, saved Skills, or instruction files in a project folder. These are usually vague, because you wrote them in a hurry. A big model rewrites them into something specific, and the upgraded version keeps working after you drop back down to a cheaper model.

Do one at a time. Copy your instructions out, run the upgrade prompt below, and paste the improved version back in.

If your instructions live in files on your computer, there is a version of that prompt that edits them directly. Before you run it, copy the whole folder somewhere safe. That prompt rewrites every instruction file in one pass and does not stop to ask. Review each change afterward and keep the good ones.

Move 2: Unstick the problem you have been stuck on for weeks.

The trick is not a smarter question. It is packaging the whole mess and moving it somewhere clean.

1. In the chat where you hit the wall, run the capture prompt below. It turns the entire thread into one complete handoff: the goal, what exists now, every attempt, every error, every dead end, the rules you cannot break, and the exact place you are stuck.

2. Open a brand new chat. Pick your deep model. Set effort high.

3. Paste the handoff and run the solve prompt.

You get a root cause instead of another surface fix.

Move 3: Build a plan a cheaper model can run.

Have the deep model build the whole plan once. Phases, tasks broken small, and a clear description of what "done well" looks like for each task. Then hand one step at a time to a cheaper model. You keep the good thinking without paying for the thinker every day.

The part that makes this work is the acceptance criteria. If a task is vague, a cheap model will guess. If a task says exactly what finished looks like, it will not.

Part 6: Make it show doubt

Newer models are better at saying they are unsure instead of making something up, but you still have to ask. Add one of the uncertainty lines below to any answer you plan to rely on. Use them for research, legal questions, health questions, and anything with a number, date, quote, or name in it that you might repeat later.

If you get answers that open by agreeing with you before they have thought about it, add the pushback line too.

Part 7: When the answer feels thin, fix your words first

Newer models tend to read your prompt more literally and match the answer length to how big the ask sounds. That is usually why an answer comes back shorter and flatter than you expected. Five fixes:

If the answer is / Do this

• Too literal, it only did the one thing you said: Spell out every step you want

• Too short: Ask for "a full breakdown, not a summary" and say how long

• Overblown, it went strange on you: Take out the all-caps pressure words like CRITICAL and MUST, and write a normal direct instruction

• Stopping at the bare minimum on creative work: Add "go beyond the basics" and name the sections you expect

• Not thinking hard enough: Turn on the thinking mode, or add the think-carefully line

The before-and-after pairs are in the prompts section. Try the same task twice, once each way, and you will see the gap.

Part 8: The part that survives every model change

A new model ships every few weeks. Chasing every one of them is tiring, and it is not where the real gain lives. What makes your AI good is what it knows about you. Your work, your projects, your goals, the way you write, your rules, what you are doing right now.

If all of that lives inside one app, you start from zero every time that app is down, worse at something, or replaced by something better.

So keep it in plain files on your own computer. Make a folder and put three plain text files in it:

File / What goes in it

• `about-me`: Who you are, your role, your goals

• `how-i-write`: Your tone, plus a few real samples of your actual writing

• `projects`: What you are working on right now

Paste those into any AI before a real request and watch the answer change. Module 5 goes much deeper on this. Ten minutes now is enough to feel the difference.

Reference: what the model names meant

Everything in this table is an example of how the naming worked at the time these guides were written. Every name and number here will drift. The sizes in Part 1 will not.

Name pattern / Size slot / What it was for

• Haiku

• Size slot: Fast

• What it was for: Classification, extracting fields, formatting, batch work

• Sonnet

• Size slot: Default

• What it was for: The daily driver. Most work, most days. Planning tasks and using a browser or terminal on its own

• Opus

• Size slot: Deep, and the long-haul worker

• What it was for: Long jobs that run for hours, deep research, production-quality work, natural long-form writing

• Fable

• Size slot: The ceiling

• What it was for: The hardest problems, the highest stakes, the decisions you cannot get wrong

A few details from those releases, kept only because they show you what to look for in the next one:

• Version numbers do not line up across sizes. One lineup ran Haiku 4.5 alongside Sonnet 5 and Opus 5, because there was no Haiku 5. Do not assume a matching number exists.

• Prices are quoted per million tokens, as input and output. A token is a chunk of text, very roughly three quarters of a word. Those are pay-as-you-go prices for people building on the API. If you use the app on a Free, Pro, or Max plan, a new model does not change your bill. It changes what you can open and how fast you hit your limit.

• Published prices disagreed across guides, because some quoted a launch discount and some quoted the standard rate. The rule: never trust a price in a guide, including this one. Open the vendor's own pricing page.

• Context windows got large. Around a million tokens became normal at the top, which is roughly a very long book in one go. That is what makes a big model good at the hundred-page contract.

• Benchmark scores get quoted a lot and they are tests, not your workload. A model that scores well on fixing real code may still be wrong about your spreadsheet. Use scores for a rough feel, then test on your own real task.

• Token counting changed between versions, so the same job could use around thirty percent more tokens on a newer model even at the same price per token. Compare the cost of the whole task, not the sticker price.

• Some models hand sensitive topics to a different model on a small share of chats, as a safety feature. If the tone shifts on a touchy subject, that may be why.

• New releases come with claims. One release was described as no longer making things up. No model stops making things up. Treat every launch claim as a direction, not a promise, and keep checking the output.

Copy and paste

Your model rule, one page

Keep this where you can pull it up mid-chat. Fill in your own current model names.

MODEL RULE, WHICH ONE TO OPEN

THE ONE RULE:
Don't pick the "best" model, pick the right one for the job.
Capability costs money, so match it to the stakes.

FAST MODEL [name: ____]
Reach for it when the task is simple and you want it instant and cheap:
quick lookups, sorting, labeling, tidying text, bulk repeats.
Never hand it a long document.

DEFAULT MODEL [name: ____]
Reach for it for everyday output: emails, drafts, reports, summaries,
research that needs some thought, normal coding, document work.
This is the tab that stays open. About 80-90% of the week lives here.

DEEP MODEL [name: ____]
Reach for it when the problem is genuinely hard, the reasoning is long,
or the decision is high-stakes and you'd want your smartest advisor in
the room. Strategy, tough analysis, difficult code, research you can't
afford to get wrong.

THE DEFAULT SETUP:
- Live in the default model for almost everything.
- Escalate the moment you're stuck, the stakes are high, or the first
  two answers weren't good enough.
- Drop down to the fast model for bulk, boring, or speed-critical work.
- Turn thinking on for decisions. Turn it off for emails.

HONEST NOTE:
Every model can both reason and produce work. The real choice is top
capability versus best value. When in doubt, start on the default and
only pay up when the problem earns it.

Ten habits that work on any model

These do not care which model you are in. Keep them next to the rule above.

1. ASK FOR 3 OPTIONS.
End any request with "give me three versions: safe, bold, and weird."
You go from one flat answer to a real range in one shot.

2. MAKE IT INTERVIEW YOU.
"Before you answer, ask me the 5 questions you most need answered to do
this well." It gathers context instead of guessing.

3. SHOW IT A GOLD STANDARD.
Paste an example of great work and say "match this quality and format."
AI copies excellence far better than it follows adjectives.

4. TELL IT WHO TO BE.
"You are a [specific expert] with 20 years of experience in [niche]."
A specific role pulls a sharper answer than a blank prompt.

5. SLOW IT DOWN.
"Think through this step by step before you answer." For anything with
logic or numbers, this alone lifts the quality.

6. RUN A RED TEAM.
"Try to prove me wrong. Where does this fall apart?" Turns a cheerleader
into a pressure-tester.

7. USE PROJECTS FOR ANYTHING YOU REPEAT.
Put your context, rules, and examples in a Project once, and every chat
inside it already knows your world.

8. BUILD A SKILL FOR ANY REPEATED TASK.
If you explain the same process twice, turn it into a Skill so you never
explain it again.

9. LET IT SEE.
Paste a screenshot and ask "what's off here?" AI reads design,
dashboards, and error messages straight from an image.

10. KEEP A MEMORY FILE.
Keep a running note of how you work and your preferences, and paste it at
the top of big tasks so the output sounds like you, not like a stranger.

WHICH MODEL FOR THESE:
Run the everyday ones on your default model. Escalate the hard ones.

Deep research report

Switch to your deep model first. Use this when you want wide research turned into something you can decide from.

Create a deep research report on [topic].

Use the context I provide and any research tools available to you.

Organize the report so I can make a decision from it.

Include:
- The main findings.
- The strongest evidence.
- Open questions.
- Risks or caveats.
- A clear recommendation based only on the evidence.

Make sense of a giant document

For a long contract, report, transcript, or PDF. Deep model.

Read this full document: [attach or paste document].

Do not skim.

Give me:
- The plain-English summary.
- The most important details.
- Anything risky or confusing.
- The parts I should read myself.
- The questions I should ask next.

Plan and build a real project

For a big multi-step build where the pieces have to stay connected.

Help me plan and build [project].

Here is the full context: [paste goals, constraints, files, users, deadline, and requirements].

First, make the plan.

Then break it into steps.

Then work through the steps without losing the full goal.

Stop and ask me only when you need a decision I have not given you.

Turn a pile of notes into a plan

For a year of notes, voice transcripts, or brain dumps you never processed.

Read all of these notes: [paste or attach notes].

Find the patterns I am too close to see.

Turn them into:
- The main themes.
- The decisions I keep avoiding.
- The ideas worth acting on.
- The ideas to drop.
- A simple plan for the next phase.

Untangle a mess

For the process, spreadsheet, or system nobody understands anymore.

Untangle this system: [describe or attach the messy process, spreadsheet, migration, or workflow].

First, map what is happening now.

Then find the failure points.

Then give me the cleanest path to fix it.

Include:
- What to do first.
- What not to touch yet.
- What could break.
- How to verify each step worked.

Upgrade one saved instruction (copy and paste version)

Move 1, one at a time, in any AI app. Safe for beginners.

Here is one of my skills, or my Project's custom instructions. Make it dramatically better.

1. Tell me in one line what it is for.
2. Audit it hard. Where is it vague, incomplete, or likely to give inconsistent results? Look for missing context, undefined terms, no examples, no defined output format, and no rules for what it should never do.
3. Rewrite it into a sharper version with specific instructions, a clear step-by-step process, the exact output format I want, one or two concrete examples of a great result, and explicit rules for what it should never do. Keep my voice and intent.
4. In a few bullets, tell me what you changed and why it will perform better.

Give me the upgraded version as one clean, copy-paste-ready block so I can drop it straight back in.

Here it is:

[paste one skill, or your Project's custom instructions, here]

Upgrade every instruction file at once (files version)

Move 1, for when your instructions live in files an AI can edit. Copy the whole folder to a safe place before you run this. It rewrites files directly and it is told not to stop and ask.

Go through every skill, workflow, and instruction file in this project: my CLAUDE.md, everything in .claude/skills, and my subagents in .claude/agents. Read each one, then for each:

1. Tell me in one line what it is for.
2. Audit it hard. Where is it vague, incomplete, or likely to give inconsistent results? Look for missing context, undefined terms, no examples, no defined output format, and no rules for what it should never do.
3. Rewrite the file in place to fix all of that: specific instructions, a clear step-by-step process, the exact output format it should produce, one or two concrete examples of a great result, and explicit do-nots. Keep my intent and my voice.

When you are done, give me a short summary of what you changed in each file, tell me which skills overlap or should be merged, and name the one skill or workflow I am clearly missing for the kind of work I do. Don't ask me anything until you have done all of this.

Capture a stuck chat

Move 2, step 1. Run this inside the conversation where you got stuck.

Turn this entire conversation into a single, complete markdown handoff so I can paste it somewhere fresh and a new AI can pick up with zero prior context and full understanding.

Use these headers:
- Goal: what I am actually trying to accomplish, and what outcome it affects.
- Current state: what exists right now, what is working, what is not.
- What we have tried: every approach we attempted and exactly what happened with each one, including the precise errors, dead ends, and anything we ruled out and why.
- Constraints and rules: anything that must stay true, the tools I am using, things I cannot change.
- Key details: the specific files, names, numbers, links, or snippets that matter.
- Where I am stuck: the exact roadblock, described precisely.

Be thorough and specific. Do not summarize away any detail a fresh AI would need to actually solve this. Output only the markdown block, nothing else.

Solve it in a fresh chat

Move 2, step 3. New chat, deep model, effort high, then paste the handoff into this.

Below is the full context of a problem I have been stuck on. I moved it into a fresh chat on your most capable settings so you have room to actually solve it.

Do this:
1. Diagnose the REAL root cause of the roadblock, not just the surface symptom. If my own assumptions about what is wrong look mistaken, say so directly.
2. Lay out the 2 to 3 best ways to solve it with the tradeoffs of each, then pick the one you would actually do, and why.
3. Then either fully solve it and give me the finished result, or, if it genuinely cannot be finished in one pass, complete as much as you can and give me the next three concrete steps in order.

Rules:
- Only stop to involve me if a payment, a login, or a decision that is truly mine to make is required. Otherwise keep going and solve it. Do not ask me questions you can reasonably answer yourself.
- Do not violate any of the constraints or rules listed in the context.
- Lead with the solution, then show your reasoning briefly so I can follow it.

Here is the full context:

[paste the markdown from the capture prompt here]

Build a plan a cheaper model can run

Move 3, step 2. Deep model, effort high.

You are my strategist. Build me a detailed, durable [content plan / project roadmap / launch plan] for [describe the goal, the timeframe, and any context] that I can execute against for the next few months.

Important: I am going to build this once with you now, then have a cheaper, less capable AI actually run it day to day. So it has to be clear and specific enough that a simpler model could follow it without you.

Include:
1. Strategy: the overall approach and the single most important outcome we are driving toward.
2. Phases: the major phases in order, each with one clear goal.
3. Tasks: inside each phase, the specific tasks or deliverables, broken down small enough to hand to a simpler AI one at a time.
4. Acceptance criteria: for every task, spell out what "done well" actually looks like, so it is obvious when a piece is truly finished and not just technically done.
5. Inputs and risks: what I will need, including tools, assets, and info, plus the bottlenecks or risks to watch for.
6. Rhythm: a simple weekly or daily cadence so I always know exactly what to work on next.

Make it specific to my situation, not generic filler. Before you build it, ask me up to five sharp questions that would make the plan meaningfully better, then deliver the full plan.

Here is my context:

[paste your niche, audience, offer, current numbers, timeline, and any constraints]

Hand one step to a cheaper model

Move 3, step 3. Use this every time you want the next piece done.

Here is a plan my most capable model built. Execute the next step exactly as written, meet its acceptance criteria, and flag anything that does not line up with the plan. Do not redesign the strategy, just run it well and give me the finished deliverable.

Here is the plan, and the step I want done:

[paste the plan, and name the step]

Ask for uncertainty

Add to anything you are going to rely on.

Give me the answer and flag anything you're not sure about with a confidence score.

Ask it not to guess

Use on factual questions.

If you don't know, say you don't know. Do not guess.

Ask it to mark risky facts

Use before you copy anything into a document you will send.

Mark any specific fact (number, date, quote, name) that you'd want me to verify before using.

Stop the flattery

Use when the answers keep opening by agreeing with you.

Do not flatter me or agree by default. Push back if I'm wrong.

Prompt fixes, before and after

Five pairs. The first line in each pair is the version that produces a thin answer.

Too vague:

Clean up this draft.

Better:

Fix any typos, tighten any sentence over 25 words, and remove anything unnecessary. Keep the structure.

Too small an ask:

Summarize this.

Better:

Give me a full breakdown of this in 3-4 paragraphs, not a summary. Cover the main argument, the evidence, and the counterargument.

Too shouty:

CRITICAL: You MUST use the calculator tool for ANY math.

Better:

Use the calculator for math problems.

Too thin for creative work:

Design a landing page for my app.

Better:

Design a landing page for my app. Go beyond the basics. Include hero, social proof, feature breakdown, pricing, FAQ, and a final CTA.

Not thinking hard enough:

Think carefully through the problem before responding.

Terminal commands

If you use the terminal version of Claude, these two switch the model and the effort.

/model

/effort high

Watch out

You open the deep model by default

It feels responsible. It is expensive, slower, and on routine work it can be worse, because it over-explains and adds complexity you did not ask for. Default first.

You never open the deep model because it costs more

The usage cost is real, and so is the quality gap on genuinely hard problems. If you are making a real decision, ten minutes of a deep model with thinking on is worth the spend.

You switch models instead of fixing the brief

Two thin answers in a row usually means a thin ask. Add context, say who it is for, say what good looks like, and try the same model again before escalating.

You hand a long document to the fast model

It will not warn you. It will summarize confidently and drop the middle. Long files go up a size.

You leave effort on max

It is a switch you flip for a hard job, then flip back. Left on, it burns your limit on emails.

You let an AI rewrite all your files in one pass

The bulk upgrade prompt in this lesson edits every instruction file in a project and is told not to stop and ask. Copy the folder somewhere safe first. Review every change before you keep it. There is no undo.

You trust a confident answer on facts

Confidence is not accuracy. Add an uncertainty line to anything with a number, date, quote, or name in it, and check the ones it flags.

You build a plan only your best model can run

If the steps are vague, the cheap model will guess and you will not find out until the work comes back wrong. Force acceptance criteria on every task. That is what makes a plan portable.

You read a model name as a permanent rule

Every name in the reference table will be replaced. Check the vendor's current model page and pricing page before you make a decision based on either.

Check yourself

• [ ] I can name the three questions and answer them without notes.

• [ ] I know which model my app opens by default, and I chose it on purpose.

• [ ] I found the effort or thinking setting in my app, or confirmed my model handles it by itself.

• [ ] I escalated one task only after two thin answers, not on a hunch.

• [ ] I ran the capture prompt on a stuck problem and solved it in a fresh chat.

• [ ] I upgraded at least one saved instruction with my deep model.

• [ ] I copied any folder to a safe place before letting an AI edit it.

• [ ] I added an uncertainty line to one factual request.

• [ ] I made the three context files and pasted them into one real request.

Do this now

Take the problem you have been stuck on for weeks. Open that old chat, run the capture prompt, then paste the result into a brand new chat on your deep model with effort turned up, and run the solve prompt.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 9: ChatGPT and Claude, compared fairly

• Part 10: Your starter stack, and what to ignore

• Part 11: Day one: the five things to do first

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments the task you have been running on the wrong setting, and I will point you at the right next part.

One account holds four separate tools. Three of them do things chat cannot: read a folder of your own files, build software that actually runs, and make the visual instead of describing it. Skip those and you use a quarter of what you bought.

What you will be able to do

• Name the four Claude tools and say in one word what each is for.

• Open each one, and know which plan you need first.

• Point Claude at a folder of your own files and get real work back.

• Ask Claude to build you a small tool without writing any code.

• Run Claude inside a free code editor so your files and your AI sit in one window.

This is for anyone with a Claude account, free or paid. Some of the four need a paid plan, and the lesson says which before you get attached to one you cannot open.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott built four software products with AI help: PRISM, AutoViral, UPRISE Social Studio, and Profounder, and she never studied computer science. That happened because she stopped treating AI as a chat box.

What this lesson is

Lesson 2.2 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 2: Choosing Your AI.

Most people meet Claude as a chat box, use it like a smarter search engine, and stop there. Chat is one door. There are four.

Picture a gym membership. One card, four rooms. The weights room, the pool, the studio, the sauna. If you only ever walk into the weights room, the card is not broken. You are just using a quarter of it.

Claude works the same way. The four rooms are Chat, Cowork, Code, and Design. They live in different places and they are good at different things.

Chat is for thinking. You talk, it talks back, nothing gets saved or sent anywhere.

Cowork is for doing work. It reads your files, runs jobs with many steps, and hands you a finished document instead of instructions for making one.

Code is for building. It writes, tests, and fixes software on its own. You do not need to know how to code. You describe what you want.

Design is for creating. You describe a deck, a page, or a set of graphics, and it builds the actual visual while you watch.

One warning before you go looking. Not all four are on every plan. Free accounts get Chat. The others need a paid plan, and the heavier ones need a higher paid tier. Check what your plan includes before you get attached to a tool you cannot open yet. Nothing in this lesson is worth upgrading for until you have tried the thing you already have.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: Chat, to think

Where to find it: claude.ai, or the desktop or mobile app.

This is the plain chat box. Three things worth doing with it this week:

1. Explain something confusing. Paste in the thing you have been avoiding. A lease. A contract. A tax form. Bloodwork. A confusing email. Then use the plain-English prompt below. This is usually faster and clearer than searching for it.

2. Test a big choice before you make it. Pick something you are weighing up: leaving a job, signing a lease, launching an offer. Run the pre-mortem prompt. It surfaces the problems while you can still avoid them.

3. Talk through what is in your head. Use voice and just dump it out. Then ask Claude to reflect it back, find the patterns, and help you name what you are dealing with. This is not care and it is not treatment. If you are struggling, talk to a real person. Use this for the ordinary noisy days, not the hard ones.

Part 2: Cowork, to do work

Where to find it: the Claude desktop app, then Cowork in the sidebar. It also runs on web and mobile, so a job you start on your laptop can keep going while you are out, and it can ask for your approval from your phone.

Cowork does not answer questions. It finishes jobs. Three to try:

1. Build a Monday morning briefing. Connect Gmail, Calendar, and Slack, then run the briefing prompt below. You read one page with your coffee instead of opening four apps.

2. Build a dashboard that stays current. Point Cowork at your sales tracker or a spreadsheet and ask for a live dashboard showing your top numbers, the change week over week, and the trend. A live dashboard pulls fresh data each time you open it, instead of freezing the numbers from the day you made it.

3. Turn meeting notes into follow-ups. After a meeting, hand it your notes. It can pull out the action items, draft a follow-up email for each person with their own tasks in it, and write the agenda for next time.

Cowork can read and write real files on your computer. That is the point of it, and it is also the risk. Start it on a folder of copies, not your only copy of anything. Read what it says it is about to do before you approve.

Part 3: Code, to build

Where to find it: claude.com/product/claude-code. It also runs on web and mobile, so you can start a job from your phone and review it when you get back to your desk.

Claude Code writes, tests, and fixes software on its own. You describe what you want in plain English. Three builds worth trying:

1. A tracker you keep looking for and never find. A meal planner. A workout log. A content idea inbox. A price comparison sheet. A habit tracker. It can build the whole thing, including where the data lives and how you log in.

2. A weekly job you keep doing by hand. Two examples are in the prompts below. These are the kind of small automations people normally pay a developer to set up.

3. A small internal tool. Look at the little software subscriptions you pay for every month, the ones costing roughly thirty to a hundred dollars. A project tracker, a time logger, a client intake form, an invoice generator. Some of those can be built once and run cheaply. Not all of them. Hosting, updates, and backups are real work, so treat this as an experiment before you cancel anything.

From Liz's playbook: Liz Elliott is not an engineer and never studied computer science. She built four software products with AI help: PRISM, AutoViral, UPRISE Social Studio, and Profounder. "You do not need to know how to code" is not a slogan here. It is the normal path now.

Part 4: Design, to create

Where to find it: claude.ai/design.

Design works like a creative director. You describe what you need and it builds the visual, with a live preview while it works. Save your brand colors and fonts once, and everything after that can match them.

Three things to make:

1. A pitch deck. Use the deck prompt below, then export to PowerPoint or Canva to finish it.

2. A one-pager you can email. An investor one-pager, a service offer, a media kit, a course outline. One clear sentence in, one clean PDF out, instead of writing another long email.

3. A reusable set of social graphics. Use the templates prompt, then export. Later you swap the text instead of rebuilding the design.

Part 5: The fifth place, if you want more control

The desktop app is one window with limited ways to arrange things around your real files. If you want your files, your AI, and your other tools in one place, run Claude Code inside VS Code.

VS Code is Visual Studio Code, a free app from Microsoft. No trial, no credit card, Mac and Windows. It was built for developers, but you do not need to be one to use it this way. You still type to Claude in plain English.

You only need three places in it: the Extensions panel, the File menu, and the Claude side panel.

Set it up once:

1. Go to code.visualstudio.com. Click download and install it like any other app.

2. Open VS Code. On the left edge, click the icon that looks like four small squares. That is the Extensions panel. The shortcut is Cmd+Shift+X on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows.

3. In the search box, type Claude Code. Check that the publisher is Anthropic before you install, so you do not pick up a lookalike.

4. Click the blue Install button and wait a few seconds.

5. Sign in with the Claude account you already use. Claude opens in a side panel next to your files.

You do this once. After that you just open VS Code, open your folder, and use the side panel.

Use it day to day:

1. Top menu, File > Open Folder. Pick the folder holding what you are working on. Now Claude can see those files.

2. Click into the Claude side panel and type what you want in plain English.

3. It works on the real files in that folder and shows you what it did.

Claude in this setup can create, change, and delete real files on your machine. Before you point it at anything you care about, make a copy of the folder. Read what it proposes before you approve it.

Why bother: you are not stuck with one AI. Other AI tools have their own VS Code extensions, and each gets its own side panel in the same window. The best tool for your work changes over time, and this way you can run two side by side and compare on the same files.

Five add-ons worth having. Install any of them the same way: open Extensions, search the name, click Install.

Extension / What it does for you

• Markdown All In One: Claude often writes in Markdown, the simple format that uses symbols for headings and lists. This gives you a clean preview, so drafts and summaries are easier to read.

• Code Spell Checker: A free spell checker. It underlines typos as you type, the same way email does.

• Live Server: If Claude builds a simple web page, click Go Live at the bottom of the window and watch it in your browser. It refreshes when the file changes.

• Rainbow CSV: CSV files are spreadsheets saved as plain text. This colors each column so the rows line up and you can actually read them.

• PDF Viewer: Open and read PDFs in the same window, instead of switching apps.

Install the ones that solve a real problem for you. Skip the rest.

The shortest test: make a new empty folder on your desktop, open it in VS Code, drop in three documents, and ask Claude to do something simple with them. That one test tells you whether this setup suits you.

Copy and paste

Chat: explain a confusing document

Paste the document first, then this.

ELI5. What does this actually mean and what should I be worried about?

Chat: pre-mortem a big decision

Describe the decision, then run this before you commit to anything.

Pretend it's 6 months from now and this decision blew up. Walk me through exactly why.

Cowork: Monday morning briefing

Run this after you have connected your email, calendar, and chat app.

Pull what happened over the weekend, today's meetings, and the 5 emails I actually need to reply to.

Code: a weekly automation

Use either of these as the shape for the repeat job you want handled.

Every Monday, pull my calendar, format it as a one-pager, and email it to my team.

Whenever a new lead comes in via my form, draft a personalized response.

Design: a pitch deck

Fill in the brackets and run it in Design.

Build me a 10-slide pitch deck for [your business], in [your brand colors], with [your specific sections].

Design: a social template pack

Use this once, then reuse the templates by swapping the text.

Build me 5 Instagram templates in my brand: quote post, carousel cover, carousel content, promo, testimonial.

VS Code: two starter asks

Type either of these into the Claude side panel after you open a folder.

Read these three notes and write me a one-page summary.

Rename these files so the dates come first.

Watch out

You only ever open Chat

Chat is useful and it is one quarter of what you are paying for. The tools that do work, build things, and make designs are behind different doors. Open one of the other three this week.

You assume everything is on your plan

Cowork, Code, and Design are gated by plan tier, and the tiers change. Check what your account includes before you plan a workflow around a tool you cannot open.

You use the wrong Claude for the job

Do not ask Chat to behave like Cowork. Do not ask Code to behave like Design. Chat to think. Cowork to do. Code to build. Design to create.

You ask tiny questions

These tools get better the more real material you give them. Hand over the document, the notes, the spreadsheet, and the goal, then ask for the finished thing you actually want.

You skip opening a folder

In VS Code and in Cowork, Claude only sees what you point it at. If you never open a folder, it is guessing from whatever you paste.

You point it at your only copy

Cowork and Claude Code change real files. Copy the folder first. Review what they propose before approving. There is no undo button on somebody else's machine.

You try to learn all of VS Code on day one

You need three places: the Extensions panel, the File menu, and the Claude side panel. Everything else can wait forever.

Check yourself

• [ ] I can name all four Claude tools and what each is for.

• [ ] I checked which of them my plan actually includes.

• [ ] I used Chat on one confusing document.

• [ ] I opened Cowork, or I know why my plan cannot.

• [ ] I asked Claude Code for one small thing and saw what came back.

• [ ] I made one thing in Design.

• [ ] If I set up VS Code, I opened a folder and got real work back from the side panel.

• [ ] I made a copy of any folder before letting an AI edit it.

Do this now

Pick the confusing document you have been avoiding. Open Chat, paste it in, and run the ELI5 prompt.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 8: Fast or deep: picking a model per task

• Part 9: ChatGPT and Claude, compared fairly

• Part 10: Your starter stack, and what to ignore

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments which of the four you had never opened, and I will point you at the right next part.

So you overpay on easy work and get thin answers on hard work, and you never notice either one, because it is the same box every time. You also let the thing that built your work be the thing that checks it, which is the one job it is worst at.

What you will be able to do

• Name the three model sizes and say what each one is for.

• Switch models inside your AI app in under a minute.

• Turn a thinking mode on and off, and know when it is worth it.

• Split one real job into think, build, and check, using a different model for the check.

• Read a guide with old model names in it and still use the advice.

This is for anyone who has seen a model dropdown and never touched it. No technical knowledge needed.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott built four software products with AI help: PRISM, AutoViral, UPRISE Social Studio, and Profounder, and she is not an engineer. Running work across different models, instead of one favorite, is how a non-technical person ships software.

What this lesson is

Lesson 2.1 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 2: Choosing Your AI.

A model is one brain, not one brand. Anthropic makes Claude. OpenAI makes ChatGPT. Google makes Gemini. Inside each of those brands sit several models. They are not just older and newer versions of one thing. They are different sizes, built for different jobs.

Think about a kitchen. You own a small pan and a big pot. The big pot is not better. It is bigger. You do not boil one egg in the big pot, and you do not make soup for twelve people in the small pan. You pick by the job.

Every AI company sells about the same three sizes. A small fast one for simple, high volume work. A middle one for most of your day. A big slow one for hard thinking. The names change all the time. The three sizes stay.

That is the part worth learning. Model names turn over every few months. Prices change. New ones ship. If you memorize the names, your notes go stale. If you learn the sizes, you can drop any new model into the right slot the week it comes out.

The trap is picking a favorite. When you have one favorite, you use it for everything. So you overpay on easy work and you get thin answers on hard work. People who are good at this do not have a favorite. They have a rule for which one they open.

There is one more habit that matters as much as the sizes. When a model builds something, it is bad at checking its own work. It made the same guesses on the way in and on the way out. Ask it to review itself and it will often say the work looks great. A different model reads it cold, with no attachment to how it got made. Same reason a friend catches the typo you read past ten times.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: Learn the three sizes

Every big AI company sells these three. Learn this table and you can ignore the names.

Size / Plain meaning / Use it for

• Fast

• Plain meaning: The small quick one

• Use it for: Lookups, definitions, short summaries, labeling, sorting, tidying text, bulk jobs you repeat

• Default

• Plain meaning: The everyday one

• Use it for: Most of your week. Emails, reports, drafts, documents, summaries, normal coding, research that needs some thought

• Deep

• Plain meaning: The big slow one

• Use it for: Hard problems, big decisions, long research, complex plans, work where being wrong costs you real money

The names attached to those sizes when this course was written are in the reference table at the end of lesson 2.3. Treat them as examples. They will change.

One rule beats all the others: when you are not sure, use the default one. It is strong enough for thinking work and fast enough for daily use. Most people should run about eighty percent of their week there.

Part 2: Find the model picker

You switch models inside a chat. It takes a few seconds.

1. Open any chat in your AI app.

2. Look at the top of the chat. You will see the name of the model you are using right now.

3. Click that name. A list opens showing every model your plan can use.

4. Pick one. The chat uses it starting with your next message.

If the picker is not at the top of the chat in your version, look in the app's settings. App menus move. The picker itself has stayed in every version so far.

What you see in that list depends on what you pay for. Free plans usually get the fast one and the default one. Paid plans add the deep one, with tighter limits on how much of it you get. Higher paid tiers give you more of the deep one. If a model you read about is missing from your list, that is why.

Part 3: Turn thinking on when the job needs it

Most AI apps also have a thinking mode. It is a mode, not a model. You switch it on top of whatever model you picked.

With it on, the model works through the problem step by step before it answers. You can usually watch that thinking happen. The answer takes longer and it catches things a fast answer misses.

To turn it on:

1. Pick the default or the deep model first.

2. Look at the lower left of the box you type in.

3. Click Search and tools.

4. Turn on Extended thinking.

Turning it on may start a new chat, so finish what you are doing first. If your app words it differently, look for anything called thinking, reasoning, or think longer. If you cannot find a toggle at all, you can ask for the same behavior in words. Add this to your prompt: Think through this carefully before responding.

Use it when you have gone back and forth on a decision, when a problem has several competing pieces, or when you want to see the reasoning and not just the answer. Skip it for emails, summaries, and quick questions.

Turn it off when you are done. Leaving it on burns your usage limit on simple work for no gain.

Part 4: Run the three-model workflow

This is the habit that separates strong AI users from everyone else. One job, three steps, three different models.

1. Think. Open your deep model. Ask it to plan the approach, break the problem into parts, and decide how the work should happen. Do not let it start building. You want the shape of the job first. Speed does not matter here.

2. Execute. Switch to a fast strong model. The hard thinking is done. This step is writing, building, formatting, turning the plan into a real draft. You do not need your deepest thinker to follow a plan that already exists.

3. Review. Copy the finished work into a chat with a different model. Not the one that built it. Paste the goal, paste the work, and run the review prompt below.

Moving work between models is plain copy and paste. Copy the plan out of chat one, paste it into chat two. Nothing clever.

Step 3 is the one most people skip, and it is the one that saves you. A fresh model has different blind spots. It notices the gaps the first one talked itself past.

Part 5: Stop wasting your limit

These five habits work on every model and every plan.

1. Edit your last message instead of sending "no, try again." Hover over your last message, click the edit pencil, and change the prompt. Editing forks the chat, so the bad answer does not stay in the conversation as extra baggage.

2. Batch tasks into one message. Three tasks in one message costs less than three separate messages. Use a numbered list.

3. End simple prompts with "No commentary. Just the output." It cuts the intro, the summary, and the offer to help further. On short tasks that can cut the answer length by a third or more.

4. Start a new chat for a new topic. A long chat carries all the old context forward, and the app reprocesses it every message. New topic, new chat.

5. Do not upload a long PDF when the text will do. PDFs carry layout data that costs more to read. For long or dense files, paste the plain text into the chat instead.

Part 6: Write your own rule

Run the model audit prompt below in your default model. It maps your actual work to the sizes and hands you back a short personal rule. Save that rule somewhere you can see it. Three or four sentences is enough.

Copy and paste

The review prompt

Use this after one model builds something. Paste it into a chat with a different model.

Review this work cold. Look for mistakes, missing pieces, weak assumptions, confusing parts, and places where it does not match the goal. Be direct and specific. Do not rewrite the whole thing yet. First, tell me what is broken and what should change.

Goal:
[PASTE THE GOAL]

Work to review:
[PASTE THE WORK]

The model audit prompt

Use this once, to build your own rule for which model you open.

I want to figure out how to use AI models more strategically for my specific work.
What I do:
[your job title and 2-3 sentences about what my day-to-day work actually involves]
How I currently use AI:
[what I use it for most, and which model I default to]
My biggest bottleneck:
[what's taking the most time or where the output has felt shallow]
Based on this, I want you to:
1. Audit my current model usage.
Given how I described my work, am I using the right model for the right tasks? Where am I likely wasting the deep model on things the default model handles just as well? Where am I using the default model on things that would genuinely benefit from deeper reasoning?
2. Map my specific tasks to the right model.
Take the types of work I described and tell me, for each major task category, whether that's a fast-model task, a default-model task, a deep-model task, or somewhere I should turn on extended thinking. Be specific to my role, not generic.
3. Tell me the 3 tasks in my role where extended thinking would make the biggest difference.
Not general advice. Specific to what I described. These should be tasks where seeing the reasoning step by step would genuinely change the quality of the output or help me think something through more clearly.
4. Give me a simple personal model policy.
Write me a 3-4 sentence rule of thumb I can actually remember, tailored to my specific role and work style, for when to use the fast, default, and deep models, and when to turn on extended thinking.
Be specific to my situation. The point of this exercise is to stop using models on autopilot.

The thinking line

Add this to a prompt when you cannot find a thinking toggle, or when the task involves logic or numbers.

Think through this carefully before responding.

The output trimmer

Stick this at the end of any simple request to cut the padding.

No commentary. Just the output.

The batching pattern

Use this shape when you have several small asks about the same thing.

1. Rewrite this email.
2. Make it shorter.
3. Give me 3 subject lines.

The shape to remember

Save this line. It survives every model launch.

smartest to think, fastest to build, a different one to review, cheapest for the boring stuff

Watch out

You use the biggest model for everything

The deep model on a short email works fine. It is just an expensive way to write a short email, and it eats the part of your limit you wanted for the hard job later in the week. Default for most things. Deep when the work earns it.

You let the builder check its own work

It made the same assumptions twice, so it will tell you the work looks great. Hand the output to a different model. This matters most on anything you are going to send, publish, or make a decision from.

You memorize model names

Guides go stale within months. The version numbers you read this year will be wrong next year. Learn fast, default, and deep. When a new model ships, ask which of the three slots it fits and carry on.

You hand a long document to the fast little model

Small fast models lose track of detail across a long file. They will not tell you. They will quietly miss things in the middle. Long documents go to the default or the deep model.

You blame the model when your brief was thin

A lot of weak output comes from a weak ask. Before you switch models, give the one you have more context. Say what you want, who it is for, and what a good version looks like. Then try again.

You leave thinking mode on

It is a switch, not a setting you turn on once. Left on, it spends extra effort on simple work. Turn it off when the hard task is done.

Check yourself

• [ ] I can name the three model sizes without looking.

• [ ] I found the model picker in my app and switched models once.

• [ ] I turned extended thinking on, used it, and turned it off.

• [ ] I ran one real job through think, build, and review with three chats.

• [ ] The review used a different model than the build.

• [ ] I ran the model audit prompt and saved the rule it gave me.

• [ ] I know which models my plan actually includes.

Do this now

Take the last real piece of work an AI made for you. Open a chat with a different model, paste the review prompt, fill in the goal and the work, and read what it finds.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 7: The four Claudes, and which one you actually want

• Part 8: Fast or deep: picking a model per task

• Part 9: ChatGPT and Claude, compared fairly

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments which model you have been using for everything, and I will point you at the right next part.

Four things stop people from using AI, and none of them are about how the tool works. Guilt about energy. A foggy feeling about the future. Attention you cannot spare. Predictions you cannot rate. Left alone, they make the decision for you, quietly, on bad information.

What you will be able to do

• Quote the actual numbers on data center energy use and on one AI question.

• Tell the difference between the cost of training a model and the cost of using one.

• Name what social media was doing for you, and which of those jobs AI now does.

• Repeat the main AI predictions accurately, including who made them and what they rest on.

• Run any scary AI headline through a two question filter before it decides your week.

This is for anyone who wants a straight answer before they commit. You will finish able to hold your own opinion with the real figures behind it.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott teaches beginners and non-technical people, and she runs 33 active social brands on AI automations across several computers. She rebuilt a 403-guide archive into this 103-lesson course, so the numbers here are sourced and marked, not remembered.

What this lesson is

Lesson 1.5 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 1: What AI Actually Is.

Four things stop people from using AI, and none of them are about how the tool works.

The first is guilt about energy. You have seen the posts about data centers boiling the planet, and you do not want to be part of it.

The second is a foggy, tired feeling. You cannot see what your job looks like in five years, so every long plan feels shaky.

The third is attention. You already lose hours to a screen. Adding another thing to open sounds like a bad trade.

The fourth is the predictions. Smart people are saying enormous things about the next few years, and you cannot tell which ones to take seriously.

Every one of those is a fair thing to feel. They also all have real information behind them, and most of what circulates online is a mangled version of it.

Think about the last time you looked up whether some food was bad for you. Half the internet screamed yes, half screamed no, and the actual study said something narrower and duller than either side. The numbers existed the whole time. They just travelled slower than the noise.

Same story here. So this lesson gives you the numbers, names who said what, and marks clearly where a claim stops being data and starts being a guess about the future.

Nobody is going to tell you what to conclude. You are going to end this lesson able to hold your own opinion with the real figures behind it.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: The energy question, with the actual numbers

The International Energy Agency published a report called Energy and AI in April 2025. These are its main figures.

Data point / Number

• World electricity used by data centers in 2024: 1.5 percent, or 415 TWh

• Projected data center share of world electricity by 2030: About 3 percent, or about 945 TWh

• Growth in AI-focused data centers in 2025: 50 percent

• Growth in data centers overall in 2025: 17 percent

So yes, data centers use real energy, and yes, that number is growing.

Now the other end of the scale. Epoch AI, an independent research group, found that a typical AI question uses about 0.3 watt-hours. A 1,000 watt microwave running for one second uses about 0.28 watt-hours. That is where the "one AI question is about a second of microwave" comparison comes from, and it is roughly right. Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data helped make the comparison well known.

Here is what a heavy personal day looks like:

100 questions times 0.3 Wh is 30 Wh. An average US home draws about 1.2 kW. That works out to about 90 seconds of normal household electricity use.

Older viral graphics used 3 watt-hours per question, ten times the current credible estimate. The IEA report rejected those inflated numbers. If a chart you are shown uses 3 Wh, it is not using the current figure.

The last piece is where the growth actually comes from. The IEA points at GPU-heavy systems, called accelerated servers, which are used to train and run large models. Those account for about half of the net increase in data center energy through 2030. A company training a brand new frontier model for three months uses vastly more energy than one person asking questions over the same period.

That is the split worth keeping. Training a new model is a company-level decision about whether to build it. Asking questions of a model that already exists is a different question with a much smaller number attached. Both facts are true at once. What you do with them is yours.

Part 2: The foggy feeling has a name

Harvard Business Review published a piece by Toby E. Stuart, the Helzel Chair at UC Berkeley Haas, called The Future Is Shrouded in an AI Fog.

His point: this is reduced visibility, not darkness. You can still see. You just cannot see far. That makes long bets feel harder. A four year degree. A thirty year mortgage. One career path for decades. A clean five year plan.

The move is not to guess the future correctly. You will not know which jobs change first, which tools win, or what five years from now looks like. The move is to build more options, so more doors are open whichever way it goes.

Five things that hold their value no matter which way it breaks:

1. Put your context in one place. Set up one Project for the thing you do most. Add your context, your voice, and your reference files once. Then stop retyping your setup into every chat.

2. Build trust. A small group of people who trust you is a strong asset. Show up often, talk like a person, help before you ask for anything, be clear and honest. Trust is slow, and it is hard for AI to replace. Two hundred people who open your emails beat two hundred thousand who scroll past.

3. Learn on purpose. The real flexibility is how fast you can learn a new area when your old one changes. Pick one new thing, learn a little each week, use it in public, and teach it back in plain words. Teaching is what makes it stick.

4. Make one public thing. Something small with a real address on the internet. A page, a tool, a guide. Being the person who makes real things holds up regardless of which tool wins.

5. Start one small income stream that uses AI. A weekend product, a freelance service, a small digital product. The money is not the point at first. Having a second bet running changes how the first one feels.

Pick one. Not five. Small work done often beats a big plan you never start.

Part 3: Where your attention actually goes

There is real data here, and it is more interesting than the usual screen-time lecture.

An analysis by GWI, covering more than 250,000 adults across over 50 countries, was shared by John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times. It found social media use peaked in 2022 and has fallen every year since. In developed markets, average daily social time is down almost 10 percent, the first steady drop in ten years.

Around the same period, Appfigures reported that ChatGPT became the most-downloaded app in the world, beating Instagram and TikTok for the first time. Reported user numbers went from about 100 million monthly users in early 2023 to around 900 million weekly users by early 2026.

The strategist Matt Paige put an explanation on top of that data. He argues people used social media for five jobs, and AI now does four of them better. Treat the data as data and his explanation as an argument, because a decline in one thing does not prove another thing caused it.

The five jobs, and where they now go:

What you opened social media for / What that looks like now

• Information: A short question beats 30 minutes of scrolling for "what happened this week"

• Entertainment: AI does not replace funny videos, but it does replace the endless "show me something" scroll

• Distraction: Ask a curious question and follow the answer for ten minutes

• A quick hit of novelty: You can ask for something surprising instead of waiting for a feed to surprise you

• Feeling connected: Still social media. If your nephew takes his first steps, you see it where his mom posts it

Try this yourself. Notice which of the five you are reaching for next time you open an app out of habit. Four of them have a swap. One of them does not, and that one is worth protecting.

If you want to put the reclaimed time somewhere, these are the ideas people build first, with rough build times attached:

• A personal newsstand that pulls from sources you choose and writes one weekly digest. About 2 hours.

• A habit tracker that nudges you and writes a weekly review. About 3 hours.

• An inbox triage setup that finds the five emails that matter and drafts replies. About 1 hour.

• An idea validator that researches a market and competitors before you commit. About 2 hours.

• A weekly planner that reads your calendar and your last seven days and tells you what to focus on. About 2 hours.

Those are ideas, not instructions. The build steps come later in this course.

Part 4: The predictions, marked as predictions

Everything in this part is a forecast. None of it has happened.

The 2028 forecast. Jack Clark, an Anthropic co-founder and head of Policy at the company that makes Claude, wrote in his Import AI newsletter, issue 455, that he puts a 60 percent or higher chance on AI doing AI research and development with no human involved by the end of 2028. He gives a similar 60 percent chance to recursive self-improvement by the same date, which in plain words means AI helping build its own successor.

What that number rests on is worth knowing. Researchers track how long an AI agent can work on its own before something breaks, which they call time-horizon length. An independent evaluation lab, METR, has measured this over time and found it roughly doubling every four months. If that doubling slows, the date moves further out. If it speeds up, it moves closer. So the forecast is a bet on a trend line continuing, not a schedule.

His suggested response is steady, not dramatic: learn to build one small agent, learn to judge AI output rather than just produce it, learn one set of connected tools deeply, ship one small thing other people can click, and understand the rules side, including model evaluations and laws like the EU AI Act.

Three softer predictions. These circulate widely and have no data behind them at all. Hold them loosely.

• Talking will take over from typing, and dictating will become the normal way people work with AI.

• More than half of professionals will have at least one agent working for them daily.

• Companies past about 20 people will hire someone whose job is running their AI systems.

One more, from the hardware side. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, gave a Stanford lecture called The Compute Behind Intelligence. He said computing got about a million times faster over the last decade, which is part of why AI felt like it arrived everywhere at once. He also said the energy computing will need is far beyond today's supply, on the order of a thousand times more. Both figures come from the head of a company that sells AI chips, so weigh them accordingly.

Part 5: A filter for scary claims

Huang pushed back on AI doom claims in that lecture, saying some of them "are all being made up." His filter is a useful one, and it cuts in every direction, including at him.

Ask whether the claim could be proven wrong. If no evidence could ever prove it false, it is a fear story, not a checked fact. That test applies just as much to a chip executive saying the risks are invented as it does to a headline saying everything is about to end.

Then do the thing that actually resolves it. You learn more from using the tool on one real task than from reading one more panic post, and more from checking one real number than from arguing about a screenshot.

Copy and paste

The energy math

Keep this so you can check any energy claim you get sent.

100 questions x 0.3 Wh = 30 Wh total
Average US home draw: about 1.2 kW
30 Wh / 1.2 kW = about 90 seconds of normal household use

The fear filter

Run any alarming AI headline through these four questions before it changes what you do.

Can this claim be checked?
What evidence would prove it wrong?
Is this a fact, or is it a fear story?
What is one small task I can try with AI today?

The direction questions

Ask these when you are trying to decide what to learn next.

Where is this field clearly heading?
What skill will people need in two years?
What tool will everyone wish they understood later?
What problem is still small now but growing fast?

The control questions

Ask these when a headline leaves you feeling stuck.

What can I control here?
What can I make clearer?
What skill can I build?
What proof can I create?
What would make me hard to ignore?

Watch out

Comparing your questions to the cost of training a model

These are two different numbers and they get mixed together constantly. Training a new frontier model is a company decision measured in months of heavy compute. Your questions are measured in fractions of a watt-hour.

Passing on a graphic without checking the figure

Old charts using 3 watt-hours per question are still circulating. The current credible estimate is about 0.3. Check which number a chart is built on before you share it.

Treating a correlation as a cause

Social media time is falling, and AI use is rising. That is two facts. The explanation that one caused the other is an argument someone made, and it may be right, but the data does not prove it.

Repeating a prediction as if it happened

The 2028 forecast is a probability someone assigned to a trend continuing. The three softer predictions have no data behind them at all. Say "he predicts" out loud when you repeat them.

Taking a number from someone who sells the thing

Chip company figures on how fast computing got and how much energy it will need are real numbers with a commercial interest attached. So is a model company's forecast about models. Note the interest, keep the number, and go find a second source.

Trying to predict your way out of the fog

You will not guess which jobs change first. Building options works whether or not you guessed right. Predicting only works if you guessed right.

Building five things at once because five sounded doable

Every list in this lesson has five items. Pick one from one list. Small work done often is what actually moves.

Swapping the one job AI does not do

Four of the five reasons people open social media have a decent AI swap. Feeling connected to actual people is not one of them. Keep that one where it lives.

Check yourself

• [ ] I can say what share of world electricity data centers used in 2024, and the 2030 projection.

• [ ] I know roughly what one AI question costs in watt-hours, and what it compares to.

• [ ] I can explain the difference between training a model and using one.

• [ ] I can name which of the five social media jobs AI does not replace.

• [ ] I can state the 2028 forecast, who made it, and what trend it rests on.

• [ ] I marked the three softer predictions as unsourced guesses in my own head.

• [ ] I picked one of the five career options to build, and only one.

• [ ] I ran one claim through the fear filter.

Do this now

Write down the one AI claim that has been sitting in the back of your head, the one that makes you hesitate. Run it through the four fear filter questions and see whether any evidence could prove it wrong.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 6: Models explained, and why one favorite is a trap

• Part 7: The four Claudes, and which one you actually want

• Part 8: Fast or deep: picking a model per task

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments which AI headline made you nervous this month, and I will point you at the right next part.

Three things went wrong that day and none of them were the tool. No context, the wrong first task, and an old product. People run that same bad first week once and treat it as a verdict for years.

What you will be able to do

• Explain why a short request gives you a plain answer, and fix it in one line.

• Set up a free account and run a first task that is not "write me an email".

• Write a prompt with all five parts: role, task, format, examples, and limits.

• Build a Project that holds your role, your voice, your priorities, and your rules.

• Follow a seven day plan that adds one thing a day and ends with a saved setup.

This is for anyone starting from scratch, or restarting after a bad first try. Free accounts are enough for the whole week.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott built four software products with AI help: PRISM, AutoViral, UPRISE Social Studio, and Profounder. She is not an engineer and never studied computer science. Everything she runs started the way this week starts.

What this lesson is

Lesson 1.4 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 1: What AI Actually Is.

Plenty of people try AI once, get a bland answer, and quietly decide it is overhyped. Almost always, three things went wrong, and none of them were the tool.

The first is context. If you type "write me an email," the AI has no idea who you are, how you write, who the email is for, or what you want to say. It fills the gaps with the most average version of everything. Asking a stranger to write your email would go the same way.

The second is the first task. Most people start by asking AI to write something from nothing. That is one of the harder jobs to do well. It is much stronger at analyzing data, summarizing long documents, comparing options, finding patterns, organizing a mess, brainstorming, and research.

The third is the tool. People judge everything they hear about AI by one old experience with one old product.

Here is the frame that fixes all three. Treat AI like a very smart colleague who started at your company this morning. Sharp, fast, and completely ignorant of your job, your style, your customers, and your goals. You would not hand that person a one-line instruction and expect a finished piece of work. You would tell them the situation first.

More context in, better work out. Less context in, generic work out. That is the whole trick, and it does not change as the tools change.

Stanford's AI Index report found that generative AI reached 53 percent of the world's population within three years. So you are not late. Most people are still learning to hold this thing.

From Liz's playbook: Liz Elliott is not an engineer and did not study computer science. She built four software products with AI help: PRISM, AutoViral, UPRISE Social Studio, and Profounder.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: Pick your starter tools, and add them one at a time

Four tools cover almost everything a beginner needs. Do not learn them all at once.

Tool / Use it for / Where to go

• Claude

• Use it for: Thinking, writing, planning, analysis, brainstorming, organizing

• Where to go: claude.ai

• Perplexity

• Use it for: Research and current web answers with sources

• Where to go: perplexity.ai

• NotebookLM

• Use it for: Asking questions about documents you upload

• Where to go: notebooklm.google.com

• Wispr Flow

• Use it for: Talking instead of typing

• Where to go: Search for Wispr Flow and use the official site

The order matters. Use Claude on its own for a week. Add Perplexity when you next need to look something up. Add NotebookLM when you have a long document you have been avoiding. Add Wispr Flow when you get tired of typing.

Claude has a free plan that covers a lot. The paid plan has been around $20 a month and adds more usage plus extra features. Check the current price and what your plan includes before you pay for anything.

Part 2: Learn the five parts of a prompt

Every strong prompt has five parts. Miss one and you can usually feel it in the answer.

Part / What it means / Example

• Role

• What it means: Tell it who to be

• Example: "You're a bookkeeper with 15 years of experience."

• Task

• What it means: Give one clear job

• Example: "Draft 5 subject lines for a late invoice reminder."

• Format

• What it means: Say how to lay it out

• Example: "Use a table."

• Examples

• What it means: Show what good looks like

• Example: Paste 2 or 3 samples.

• Constraints

• What it means: Say what not to do

• Example: "No buzzwords. Under 50 words."

Then there are two habits that matter as much as the five parts.

Paste in real content. It is strongest when it has something real to work with. Meeting transcripts for action items. Job postings for resume fit. Contracts for a plain English explanation. Sales numbers for patterns. A rough draft for a rewrite. Working on real material beats generating from nothing.

Have a conversation. Your first prompt does not need to be perfect. Ask, read, then adjust. "That's too formal, make it sound like how I actually talk." "Good, but add specific numbers." "Cut this in half." Going back and forth three to five times is normal, not a sign you did it wrong.

And one use most people miss. Use it to think, not only to write. Ask it to poke holes in your plan, argue the other side, list ten things that could go wrong, or compare two options side by side.

Part 3: Your first week, one thing a day

Thirty to sixty minutes a day. One focus per day. If a day is taking 90 minutes, you are going too deep, so finish the action and move on.

Day 1. Sign up and ask something real. Go to claude.ai and make a free account. There are desktop apps for Mac and Windows and a phone app too. Then ask about something you genuinely want to understand or decide. Do not start with "write me an email."

Day 2. Use it on work you already had to do. Not a demo. A real thing on your list. Prepping for a meeting, summarizing a document, planning your week, drafting a reply. Give it the context first.

Day 3. Rewrite one prompt properly. Take a prompt you used on day 1 or 2. Rewrite it with all five parts. Run both versions. Save the before and after so you can see what the difference bought you.

Day 4. Build your first Project. A Project is a workspace that keeps your context across conversations. Steps are in Part 4.

Day 5. Connect one or two tools. Start with your email and wherever your documents live. Steps are in Part 4. Then run one real prompt against each one so you know it works.

Day 6. Try a research tool and a document tool. Next time you would normally search the web, use Perplexity instead and ask in full sentences. Then take a long PDF or report you have been putting off, upload it to NotebookLM, ask for a summary, and ask it three specific questions.

Day 7. Save your profile and write your routine. Put your details into settings so every future chat starts with them, then write down your daily routine and block it on your calendar.

Here is the daily routine to aim for once the week is done:

Routine / Time / What to do

• Morning brief

• Time: 5 minutes

• What to do: Ask for your brief across mail, calendar, and messages.

• Hand off one task

• Time: 15 to 30 minutes

• What to do: Give it one task you would normally do yourself.

• End of day debrief

• Time: 5 minutes

• What to do: Say what shipped, what is open, ask what to start tomorrow.

• Weekly review

• Time: 15 minutes on Friday

• What to do: Pull wins, spot patterns, draft your update.

Part 4: The three layers, in order

Do not build all three in one afternoon. Build one, use it, then add the next.

Layer 1. Projects. This is the one that stops you re-explaining yourself.

1. Go to claude.ai.

2. Click Projects in the left sidebar.

3. Click New Project.

4. Name it for how you think about your work. My Work, Client Work, Content, Operations.

5. Write 5 to 10 sentences of Project instructions. Cover your role, your communication style, what the Project is for, and your standing rules.

6. Upload real material: past work you are proud of, templates, brand notes, anything it needs for context.

7. Add 2 or 3 emails or documents you actually wrote, so it can match your voice.

Every conversation inside that Project picks up the instructions and files automatically.

Layer 2. Connectors. Without them, it only knows what you paste in. With them, it can read from tools you already use, like your mail, your files, your calendar, and your notes.

1. Go to claude.ai.

2. Open Settings and find the section for connected apps.

3. Connect the tools you use most, starting with email and wherever your documents live.

4. Sign in and grant permission.

5. Run one real prompt against each one.

There are hundreds of connectors available. You need two.

Layer 3. Cowork. Chat is a conversation. Cowork is a handoff. In chat it replies and waits. In Cowork it makes a plan, works with real files in a folder, and can run tasks on a schedule.

1. Download or update the Claude desktop app from claude.com/download. It runs on Mac and on Windows.

2. Open the app and click the Cowork tab.

3. Click Work in a folder.

4. Give it one focused project folder. Not your whole drive.

5. Describe the outcome: what file should exist when it is done, what goes in it, what format.

6. Review the plan before it runs.

7. Approve the plan.

8. For work that repeats, save it as a scheduled task.

Two things to know before you count on this. Cowork needs a paid plan. And scheduled tasks only run while the desktop app is open, so a task set for Monday 8am does nothing if your laptop is shut.

Part 5: When the menus do not match

Two things in this lesson will not match your screen exactly, and that is normal.

Menu names move. One version says Settings then Profile. Another says Settings then Memory. Another says Settings then Integrations, or Settings then Connectors. They are all the same few screens with different labels. The rule: open Settings and look for the section that matches the job. Connected apps for connectors. Instructions or profile or memory for telling it about you. Do not assume a feature is missing because a word changed.

Free and paid keeps shifting. Sources disagree about which features are free. Chat is free. Projects and connectors are usually available on the free plan, though limits vary. Cowork and scheduled tasks need a paid plan. The rule: check your own account screen before you believe any article, including this one.

Part 6: The question to ask before every request

Before you hit enter, ask yourself one thing. Am I describing a task, or am I describing an outcome?

If your prompt does not say what finished looks like, it has to guess. So say the file type, the length, where it should go, the format, and what goes in it. "Create a 1-page summary as a Word doc in /outputs" is a finished description. "Summarize this" is not.

Copy and paste

Role line

Put a line like this at the top of a prompt to give it a point of view.

You are a bookkeeper with 15 years of experience helping small shops keep clean books.

Weak prompt versus strong prompt

Run both. The gap is the whole lesson.

Write me an email.

I'm a project manager at a tech startup.
I need to email my team about a deadline change.
The original deadline was Friday.
The new deadline is next Wednesday.
The team is stressed and I want the tone to be calm and reassuring.
I usually write in a direct but friendly way.
Write the email.

Constraints block

Paste this at the end of any writing request to kill the corporate voice.

Don't use corporate buzzwords.
Don't start with "I hope this email finds you well."
Don't use bullet points.
Keep it under 150 words.

Day 1 starter prompts

Use either one for your very first conversation.

Explain how [topic] works.

Help me think through [decision].

Learning coach instructions

Paste this into a Project called AI Fluency on day 1, so the whole week builds on itself.

You're my AI fluency coach for the next 7 days. Default to plain English. Reference what we've covered so far when you teach me new things.

Project instructions, short version

Paste this into a new Project and fill in the brackets. Good for day 4.

You're my daily co-pilot. I'm a [role] at [company/business]. My main goals this quarter are [goals]. My voice is direct, no buzzwords. When you draft anything for me, mirror my voice from the writing samples I've uploaded.

Project instructions, full version

A worked example of the 5 to 10 sentences. Swap the details for yours.

I run a small bookkeeping business with two employees.
My communication style is direct, with no filler and no corporate speak.
This Project is for client-facing work.
Always use formal language in client communications.
When writing emails, lead with the key point.
Never include more than 3 action items in a single message.
When you're unsure about tone, ask before drafting.

Work rules to add to any Project

Small lines that change every answer. Add your own.

I prefer bullet points over paragraphs.
Never use the word "synergy."
Keep things under 200 words unless I ask for more.

Connector test prompts

Run one of these the moment a connector is switched on, to prove it works.

Pull my last 3 emails from Sarah.
What's on my calendar tomorrow?
Search Notion for the Q3 strategy doc.

Connected briefing

Use this once two or three tools are connected and you want a real status check.

Check my Gmail, read the Notion board for Project Phoenix, and give me a 5-bullet briefing on where things stand, what needs a response today, and whether we're on track for the Friday deadline.

Morning brief

Your five minute start to the day.

Run my morning brief. Pull from Gmail and Slack and Calendar. Surface the 3 most important things, draft replies for the routine ones, and prep me for today's meetings.

End of day debrief

Your five minute close.

Here's what I shipped today: (list). Here's what's open: (list). What should I tackle first tomorrow?

The question before you prompt

Ask yourself this before you hit enter.

Am I describing a task, or am I describing an outcome?

Defining done

Add a line like this whenever you want a file, not a chat reply.

Create a 1-page summary as a Word doc in /outputs.

Turning a repeat task into a Skill

Paste your written-out task instructions, then this line.

Turn this into a Skill I can trigger with one sentence.

A scheduled task

Save something like this once the desktop app and Cowork are set up.

Every Monday at 8am:
Read the project files in /active-projects and my Notion boards.
Check Gmail for anything from clients over the weekend.
Create a weekly priorities doc in /briefings with the top 5 things I need to move this week.
Flag any client messages that need a reply today at the top.

Five thinking prompts

Use these when you want help thinking, not writing. Read the caution in Watch out before pasting contracts or offers.

Here's what I'm thinking about doing. Give me the 5 strongest reasons to do it and the 5 strongest reasons not to.

Based on this, what are they doing better than us and where are they vulnerable?

Here are 6 months of sales data. What trends do you notice that I should be paying attention to?

I need to tell my team that we're cutting a project they care about. Help me think through the best way to frame this, anticipate their objections, and prepare responses.

Tell me what I should be paying attention to that I might be missing.

Four research questions for day 6

Ask these in full sentences, the way you would ask a person.

What is [Company X]'s pricing model and how does it compare to [Company Y]?

Notion vs. Monday.com vs. Asana - which is best for a 10-person marketing team?

Explain the new DOL overtime rule changes for 2026 and how they affect salaried employees

Is it better to max out my 401k or pay off my student loans first? I make $85k and owe $40k at 5.5%

Five things to build in one chat

Ask for any of these and you get a working tool you can click, not a description of one.

Build me a monthly budget tracker where I input my income and expenses by category and it shows me where my money is going with a visual breakdown.

Build me a project status dashboard where I can list my active projects, their deadlines, their status, and see which ones are at risk.

Build me a weekly meal planner where I can drag meals between days, add grocery items, and generate a shopping list.

Build me a client pipeline tracker with stages (lead, proposal, negotiation, closed) where I can move clients between stages and see my total pipeline value.

Build me a savings goal calculator where I enter my target amount, my current savings, and my monthly contribution - and it shows me exactly when I'll hit my goal with a countdown.

Fixing what it built

If the first version is wrong, say so in plain words. It updates live.

Change the colors.

Add a column for notes.

The full setup prompt

The big one. Paste this when you are ready to have your whole setup written for you in one go. It is long on purpose.

I want to set up Claude properly for vibe working, delegating outcomes, not managing tasks.
Help me build the full setup for my role.

My role:
[job title and 2-3 sentences on what you actually do day to day]

My industry:
[e.g. marketing, finance, operations, healthcare, legal]

Tools I use most:
[e.g. Gmail, Notion, Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce]

What eats most of my time right now:
[2-3 things that take too long or happen too often]

Step 1: Write my Project instructions.
Based on my role and context, write a complete Project instruction set I can paste into a new Claude Project right now.
It should cover: who I am and what I do, my communication style and tone, standing rules Claude should always follow in this Project, what "good output" looks like for my work, and anything Claude should always ask before doing.

Step 2: Tell me which connectors to set up first.
Given the tools I listed, which 2-3 connectors should I set up this week for maximum impact?
For each, give me one specific prompt I could run the moment it's connected that would immediately save me time.

Step 3: Write me my first Cowork task.
Based on what's eating most of my time, write a complete Cowork task brief I can paste in right now.
Include the specific outcome, file format, what to do with edge cases, and a request to show me the plan before executing.

Step 4: Give me my first outcome-delegation prompt.
Write an example of what a well-structured outcome-delegation prompt looks like for one of the tasks I described.
It should give Claude full context, a clear outcome, and everything it needs to complete the work without coming back to ask me questions.

Make everything specific to my role.
The goal is to walk away from this with a setup I can use today.

Watch out

Starting with "write me an email"

It is the worst possible first task. No context, and generating from nothing is the hardest thing to do well. Start with something to think about or something to analyze.

Judging AI by one bad experience

Tools move fast and models change every few months. If you tried something once and it was flat, the fix is usually more context, not a better product.

Trying to build all three layers in one afternoon

Projects, connectors, and Cowork in the same sitting is how people burn out and use none of them. One Project this week. Use it. Then add the next layer.

Setting Project instructions but uploading nothing

Instructions help. Real examples help more. Upload three to five pieces of work you are proud of, like templates, past drafts, or client briefs.

Stopping after one answer you did not like

Sending one prompt, disliking the first reply, and giving up is the most common way people decide AI is useless. Push back, adjust, and go around three to five times.

Connecting your inbox with no thought about privacy

Once your mail, calendar, and files are connected, real client details, contracts, and personal messages become readable. Check your employer's policy first. Connect the account you are willing to expose, and know that you can disconnect it again in the same settings screen.

Giving Cowork your whole drive

Cowork reads and writes real files on your computer. Give it one focused project folder, and keep a backup of anything you cannot afford to lose.

Assuming a scheduled task ran

Scheduled tasks only run while the desktop app is open. Check the output before you rely on it.

Uploading contracts, offers, and financial details without thinking

Some of the prompts here invite you to paste in a contract, a job offer, or your loan numbers. That is real personal information going to a company's servers. Decide case by case, strip out names and account numbers when you can, and remember that AI is not a lawyer or a licensed financial advisor. Use the answer to prepare your questions, not to make the decision.

Skipping the profile step

The last step of the week is the one that makes every future chat better. Do not stop at day 6.

Check yourself

• [ ] I created a free account and asked something real, not "write me an email".

• [ ] I used AI on one task I actually had to do this week.

• [ ] I rewrote one prompt with all five parts and ran both versions.

• [ ] I built one Project with my role, my voice samples, my priorities, and my rules.

• [ ] I connected at least one tool and tested it with a real prompt.

• [ ] I used a research tool instead of a search engine at least once.

• [ ] I uploaded one long document and asked it three questions.

• [ ] I saved my details in settings so new chats start with context.

• [ ] I wrote my daily routine down and blocked it on my calendar.

Do this now

Go to claude.ai, make a free account, and ask it to help you think through one real decision you are sitting on. Give it the situation before you ask for the answer.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 5: The honest picture: energy, tiredness, attention, and where this goes

• Part 6: Models explained, and why one favorite is a trap

• Part 7: The four Claudes, and which one you actually want

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments which day of the seven you are on, and I will point you at the right next part.

Most weeks I show you the boring work my own AI did for me. This time I want to show you something a real person did that stopped me cold. A stranger, a real court case, a real win. Then I am going to hand you the exact steps so you can do the same thing.

I was not in this courtroom. I did not do this research. Lynn White of Long Beach, California did. She lost her jury trial. She could not pay a lawyer for the appeal. So she did the only thing she could think of: she opened ChatGPT and Perplexity and started asking questions.

Here is what happened.

Lynn White was facing an eviction case. She lost the jury trial. After that, she was looking at about $55,000 in penalties plus $18,000 in back rent. Numbers that could break a person's life.

She could not afford a lawyer for the appeal.

So she fed the court documents into AI and asked it to look at what the judge did. She spent months going through the findings. She checked every single thing the AI told her against real sources.

The AI found procedural mistakes the judge made during the trial.

She used those findings to build her appeal. She walked away from the $55,000 in penalties and the $18,000 in back rent.

NBC News reported this story. Futurism covered it. I am linking to the source at the bottom so you can read it yourself.

And here is the part that gets me. The law is full of rules about how a trial is supposed to run. How evidence gets admitted. How a judge instructs a jury. When those rules get broken, it is grounds for appeal. Most people have no idea which rules apply or how to find them. AI does.

What hiring a lawyer for an appeal would have cost

If you have ever been in a legal situation you could not afford to fight, you know how this goes.

You call a law firm. They tell you their rate. You do the math in your head. You hang up.

Appeal lawyers in tenant cases can cost thousands of dollars just to start. Most people in Lynn's position give up. They absorb the loss. They pay what they can. They let the ruling stand because there is no other option.

That is what the system counts on.

AI flips part of that. Not all of it. But enough that Lynn White walked out of a $73,000 hole.

What you get in this one

I broke the whole thing down so a total beginner can follow it. By the end of this post you will have:

• The exact way to get and organize your court documents.

• The copy-paste prompts that help AI find procedural errors.

• The prompts that help you build an appeal argument.

• The step to verify everything before you file a single word.

• The warnings you need before you try any of this.

You do not need a law degree. You need patience, the right questions, and the discipline to check what AI tells you.

An honest note before we start

This is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer. AI is not a lawyer.

Lynn White spent months verifying every citation and claim the AI gave her before she used any of it. Courts have actually sanctioned people for submitting fake AI-generated legal citations. One wrong citation and you can make your case worse, not better.

What Lynn did was use AI as a research tool, then verify everything against real legal sources. That is the only safe way to do this. Outcomes will vary depending on your case, your state, your judge, and what procedural issues actually exist. If you have a serious case, please try to get at least a consultation with a real lawyer. Many legal aid organizations offer free help for people who cannot afford representation.

Behind the paywall, you get the full how-to:

• The 7 steps in order, start to finish.

• All the copy-paste prompts, ready to use.

• The exact questions to ask AI to find procedural mistakes.

• How to use Perplexity to verify every legal rule AI gives you.

• What AI cannot do, and the mistakes that get people sanctioned.

• A steal-this recap you can save and reuse.

• Sources so you can read the original story yourself.

Subscribing unlocks the rest of this post right now, not just future ones. If you are dealing with a legal situation you cannot afford to fight the normal way, this post is worth reading before you give up.

The full walkthrough is below the paywall.

Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now.

Subscribe to unlock this article now

Read more

That is level one, and it works. That is the problem. It works well enough that people stay there for years while others, with the same tools and the same hours, get far more out of it. The gap is not talent and it is not smarter sentences. It is setup.

What you will be able to do

• Place yourself on a five level ladder without guessing high.

• Name the single next move for your level, instead of trying to do everything.

• Spot the five habits that keep people stuck on level one.

• Sort your last 20 AI sessions into three buckets and see what your mix is missing.

• Run five ready-made prompts that each fix one stuck habit.

This is for anyone who uses AI most days and suspects they are only scratching at it. No tech background needed. You place yourself, then you take one step.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott runs 33 active social brands and runs her whole operation on AI automations across several computers. That is the top of this ladder, and it was built one process at a time by someone who never studied computer science.

What this lesson is

Lesson 1.3 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 1: What AI Actually Is.

Most people who use AI use it the same way. Open a blank box, paste something in, ask a question, close the window. Next time, start from zero again.

That works. It is also the first rung of a ladder, and most people never find out there are four more.

Think about someone learning to cook. Week one you follow one recipe at a time and check the page after every step. Later you have five meals you can make without looking. Later still you keep a stocked kitchen, so dinner starts with what is already in the fridge instead of a trip to the shop. Same person, same hours, very different results. Setup did that, not extra talent.

AI works like that. The people getting the most out of it are not typing smarter sentences. They built a setup that already knows their job, their voice, their team, and their tools. So a short request like "write the Monday update" produces a finished report, because everything it needs is already loaded.

This lesson does three things. First, it shows you the five levels so you can find your real one. Read it honestly, because most people rank themselves a rung too high. Second, it gives you the one move that lifts you to the next level, and only that move. Third, it gives you a way to check the balance of your AI time, so you neither grind the same three prompts forever nor chase shiny new ideas that never turn into anything.

You do not need to be on level five. You need to know your rung and take one step.

From Liz's playbook: Liz Elliott runs 33 active social brands and runs her whole operation on a set of AI automations spread across several computers. That is the top of this ladder, and it was built one process at a time.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: Find your real level

Read all five. Pick the closest match, not the one you would like to be.

Level 1. One-off asking. You use AI for single tasks. Draft this email. Summarize this PDF. Give me five ideas. It feels impressive, but your actual work has not changed. You still open AI the way you open a search engine. You are probably here if you use AI when you happen to remember, and you do not save prompts anywhere.

Level 2. Saved prompts. You have prompts and Skills you reuse every week. You are faster on your own, but nothing around you has changed. You are probably here if you reuse a few prompts and would notice if AI stopped working for a day.

Level 3. Whole tasks. You have Projects and workflows that handle entire jobs, like drafting briefs, processing customer feedback, or building reports. You are probably here if there are two or three tasks you no longer do by hand, and you use Projects instead of blank chats.

Level 4. Connected and running. Your real tools are connected. Work happens in the background on a schedule instead of only when you open a chat. You are probably here if you review AI output more often than you create from scratch.

Level 5. Rebuilding. You redesign your systems as the tools change, and you spot new uses before they are obvious. You are probably here if you rebuild something monthly and other people ask you to help set theirs up.

Level / You are probably here if

• 1: You use AI when you remember. You do not save prompts.

• 2: You reuse a few prompts. You would notice if AI broke for a day.

• 3: You have two or three tasks you no longer do by hand, and you work inside Projects.

• 4: Work runs in the background. You review output more than you create it.

• 5: You rebuild systems monthly. Other people ask you for setup help.

Part 2: Do the one move for your level

One move. Not five.

• On level 1: save five prompts you reused this month. Put them anywhere you will find them again, in a notes app or a Project.

• On level 2: pick one recurring task that eats more than an hour a week. Build a full Project or workflow for it. A weekly content brief, a Monday morning brief, a client follow-up.

• On level 3: connect your tools. Email, files, calendar, your spreadsheets. Then set up one scheduled task. The shift you are after is work that runs without you opening a chat.

• On level 4: block 30 minutes every Friday and ask one question. What did I do this week that could have been handed off? Rebuild one process a month.

• On level 5: teach it. Explain your setup to five friends, post what you build, or run a small workshop. Explaining your thinking is what improves it.

Part 3: Fix the five habits that keep people on level one

These five habits show up over and over. Each has a prompt in the next section that fixes it.

Habit 1. Starting from a blank chat every time. The AI does not know your job, your day, or what you talked about last time, so every chat starts slow. Fix it with a Role Brief you paste into a Project. Use the Role Brief Builder.

Habit 2. Typing "write me an email" and nothing else. Thin prompts give plain answers, and then you spend your time fixing them. Give your role, who the work is for, the format, the tone, what good looks like, and any limits. Use the Prompt Upgrader.

Habit 3. Copying and pasting out of your own apps. If AI can connect to your email, files, calendar, and chat tools, then copying text out of them by hand is work you do not need to do. Use the Email Summarizer once you have connected your mail.

Habit 4. Using AI for one small thing. If it only rewrites emails for you, you are using a sliver of it. It can also review spreadsheets, plan projects, prep meetings, build visuals, and organize messy information. Use the Spreadsheet Analyzer on one real file.

Habit 5. Never teaching it your voice or preferences. Skip this and the writing stays generic forever. Give it examples of your best writing and save the result. Use the Voice Calibrator.

Part 4: Check your mix with 60/30/10

Levels tell you where you are. This tells you how you spend the time.

The split is 60 percent repetition, 30 percent iteration, 10 percent experimentation. Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot, shared this framework in a keynote talk.

• Repetition, 60 percent. Tasks you already trust. Summarizing an article into five bullets. Drafting replies you will edit before sending. Pulling key points out of a meeting transcript. Reformatting a doc or a table. This is the biggest bucket because these tasks pay you back again and again. If AI saves you 20 minutes a day here, that is roughly 80 hours over a year of workdays.

• Iteration, 30 percent. Taking prompts that already work and making them better. Same task, better ask. Add a quality bar to a prompt. Test three opening lines. Move a prompt into a Project so it carries context every time.

• Experimentation, 10 percent. Brand new ideas where you do not know if they will work. Most will fail. Some teach you a lot. The ones that work graduate into your 60 percent.

Now audit yourself. It takes about ten minutes.

1. Open your AI history and list the last 20 things you used it for.

2. Tag each one R, I, or E. Be honest. Something is not experimentation just because it felt fun.

3. Compare your mix to 60/30/10. Almost all R means you are using AI but never improving it. Almost all E means you are chasing ideas and never banking the time savings.

4. Block 30 minutes a week for whichever bucket is empty.

Copy and paste

Role Brief Builder

Use this when every chat starts from zero. It fixes habit 1.

I need you to help me build my Role Brief, which is a set of custom instructions I can paste into a Claude Project so you always know who I am and what I do.

Ask me these questions one at a time:

1. What is your job title, and what do you actually do day to day?
2. Who do you report to, and who reports to you?
3. What are your top 3 priorities right now?
4. What kind of work do you usually ask AI to help with?
5. How do you like things formatted? For example: bullets vs. paragraphs, formal vs. casual, short vs. detailed.
6. Any tools, platforms, or systems you use daily?

After I answer all 6, write me a polished Role Brief I can paste directly into my Claude Project custom instructions.

Make it concise and clear.

Prompt Upgrader

Use this when your prompts are too short. It fixes habit 2.

I am going to give you a basic prompt I normally use.

Your job is to upgrade it into a stronger prompt that gets much better output.

For every prompt I give you, rewrite it to include:

- My role and context. Ask me if you need this.
- Who the output is for.
- The specific format and structure I want.
- The tone and style.
- What "good" looks like. Ask me for an example if needed.
- Any constraints, like word count, things to avoid, or required details.

Show me the before and after side by side so I can see the difference and learn the pattern.

Here is my first prompt to upgrade:

[PASTE YOUR BASIC PROMPT HERE]

Email Summarizer

Use this after you have connected your mail, and read the warning in Watch out first. It fixes habit 3.

Check my Gmail for emails from today.

For each email that actually needs my attention, give me:

- Who it is from
- One-line summary
- Whether I need to reply, just read it, or can skip it
- If I need to reply, draft a short response for me

Skip newsletters, notifications, and marketing emails completely.

Only show me what matters.

Start with the most urgent and work down.

Spreadsheet Analyzer

Use this when you want AI to do more than write emails. It fixes habit 4.

[Upload your spreadsheet]

Analyze this data and give me:

1. The 3 most important trends you see.
2. Anything that looks unusual or concerning.
3. What is improving and what is declining.
4. 3 specific recommendations based on the data.
5. A 2-sentence summary I could paste into a Slack message to my team.

Be specific.

Use actual numbers from the data.

Do not give me generic advice.

Give me insights tied to what is actually in this spreadsheet.

Voice Calibrator

Use this when the writing does not sound like you yet. It fixes habit 5. You need three writing samples.

I am going to paste 3 examples of my best writing below.

Analyze my voice and writing style.

Then create a "Voice Profile" I can save and reuse.

Your Voice Profile should capture:

- My typical sentence length and structure
- Words and phrases I use often
- My level of formality
- How I open and close communications
- My default tone, such as direct, warm, casual, or authoritative
- Things I never do, like jargon I avoid or patterns I do not use

After the profile, write me a short paragraph about any topic in my exact voice so I can check if it sounds like me.

Here are my 3 writing samples:

[PASTE SAMPLE 1]

[PASTE SAMPLE 2]

[PASTE SAMPLE 3]

Two lines that upgrade a prompt you already use

Add either one to a prompt in your 30 percent iteration bucket.

Before answering, find one weakness in this.

Give me a full breakdown, not a summary.

Four experiment starters

Pick one for your 10 percent bucket. They are meant to be a stretch.

What if I had Claude write a script for a podcast episode I haven't recorded yet?
What if Claude analyzed my last 12 months of decisions and told me what patterns I keep falling into?
What if I built a Skill that interviews customers via DM?
What if I had Claude design the brand identity for an unannounced product?

Context in a single line

The smallest possible upgrade. Compare these two on the same piece of text.

Rewrite this.

Rewrite this for my team in my normal voice.

Watch out

Ranking yourself too high

Almost everyone does. If you cannot point at a saved prompt, you are on level one, and that is a fine place to be. The ladder only helps if you stand on the right rung.

Building workflows before you have saved a single prompt

Skipping rungs wastes time. Save the prompts that already work first. Those are what the workflow is made of.

Connecting tools before you know the task

A connected inbox does not help if you have not decided what you want done with it. Get the workflow clear, then connect.

Handing your inbox over without thinking about privacy

Connecting mail, files, and calendar means the AI can read real messages, real client details, and real attachments. Before you turn that on, check your employer's rules, and know that what the AI reads is going to the AI company's servers. Connect the account you are comfortable exposing, not every account you own.

Letting drafted replies go out unread

The Email Summarizer writes replies for you. It does not send them, and you should never let a drafted reply leave without reading every line. A wrong tone in a real client thread costs more than the ten seconds you saved.

Trusting an auto-pulled report without checking it

When a weekly update is built from your real mail and calendar, it can quietly miss something or misread a thread. Skim the source before you send the summary on.

Treating the setup as finished

The tools change. Once you are running things in the background, rebuild one process a month or the setup slowly rots.

Guessing your mix instead of checking it

Most people believe they do all three buckets. Most do not. Look at the actual history before you decide.

Check yourself

• [ ] I picked my real level, not the one I want.

• [ ] I can say the one move for my level out loud.

• [ ] I saved at least five prompts I reuse.

• [ ] I ran the Role Brief Builder and saved the result somewhere reusable.

• [ ] I upgraded one thin prompt with the Prompt Upgrader.

• [ ] I used AI for one task bigger than an email.

• [ ] I listed my last 20 AI sessions and tagged each R, I, or E.

• [ ] I booked 30 minutes this week for whichever bucket was empty.

Do this now

Open your AI history, look at the last 20 things you used it for, and tag each one R, I, or E. Your gap will be obvious in under ten minutes.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 4: Starting the right way, and the first week that works

• Part 5: The honest picture: energy, tiredness, attention, and where this goes

• Part 6: Models explained, and why one favorite is a trap

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments which level you landed on, and what your one move is, and I will point you at the right next part.

I had just made a Pinterest account for my new photo tool. Two minutes, done. Then I looked at what Pinterest actually gave me.

The name was the bare brand name. The about box was empty. My username was 05fqw8061v0mvdvv153znikxz5e3hx. A random string of letters and numbers. That was going to be my public web address.

No photo. No boards. Nothing that told Pinterest who this account helps.

Pinterest is a search engine. It has to figure out what you are about before it can show you to anyone. A fresh account tells it nothing, and the signup flow does not fix that for you.

So I spent an afternoon on the boring part. Here is every piece of it.

New here? Use the free One Person Empire course outline to read this series in the best order.

The proof behind this

I made $100K in my first 27 days online with zero experience. I built a no-code SaaS that made $60K. My first digital product made $30K. I have 241K followers on Instagram and 100K+ readers on Substack.

I am building this photo tool from zero in public right now. That means you get the setup while it is happening, not a clean story told two years later.

Being honest up front: this account is brand new. It has no traffic yet. What you get here is the exact build, the real field values, and the one step that almost went wrong. When the numbers come in, you get those too.

The five things a new account gets wrong for you

A fresh Pinterest business account starts like this:

• The name is your brand name, which nobody is searching for.

• The about box is empty.

• Your username is a random string that becomes your public link.

• There is no profile photo.

• There are no boards, so there is nothing to sort your pins into.

But Pinterest will not:

• Guess who your buyer is.

• Fill in the search words for you.

• Warn you that your username is unreadable.

• Stop you from making the one mistake that can get your website blocked.

The rule is simple. Every field Pinterest leaves blank is a field doing search work for someone else.

That is the whole job of setup day, and most people skip straight to making pretty pins.

Behind this paywall

• The four profile fields that do search work, with my exact before and after.

• The two-sided keyword trick that doubles who can find you.

• All nine boards I built, why each one exists, and the description formula.

• The three ways to claim your website, and the one rule that keeps you safe.

• The order of operations, so you never claim a site too early.

• Five copy-and-paste prompts for names, bios, boards, and descriptions.

• The setup checklist and the first-week checklist.

What paid subscribers get

• The full One Person Empire lesson, with exact steps and plain examples.

• Copy-and-paste prompts, checklists, and tables you can reuse.

• My real build as it happens, including the parts that break.

Coming next in One Person Empire

The next Pinterest lesson finds the exact words your buyer types, without paying for a keyword tool, and turns them into your first 30 pins. After that: turning one blog post into ten pins, pin design that earns the click, and the five Pinterest numbers worth reading every week.

The full walkthrough is below the paywall.

Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now.

Subscribe to unlock this article now

Read more

My Pinterest account is about AI and making money online. Every pin points at my Substack. It works. The people who save those pins want the thing that account is about.

Then I built a photo tool. Different product, different buyer, different website. Photographers.

The lazy move was right there. Open the same account. Add four boards. Point them at the new site. Done in ten minutes.

I stopped and went looking for what actually happens when you do that. I read Pinterest's own help pages, its business community, and six months of creator threads on Reddit.

I closed the tab and opened a second account instead.

New here? Use the free One Person Empire course outline to read this series in the best order.

The proof behind this

I made $100K in my first 27 days online with zero experience. I built a no-code SaaS that made $60K. My first digital product made $30K. I have 241K followers on Instagram and 100K+ readers on Substack.

None of that came from one lucky post. It came from putting the right thing in front of the right person, over and over, and reading the numbers after.

I am not selling you a course. I am building a second business in public right now, and this is the first real decision I had to make about it.

Pinterest is a search engine that judges your whole account

Most people treat Pinterest like Instagram. Post pretty things, hope.

Pinterest is closer to Google. It is trying to answer a question for a person who is planning something. To do that, it has to figure out what your account is about.

It reads:

• The words in your pin titles and descriptions.

• The words on your boards.

• The site you send people to.

• What kind of person saves and clicks your stuff.

Then it decides who else should see you.

A clean account makes that easy. An account with two unrelated topics makes it hard.

But Pinterest will not:

• Read your mind about which board is the "real" one.

• Keep your two audiences apart on its own.

• Give a brand new topic the trust your old topic earned.

• Send photographers to an account that eight months of data says is about AI money tips.

The rule is simple. One account should answer one kind of question.

That is the part that decides boards or a new account, and most people skip it.

The three questions that make the choice

I use three. If all three answers are the same, add boards. If two or three are different, open a new account.

1. Is it the same buyer? Not a similar person. The same person.

2. Are they searching the same words? Would one search bring up both?

3. Do they land on the same website? Same domain, same offer, same next step.

Mine came back different, different, different. A photographer looking for feed layout ideas is not the person searching "how to make money with AI." So it is a second account.

Your answers might be the same three times. A meal planner adding freezer meals is still the same buyer, the same words, the same site. That is boards, not a new account.

Behind this paywall

• The full decide-in-10-minutes audit, with the exact scoring.

• The claim rules that quietly break people, including the one that got a five-year-old account's new domain blocked.

• The Pinterest account change with an August 17, 2026 deadline you should check today.

• My 8-board opening setup for a brand new account, board by board.

• The "pin the output, not the app" rule that makes a boring product visual.

• The 30-day ramp plan and the real timeline for a new account.

• Six copy-and-paste prompts for boards, keywords, pin titles, and descriptions.

• The two-account safety rules, so one account never drags the other down.

What paid subscribers get

• The full One Person Empire lesson, with exact steps and plain examples.

• Copy-and-paste prompts, checklists, and tables you can reuse.

• My real setup as I build a second business from zero, in public.

Coming next in One Person Empire

This is the first of a run of Pinterest lessons. Next up: keyword research without paying for a tool, turning one blog post into ten pins, pin design that earns the click, and the five Pinterest numbers worth reading. Paid readers get the steps, the prompts, and the numbers from my own accounts as they come in.

The full walkthrough is below the paywall.

Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now.

Subscribe to unlock this article now

Read more

That is ten minutes a day spent reintroducing yourself to a machine that forgot you. Over a year it adds up to days. Worse, you get tired of typing the background, so you start skipping it, and the answers go back to average.

What you will be able to do

• Write a heading in Markdown using nothing but hash marks.

• Build a one-page How I Work file that covers your role, your goals, and your rules.

• Paste that file into any AI chat so you stop repeating yourself every time.

• Name the things that must never go in the file.

• Test in one question whether the AI is actually using it.

This is for anyone who saw a file ending in .md and assumed it was a coder thing. It is not. It is a note with a few hash marks in it.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott runs her whole operation on AI automations spread across several computers, and plain text files like this one hold it together. She is not an engineer. She rebuilt a 403-guide archive into this 103-lesson course, and every lesson in it is one of these files.

What this lesson is

Lesson 1.2 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 1: What AI Actually Is.

An .md file is a Markdown file. That sounds technical. It is not.

It is plain text with a few simple marks that make it easy to read. That is the whole thing. You are not coding an app. You are writing a clean note.

AI reads these files very well, which is why they show up everywhere in AI work. Skills, instructions, memory files, agent notes. Under all of it is plain text with a few hash marks.

Think about a recipe card box in a kitchen. Each card is short. Each one has a title at the top so you can find it. Nobody needs training to read a recipe card. You flip to the one you need and follow it.

That is what a Markdown file is for AI. A note it can find and follow. Give an assistant a folder of these notes and it reads them like a table of contents, picking the right one when it needs it. Your work style is one card. Your business facts are another. Your rules are another.

The best first card is a How I Work file. One page that says who you are, what you do, how you like to be talked to, and what the AI should never do. Write it once. Paste it in, or save it in settings, and stop explaining yourself in every new chat.

That is why this course keeps coming back to files. A good chat helps you today. A good file helps you every day after that.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: Learn the four marks

You do not need to learn a whole language. These are the marks you will use most.

One hash makes a big heading. Two hashes make a smaller one. Three hashes make a smaller one still. A dash makes a bullet.

That is enough to start. Everything else can wait.

Part 2: Write your How I Work file

The file should tell the AI six things:

1. Who you are.

2. What you do.

3. How you like to work.

4. How you want it to talk to you.

5. What you need help with.

6. What it should never do.

There are three ways to build it. Pick whichever one feels easiest. The finished file is yours either way.

• By hand. Open a plain text file, name it how-i-work.md, and fill in the template below.

• By interview. Ask Claude or ChatGPT to interview you, then turn your answers into a Markdown file.

• By talking. Turn on voice-to-text, talk out loud for five minutes about your work, then say "turn this into a clean markdown file."

Part 3: Keep secrets out

This file carries context, not secrets.

Safe to include: your role, your goals, your voice, your business facts, your work style.

Leave out: passwords, card numbers, bank numbers, ID numbers, customer personal information, your home address.

The test is simple. If you would not paste it on a public website, it does not go in the file.

Part 4: Put it to work

The easy way works in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and almost every AI tool. Start a new chat. Paste the priming line, then paste your whole file, then ask your question. Do this first, before you set up anything fancier.

To save it in Claude, open Settings, find the instructions section for Claude, and paste your file there. Now every chat starts with it.

To save it in ChatGPT, open Settings, go to Personalization, then Custom Instructions. You get two boxes. The first is for who you are and what your goals are. The second is for how you want it to talk to you and what it should never do. Each box has a size limit, so put a shorter version there and keep the full file for pasting.

Menu wording changes between versions. If you do not see those exact words, look through Settings for the section about how the AI should respond to you. It will be there under some name.

Part 5: Keep it alive

The file gets better the more you use it.

Every time you catch yourself explaining the same thing again, add that line to the file. Update the date at the top when you change it. Once a month, skim it and refresh your goals.

Then run the test question below. If the AI repeats your rules back to you, your setup is working.

Copy and paste

The Markdown marks

The four marks that cover most of what you will write.

# Title
## Section
### Small section
- Bullet point

The How I Work file template

Fill in every bracket, delete what does not apply, and save it as how-i-work.md.

# How I Work
Last updated: [DATE]

## Who I am
[Your name, your role, your business or job, where you are based if it matters.]

## What I do
[The work you actually do day to day. Two or three sentences.]

## What I need help with
[The tasks you want AI help with most. List three to five.]

## How I like to work
[Bullets or paragraphs. Short or detailed. Fast drafts or careful ones.]

## How I want you to talk to me
[Tone, formality, length. Say it plainly, for example: casual, direct, no long intros.]

## What you should never do
[Your hard rules. For example: never invent a statistic, never send anything on my behalf, never use words I have banned.]

The priming line

Paste this above your file at the top of any new chat.

This is my How I Work file. Use it for everything in this chat. Read it, confirm you have it, then wait for my question.

The test question

Run this after you paste or save the file, to check it landed.

Based on my file, how should you talk to me and what should you never do?

The voice-to-text instruction

Say this out loud after you have talked through your work.

turn this into a clean markdown file

Watch out

Adding secrets instead of context

Passwords, card numbers, bank details, ID numbers, customer information, and your home address do not belong in a file you will paste around. Keep it to context you would be comfortable sharing.

Making it so private it says nothing

The opposite mistake. A file with no real detail in it does no work. It should carry enough about your role, goals, and rules to change the answers you get.

Writing it once and never touching it again

The file goes stale. Add a line every time you explain something twice. Skim it monthly.

Keeping it in a note app and never pasting it

A file that lives in your notes and never reaches the AI does nothing. Paste it into the chat or save it in settings.

Making it so long the rules get buried

Keep a short version for settings boxes with size limits. Keep the full version for pasting and for Projects.

Check yourself

• [ ] I can write a heading and a bullet in Markdown without looking it up.

• [ ] I have a file saved as how-i-work.md.

• [ ] It covers who I am, what I do, how I work, how to talk to me, and what to never do.

• [ ] It has no passwords, card numbers, IDs, addresses, or customer details in it.

• [ ] It has a date at the top.

• [ ] I pasted it into a chat with the priming line.

• [ ] I ran the test question and the AI repeated my rules back.

Do this now

Open a blank file, name it how-i-work.md, and fill in the template above. Ten minutes is enough for a first version.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 3: The five levels of AI use, and which one you are on

• Part 4: Starting the right way, and the first week that works

• Part 5: The honest picture: energy, tiredness, attention, and where this goes

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments what the first line of your How I Work file says, and I will point you at the right next part.

I hate the gap between "article is written" and "article is ready."

The writing part is work. But it is the kind of work I actually want to do. I sit down, I tell a story, I get it to a place I like.

Then comes the part I do not like.

Cover image. Right size or it gets cropped weird. Paid-only setting. Easy to miss. Paywall placement. Not too high, not too low. Buttons. Substack wants them in a specific format. Audience. Make sure free readers do not get the whole thing. Email setting. Has to be off or the whole list gets pinged the second it goes live.

Every one of those is a small thing. Together they take longer than I want them to. And I have made each one of those mistakes at least once.

So I built a route for it.

My AI now takes a finished draft and runs it through a validation checklist before the Substack draft even exists. It checks the body. It renders a 1456x816 cover. It confirms the paywall is in the right place. It checks the buttons. It locks the audience to paid only. It forces send to false. Then it commits a proof file to git so I can see what ran and what passed.

When the route finishes, there is a staged Substack draft waiting for me to review. Not a live post. Not an email blast. A review draft with proof I can read.

That is the setup I am going to walk you through.

The writing is my job. Everything after the last period is bitchwork.

What this article gives you

I am going to show you the exact route I built to take a finished draft all the way to a staged Substack paid post. You will see what I handed to AI, what it validated, how the cover gets made, where the proof lives, and what still needs a human before anything goes live.

Who this is for

• You write your Substack posts but spend more time fiddling in the editor than you should.

• You have accidentally sent an email blast before a post was ready.

• You have forgotten to set a post to paid-only and given it away for free.

• You are not technical but you want your publishing workflow to stop depending on you remembering a checklist.

• You want to understand how a staged draft is different from a live post.

If that is you, keep reading.

Why you can trust this story

I run Liz on the Web at 241K followers. I also run PRISM, AutoviralApp, UPRISE, and Profounder. All of them create Substack content. All of them now run through this same route.

The proof file I am referencing in this article is real. It is committed to git. The filename is 2026-07-02-ope-part-11-instagram-money-map-draft-proof.json. It sits in content-system/substack/generated/. You can read it. It has a timestamp. It has a validation result. It does not claim the post went live because it did not. It staged a review draft.

That is all this route does. Stage. Validate. Prove. Nothing publishes without me.

I am not selling a tool. There is no paid tool here. I am giving you the prompts and the workflow in plain language.

Behind this paywall

Paid readers get:

• The exact handoff prompt I gave my AI to start the route.

• The step-by-step breakdown of what the route does in order.

• The full validation checklist covering body, cover, paywall, buttons, audience, send:false, and proof.

• What the proof file actually looks like and how to read it.

• What AI cannot do in this route and what still needs me.

• What to check manually before clicking publish.

• A copy-this recap you can use as a template.

What paid subscribers get every week

Paid subscribers do not only get this one workflow. You also get:

• Real bitchwork I handed to my AI inside my actual business.

• The prompts I used, written so you can copy them.

• The receipts that prove what worked.

• The problems that slowed the job down.

• The safety checks that kept AI from making a risky call on its own.

• Simple playbooks you can use in your own business.

Subscribe and the rest of this article opens right away. You get the full route, the prompt, the checklist, and the proof walkthrough now.

The full walkthrough is below the paywall.

Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now.

Subscribe to unlock this article now

Read more

Skipping one word is cheap. What happens next is not. The following paragraph uses that word to explain the next idea, so now two things are fuzzy. Three pages later you decide AI is not for you. The tool was fine. One skipped word did all of that.

What you will be able to do

• Say what a prompt, a token, a context window, and a hallucination are, in your own words.

• Tell a connector apart from an MCP, and a skill apart from a plugin.

• Guess roughly how many tokens a page of text will use.

• Look up any AI word you meet later in about ten seconds.

• Stop nodding along in a meeting when someone drops a term you do not know.

This is for anyone who has felt behind in an AI conversation. You do not need a tech background. Nothing here assumes you have used AI before.

The proof behind this

Liz Elliott is not an engineer and never studied computer science. She runs 33 active social brands and built four software products with AI help: PRISM, AutoViral, UPRISE Social Studio, and Profounder. She learned every one of these words as a beginner, which is why this course starts with them instead of assuming them.

What this lesson is

Lesson 1.1 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 1: What AI Actually Is.

AI has a pile of words that people use like everyone already knows them. Tokens. Context window. Agent. MCP. Nobody hands you the list. You are just supposed to have it.

You do not have to fake it. Every one of these words has a plain meaning. Most of them are simpler than they sound.

Think about walking into a coffee shop the first time. Grande, macchiato, flat white, single origin. It sounds like a code. Once someone spends two minutes explaining the words, you order without thinking about it ever again. The coffee was never hard. The menu was just unfamiliar.

AI words work the same way. There are about ten you will hit in your first week. There are another twenty you will meet over the next few months. That is the whole list. It is not growing as fast as it feels.

Here is the thing to hold on to. If you skip a word you do not know, the confusion piles up. The next paragraph uses that word to explain the next idea, and now two things are fuzzy. Three pages later you decide AI is not for you. The tool was fine. One skipped word did all that.

So this lesson is one dictionary, not four. The ten that matter come first. The rest sits below in alphabetical order. You are not meant to memorize any of it. You are meant to read the ten, skim the rest, and come back here whenever a word trips you.

From Liz's playbook: Liz Elliott is not an engineer and did not study computer science. She teaches beginners and non-technical people, so nothing in this course assumes you already know the words.

New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.

Do it

Part 1: The ten that matter

Read these ten now. They cover almost everything you will meet in your first month.

Prompt. What you type into the AI. It is the instruction you give it.

Model. The AI engine doing the work. One tool can offer several models, and they are better at different jobs.

LLM. Short for large language model. It is the brain behind a chatbot. It read a huge amount of text and learned to predict the next word, over and over, which is enough to write drafts, plans, summaries, and code.

Token. A chunk of text the AI reads. It does not always see whole words. The word basketball might split into basket and ball.

Context window. How much the AI can hold in its head during one chat. Go past it and the AI starts forgetting the beginning of the conversation.

Hallucination. When the AI makes something up and says it like it is true. It does not lie on purpose. It guesses, and sounds sure while it guesses.

Memory. What the AI keeps about you between chats. Helpful when it is right. Annoying when it is stale.

Project. A saved workspace that holds files, instructions, and chat history for one topic or job. Context stays put between conversations instead of vanishing.

Connector. A ready-made, one-click link between the AI and an app you already use, like your email, your calendar, or your files. With one on, the AI can go get the information itself instead of waiting for you to paste it.

Agent. An AI that takes several steps on its own to finish a whole task. You ask for the outcome instead of each step. Without an agent you say "search flights, compare prices, fill in my details, click pay." With an agent you say "book me a flight."

Part 2: The rest, A to Z

Skim this once. Do not memorize it. Come back when a word shows up.

Term / Plain meaning

• Agentic: A word for AI that plans and acts across several steps instead of just replying.

• AGI: Artificial general intelligence, the idea of AI that could do any task a person can, including tasks it was never trained on. It does not exist yet.

• Artifact: A finished thing the AI builds beside the chat, like a document, a slide, a web page, or a small working tool you can click.

• Bias: When answers lean one way because the training text leaned that way.

• Chatbot: An AI you talk to that answers and then waits for you.

• Computer Use: A mode where the AI can see a screen, click, and type its way through apps, for jobs like filling in forms or moving data between tools.

• Cowork: A shared workspace where a team can work with Claude on the same projects and skills.

• Deep Research: A slower mode where the AI checks many sources and writes you a report. It can take 10 to 30 minutes.

• Extended Thinking: A mode where the AI reasons for longer before it answers.

• Fine-tuning: Extra training that reshapes a model using your own data. It is a developer job and it is expensive. Almost nobody reading this needs it.

• Generative AI: The umbrella name for AI that makes new things: text, images, video, music, or code. If it creates instead of only sorting, it is generative.

• Knowledge cutoff: The date the model's training text stops. Anything newer than that needs a web search.

• Machine learning: Teaching a computer from examples instead of typing out every rule by hand. Show it thousands of emails marked spam or not spam and it learns the signals itself.

• MCP: Model Context Protocol. An open standard, like an agreed plug shape, that lets tools without a ready-made connector hook into AI anyway.

• Multimodal: An AI that handles more than text, like images, audio, and video.

• Open weight model: A model anyone can download and run for free. People often call these open source, but that phrase means more than just downloadable, so open weight is the safer word.

• Plugin: A bundle that installs several skills and connectors at once, so you get a whole setup instead of building it piece by piece.

• RAG: Retrieval-augmented generation. A setup that lets AI answer from your own documents instead of only from what it was trained on.

• Scheduled task: A job you set to run at a chosen time, like every Monday at 8am.

• Skill: A saved set of instructions for one task, so you stop explaining your method every single time.

• Sycophancy: When the AI agrees with you too much instead of pushing back.

• System prompt: Standing instructions that sit underneath a chat, a Project, or a Skill and shape every answer by default.

• Vibe coding: Building software by describing what you want in plain words and letting the AI write the code.

Part 3: The two mix-ups that trip almost everyone

Connector versus MCP. These get used as if they mean the same thing. They do not. A connector is a finished, one-click integration the AI company built for a popular app. MCP is the open standard that other tools use to plug in when no ready-made connector exists. As a user they feel similar. Under the surface they are different, and you will meet MCP again.

Skill versus plugin versus Project. A connector is the cable. A skill is the manual. A plugin is the package that holds several cables and manuals together. A Project is the workspace where you keep the job.

Part 4: The token math, and what to do when sources disagree

Tokens matter because limits and prices are counted in tokens, not words.

Text amount / Tokens

• 1 token: About three quarters of a word

• 100 tokens: About 75 words

• 1 word: About 1.3 tokens

• A page, around 375 words: About 500 tokens

Sources disagree here. Some say a token is about half a word. Some say it is about one word. Some say it is about three quarters.

The rule for picking: use three quarters of a word. It is the version that matches the math table above, and it lines up with the common estimate that a 5,000 word document is around 6,500 tokens. Exact counts vary by model, so treat every token number as a rough guide, never a promise.

Context windows are big now. The newest top models can hold roughly a million tokens at once, which is about 750,000 words. That number moves with the model and sometimes with your plan, so check what your own tool says instead of trusting a number from an article.

Part 5: When a word is not on this list

Do not guess and do not scroll past. Paste it into the AI and ask.

Copy and paste

The term explainer

Use this any time a new AI word shows up and you do not want to fake it.

Explain this AI term in plain English: [TERM]

Tell me three things:
1. What it means in one simple sentence.
2. When I would actually use it.
3. Whether a non-technical person needs to care about this, or can safely ignore it for now.

The prompt shape

Use this to turn a vague request into one that works. Fill in every bracket.

Write a [length, for example 3-sentence] [format, for example Instagram caption]
for [who it is for, for example a life coach]
targeting [the exact audience, for example burnt-out 9-to-5 workers],
[tone, for example casual],
end with [the ending you want, for example a question].

Vague versus specific

Keep this pair where you can see it. It is the fastest lesson in prompting.

VAGUE: Write something about marketing

SPECIFIC: Write a 3-sentence Instagram caption for a life coach targeting burnt-out 9-to-5 workers, casual tone, end with a question

Three one-line fixes for three quality problems

Add these lines when the AI makes things up, agrees too easily, or leans one way.

If you do not know something, say "I don't know" instead of guessing.

Argue against me. Do not just support what I said.

Give me the strongest case for the opposite view.

Watch out

Nodding along instead of asking

You read past a word you do not know and the confusion compounds. Three paragraphs later nothing makes sense. Look it up, then keep moving. Ten seconds now saves the whole page.

Blaming the model for a vague prompt

"Write something about marketing" was never going to give you anything usable. Before you decide the AI is weak, check whether you named the length, the audience, the tone, and the format.

Trusting a confident answer

A made-up fact sounds exactly as sure as a correct one. That is what makes it risky. Check names, dates, prices, numbers, and anything legal or medical. Treat AI output as a first draft, never as the final authority.

Staying in one long chat forever

Once you fill the context window, the AI starts dropping the beginning of the conversation. If a long chat starts feeling forgetful, that is your sign. Start a fresh chat and paste in the few things it still needs.

Counting words when the bill counts tokens

Your word count and your token count are not the same number. Use 100 tokens for about 75 words, and about 500 tokens for a page.

Confusing today's chatbot with AGI

AGI is a debate about the future. It is not a description of the tool in front of you. Arguments about AI taking over are usually arguments about AGI.

Reaching for fine-tuning

Fine-tuning sounds like the serious option. It is technical, it costs money, and you almost certainly do not need it. A good Skill or Project gets you most of the same benefit.

Trying to learn every term at once

You do not need the whole list on day one. Learn the ten. Pick up the others as they come up in real work.

Check yourself

• [ ] I can explain a prompt, a token, a context window, and a hallucination without looking.

• [ ] I said three of the ten terms out loud in my own words.

• [ ] I know a connector is a ready-made link and MCP is the open standard for everything else.

• [ ] I know a skill is a saved method and a plugin is a bundle of them.

• [ ] I can estimate that a page of text is roughly 500 tokens.

• [ ] I know to start a fresh chat when a long one goes foggy.

• [ ] I have the term explainer prompt saved somewhere I can find it.

• [ ] I know AGI is not what I am using today.

Do this now

Pick the three terms on this page you could not have explained ten minutes ago. Say each one out loud, in your own words, without looking back at the definition.

Keep going

Next in AI for Entrepreneurs:

• Part 2: What an .md file is, and why this course lives in them

• Part 3: The five levels of AI use, and which one you are on

• Part 4: Starting the right way, and the first week that works

Every part of this course sits in reading order in the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline.

This part is free, start to finish. Subscribing keeps the rest of the course coming and opens the paid parts.

Tell me in the comments which AI word tripped you up first, and I will point you at the right next part.

Published lessons are links. Everything else says Coming, with the date it goes out.

Start at the top if you are new. If you already use AI every day, skip to Part 3.

New lessons land every other day.

Part 1 Foundations

What AI is, which tool to pick, how to set it up, how to talk to it

22 lessons

1. What AI Actually Is

The words and the file

• The words you need before anything else — Coming Aug 18, 2026

• What an .md file is, and why this course lives in them — Coming Aug 20, 2026

Where you are starting from

• The five levels of AI use, and which one you are on — Coming Aug 22, 2026

• Starting the right way, and the first week that works — Coming Aug 24, 2026

The honest picture

• The honest picture: energy, tiredness, attention, and where this goes — Coming Aug 26, 2026

2. Choosing Your AI

How models actually differ

• Models explained, and why one favorite is a trap — Coming Aug 28, 2026

• The four Claudes, and which one you actually want — Coming Aug 30, 2026

• Fast or deep: picking a model per task — Coming Sep 1, 2026

Picking your tools

• ChatGPT and Claude, compared fairly — Coming Sep 3, 2026

• Your starter stack, and what to ignore — Coming Sep 5, 2026

3. Setting It Up

Your first three days

• Day one: the five things to do first — Coming Sep 7, 2026

• Day two and three: the next ten things — Coming Sep 9, 2026

Pick a setup path

• The 60 minute setup — Coming Sep 11, 2026

• The full one day setup — Coming Sep 13, 2026

Where to work, and what to claim

• Desktop, phone, or browser: where to actually work — Coming Sep 15, 2026

• The settings nobody checks, and the free stuff nobody claims — Coming Sep 17, 2026

4. Talking To AI

How a prompt is built

• The anatomy of a prompt — Coming Sep 19, 2026

• Say what you want, not how to do it — Coming Sep 21, 2026

• The steering wheel: seven levels of control — Coming Sep 23, 2026

Getting sharper answers

• Words that change the answer — Coming Sep 25, 2026

• Prompt packs worth saving — Coming Sep 27, 2026

Past the single prompt

• Stop prompting, start looping — Coming Sep 29, 2026

Part 2 Make It Yours

Give it memory, keep it honest, plug it into your real tools

19 lessons

5. Memory And Context

Giving AI a memory

• Why AI forgets you, and the fix — Coming Oct 1, 2026

• The most important file you will ever write — Coming Oct 3, 2026

• The about-me file — Coming Oct 5, 2026

• Global instructions that apply everywhere — Coming Oct 7, 2026

Feeding it what you know

• Knowledge files and your second brain — Coming Oct 9, 2026

• Context hygiene, tokens, and never hitting a limit — Coming Oct 11, 2026

Your voice, and getting better

• Teaching AI your voice and your taste — Coming Oct 13, 2026

• Making it get better every week — Coming Oct 15, 2026

6. Trust And Safety

Catching what it gets wrong

• The three ways AI lies to you — Coming Oct 17, 2026

• Check the work before you use it — Coming Oct 19, 2026

• Build a council, not a cheerleader — Coming Oct 21, 2026

Setting hard limits

• The safety playbook — Coming Oct 23, 2026

• Guardrails, permissions, and what AI may never touch — Coming Oct 25, 2026

• Do not let AI embarrass you — Coming Oct 27, 2026

7. Connecting Your Tools

Making the connection

• Connectors: what they are and how to add them — Coming Oct 29, 2026

• MCP, explained without jargon — Coming Oct 31, 2026

Add-ons and marketplaces

• Plugins, and how they differ from skills — Coming Nov 2, 2026

• The free skills marketplace — Coming Nov 4, 2026

Putting it to work

• AI as an assistant across every app you own — Coming Nov 6, 2026

Part 3 Build

Skills, agents, apps, and design work you make yourself

26 lessons

8. Building Skills

What a skill is

• Skill, workflow, or agent: which do you need — Coming Nov 8, 2026

• Skills in ten minutes — Coming Nov 10, 2026

Building one that works

• Three ways to build one — Coming Nov 12, 2026

• Building skills that actually work — Coming Nov 14, 2026

• Turn any guide into a skill — Coming Nov 16, 2026

Ready-made libraries

• A skill library for your life — Coming Nov 18, 2026

• A skill library for your job — Coming Nov 20, 2026

9. Agents And Automation

Agent basics

• What an agent is, in plain words — Coming Nov 22, 2026

• Build your first agent — Coming Nov 24, 2026

More than one at a time

• Agent teams and org charts — Coming Nov 26, 2026

• Running several at once — Coming Nov 28, 2026

• Stop babysitting it — Coming Nov 30, 2026

Other platforms

• Managed agents and other platforms — Coming Dec 2, 2026

Choosing what to hand over

• What to hand off, and what to keep — Coming Dec 4, 2026

• The weekend automation list — Coming Dec 6, 2026

10. Building Things

Apps you make by asking

• Artifacts: apps you make by asking — Coming Dec 8, 2026

• AI can build you any tool — Coming Dec 10, 2026

Coding without coding

• Vibe coding for people who do not code — Coming Dec 12, 2026

• Claude Code, all seven levels — Coming Dec 14, 2026

Real projects

• Real builds: apps, stores, landing pages — Coming Dec 16, 2026

• Home and business builds worth copying — Coming Dec 18, 2026

11. Design And Visuals

The design tool

• Claude Design, start to finish — Coming Dec 20, 2026

• Why your AI designs look like AI — Coming Dec 22, 2026

Borrowing and replacing

• Borrowing a layout the right way — Coming Dec 24, 2026

• Replacing a designer — Coming Dec 26, 2026

Decks, images, and sight

• Decks, images, and AI that can see — Coming Dec 28, 2026

Part 4 Use It

Work, career, learning, money, life, business, marketing

36 lessons

12. Getting Work Done

The working day

• Ten ways to use AI at work today — Coming Dec 30, 2026

• Meetings, prep, and follow-through — Coming Jan 1, 2027

• Making better decisions — Coming Jan 3, 2027

Getting ahead, and teams

• Reviews, raises, and promotion — Coming Jan 5, 2027

• Cowork: AI for a whole team — Coming Jan 7, 2027

13. Your Career

Where you stand

• Which parts of your job AI should already do — Coming Jan 9, 2027

• Do not get replaced, become the one who runs it — Coming Jan 11, 2027

Getting hired

• Resume and LinkedIn — Coming Jan 13, 2027

• Interview prep — Coming Jan 15, 2027

• A 30 day job search system — Coming Jan 17, 2027

Reading the market

• The new AI jobs, and how to qualify — Coming Jan 19, 2027

• Certifications worth putting on a resume — Coming Jan 21, 2027

14. Learning And Thinking

Learning AI itself

• How to learn AI for free — Coming Jan 23, 2027

• Turning AI into a tutor — Coming Jan 25, 2027

Research and language

• Real research instead of guessing — Coming Jan 27, 2027

• Languages — Coming Jan 29, 2027

Capturing, and deciding

• Notes, voice, and audio — Coming Jan 31, 2027

• Finding your gaps — Coming Feb 2, 2027

• Designing the life you want — Coming Feb 4, 2027

15. Money And Life

Money

• Five ways AI should be saving you money — Coming Feb 6, 2027

• Personal finance tasks to hand over — Coming Feb 8, 2027

• Investing, with the warnings intact — Coming Feb 10, 2027

• Legal help and spotting scams — Coming Feb 12, 2027

Home and travel

• Home, family, and the Sunday reset — Coming Feb 14, 2027

• Travel and big events — Coming Feb 16, 2027

Your body

• Health, food, and daily habits — Coming Feb 18, 2027

16. Business And Marketing

Starting the thing

• Setting up AI for a small business — Coming Feb 20, 2027

• Pressure testing an idea — Coming Feb 22, 2027

• Building a company with AI — Coming Feb 24, 2027

• Moats, stacks, and what lasts — Coming Feb 26, 2027

Getting customers

• Email marketing — Coming Feb 28, 2027

• Ads on Google, Meta, and Reddit — Coming Mar 2, 2027

• Getting found: the new SEO — Coming Mar 4, 2027

Content and selling

• A content system that runs itself — Coming Mar 6, 2027

• Selling with AI — Coming Mar 8, 2027

Earning from it

• Making money with AI — Coming Mar 10, 2027

How the course is built

103 lessons. 16 modules. 4 parts. Written for people who have never opened an AI tool.

Every lesson has the same shape, so you always know where you are: what you will be able to do, the idea, do it, the prompts to copy, what to watch out for, a checklist, and one thing to do now.

No code. Third grade reading level on purpose. If a lesson needs a technical word, it explains it first.

Until this morning you needed 100,000 followers to claim a Search profile. Now you need 35,000. On TikTok it dropped from 300,000 to 100,000.

That one change moved a huge group of creators from locked out to eligible overnight.

Here is the part people are going to miss. This is not another social profile. This is a page on Google itself, and it changes what Google shows the next time somebody types your name.

What a Search profile actually is

Google launched Search profiles in June 2026. It is a free page that pulls your whole online life into one place:

• Your social accounts

• Your website

• Your latest posts and videos

• Any links you want to add

• A short bio you write yourself

You can pin your best posts to the top so those are the first thing people see.

Your content feeds in on its own through the platforms you connect. You do not upload anything by hand. New posts usually show up within a day.

Then there is the bigger piece. When somebody Googles your name, Google may show a Knowledge Panel. That is the box with your photo and your info off to the side of the results. If you do not have one, claiming your profile may get you one. If you already have one, claiming your profile makes it better. Your photo, your links, your pinned posts, all of it starts coming from you instead of from whatever Google scraped together.

Google also writes a short AI summary of you inside that panel, and it builds that summary from the bio you write.

Read that last line again.

Five reasons this is worth your ten minutes

I know how this reads. Another platform, another profile to fill out, another thing on the list.

Here is why I stopped what I was doing and set mine up.

Google is where people check you out. Somebody sees your Reel, likes it, and wants to know if you are real. They do not open Instagram again. They Google your name. Whatever comes up is your first impression, and until now you had almost no say in it.

You get to write what AI says about you. The summary in your Knowledge Panel comes from your bio. Every time somebody asks an AI who you are, that panel is part of what it reads. This is the first time creators get to hand Google the words instead of hoping it guesses right.

It feeds Google Discover. Discover is the feed on your phone in the Google app. It sends real traffic. Your profile helps Google connect your content to you as a person, and people can find their way to your profile from your content there.

Your name is a search term. People already search it. Right now those searches land on whatever Google decided. A profile turns that into a page you control, with links pointing where you want them to point.

It costs nothing and takes ten minutes. The math on that is easy.

Free stuff from a big platform never stays this easy to get. Early is the whole advantage here.

Who qualifies now

Here are Google's own numbers, straight off its help page:

• YouTube: 35,000

• Instagram: 35,000

• X: 35,000

• TikTok: 100,000

You only need to clear the bar on one of them. Not all four. If you have 41,000 followers on Instagram and 900 on everything else, you are in.

The rest of the rules:

• You must be 18 or older.

• Your account has to be public.

• Your content has to follow Google's policies.

• You have to be in the US for now.

Google says it plans to open this up to more countries later in the year. If you are outside the US, this is a wait, not a no.

Check before you build anything

Do this first. Google may have already made a profile for you.

If you already have a Knowledge Panel and you meet the follower rules, Google may have generated a profile in the background. You would claim that one instead of starting fresh.

Search your own name on Google and look for a panel on the side of the results. If there is one, look for a link to claim it.

Either way, both roads start at the same place.

The 10-minute setup

1. Go to the claim page.

Open profile.google.com/claim and sign in with the Google account you want tied to this. Think about which one. This is the account that owns your public presence on Google now, so pick the one you actually keep.

2. Connect the platform that qualifies you.

Sign in to at least one platform that clears the follower bar. Google checks the count on its own. You do not send screenshots or fill out a form.

3. Add your other accounts.

Link the rest of your real accounts. One warning from Google's own docs: only link accounts that are actually yours and actually related to you. Random unrelated links can get your profile denied.

4. Write the bio like it is your only shot.

This is the step everybody is going to rush, and it is the one that matters most. Google builds your AI summary from this. So write it like you are teaching Google how to describe you.

Say the plain version of what you do, who you help, and what you are known for. Skip the clever tagline. If your bio says "storyteller and dreamer," that is what Google has to work with. If it says "Liz Elliott teaches beginners how to use AI to make money online," Google knows exactly what to say about you.

5. Add your website and your money link.

Your profile holds links. Put the one that actually earns first. For me that is my Substack. For you it might be a shop, a booking page, or an email list.

6. Pin your best work.

You choose what sits at the top. Do not let the newest post win by default. Pin the post that makes a stranger trust you in five seconds.

7. Save it and check your name.

Search your name in Google. Give it some time. If nothing shows up, that is often a name collision. Common names are harder for Google to sort out, and that is Google's own explanation, not a guess.

You can get back in any time at profile.google.com/account, or by tapping your photo in the Google app and going to "Your Search profile."

One more thing to know before you edit later. Changes to your name, your bio, or your social links go into a "Pending" state while Google reviews them. So get it right the first time instead of planning to fix it Thursday.

What this does not do

I am not going to oversell this.

A Search profile does not make your content rank higher. Google says that outright. Claiming it is not an SEO trick and anybody telling you it is has not read the docs.

It does not get you paid. There is no money attached to it.

It does not replace your website. It is a front door, not a house.

What it does is control your first impression on the biggest search engine on earth, for free, in ten minutes. That is enough.

If you are under 35,000

Then this is your target, and it is a real one now.

35,000 followers on one platform. Not 100,000. Not four platforms. One.

That number is reachable inside a year for somebody posting with a plan. I went from 0 to 30,000 followers in 90 days once, and I have written up exactly how that worked. The bar moved toward you today. Go take it.

And watch this pattern, because it is the actual lesson. Platforms open the door quietly, at the bottom, and the people who walk through early get treated better than the people who show up after everybody else. That has been true for every platform I have been early on.

The proof behind this

I made $100K in my first 27 days online with zero experience. I built a no-code SaaS that made $60K. My first digital product made $30K. I have 241K followers on Instagram and 100K+ readers on Substack.

I am not selling you a course on this one. I read Google's docs, set up my own profile, screenshot the parts that matter, and wrote down what I did.

New here? Use the free One Person Empire course outline to read this series in the best order.

Keep reading

• Make Your First $20K on Instagram Before You Hit 1,000 Followers

• 0 to 30K Followers in 90 Days: How to Hack the Instagram Algorithm

• Instagram Leaked Its Viral Formulas

• How to Grow an Audience Before You Have a Product

• The Marketing Funnel Died in 2026: The 4-Part Framework That Made Me $100K in 27 Days

• 30 Social Media Content Prompts to Revive a Stale Account in 30 Days

Tell me in the comments what your follower count is on your best platform, and I will tell you how far you are from the door.

Source note

Every number here comes from Google's own pages. The follower rules and the US-only note are from Google's Search Help page "Create a new Search profile" and the eligibility answer on creators.google. The change from 100,000 to 35,000 was posted by Robby Stein, VP of Product for Google Search, on August 13, 2026. The screenshots are mine, taken from those pages today. I have no traffic numbers from my own profile yet because I set it up this morning. When I have them, you get them.

What's next

Paid subscribers get the full playbook behind these posts: the exact steps, the prompts, the real numbers, and the mistakes I paid for so you do not have to. Next up is the Pinterest lesson on finding the exact words your buyer types without paying for a keyword tool, plus the 8-board setup for a second brand.

Google just moved the bar toward you. Go stand on the right side of it.

This prompt keeps your real face, moves you into a bright blue sky, adds butter-yellow shades, and builds the curved fisheye text style right into the photo. I made the full prompt free so you can copy it and try it today.

What you need

Start with one clear photo of your face. Use a photo with good light. Your face should not be covered. The photo is only there to help ChatGPT keep you looking like you.

Open a new ChatGPT chat and attach your selfie. Then paste the full prompt below. Do not shorten it. The long list is what keeps the face, hand, sky, light, hair, text, and safe zones working toward the same result.

The full butter fisheye prompt

Copy everything inside this box:

CREATE ONE EXTREMELY REALISTIC VERTICAL 9:16 OUTDOOR SELFIE OF THE PERSON IN THE UPLOADED PHOTO.

The uploaded selfie is a STRICT IDENTITY REFERENCE ONLY.

Use it to preserve the EXACT SAME REAL PERSON. Everything else must follow the specifications below.

==================================================
IDENTITY
==================================================

IDENTITY IS THE #1 PRIORITY.

The finished image must immediately and unmistakably look like the exact real person in the uploaded selfie.

Preserve their real:
• face shape
• forehead and hairline
• eyebrow shape and placement
• eye shape, size, spacing, and placement
• nose shape and proportions
• lips and mouth proportions
• cheeks and cheekbones
• jaw and chin
• skin tone and undertone
• natural facial asymmetry
• approximate age
• distinctive facial characteristics
• general natural hair coloring

Do NOT copy the reference selfie’s pose, expression, hairstyle, clothing, background, framing, camera angle, or lighting.

Do not beautify them into another person.
Do not create a generic AI face.
Do not reshape the nose, lips, eyes, jaw, cheeks, or forehead.
Do not de-age them.
Do not excessively smooth their skin.

==================================================
FORMAT + COMPOSITION
==================================================

Generate EXACTLY ONE finished image.

True vertical 9:16 composition.

Final resolution:
1080 × 1920 pixels.

Make this an EXTREMELY SKY-HEAVY low-angle selfie.

Approximately 86–90% of the composition should visually read as vivid blue sky and open negative space.

Confine the person to the VERY BOTTOM of the image.

Do NOT center the person vertically.

Do NOT enlarge the person to fill the tall canvas.

Show only:
• hair and bun
• face
• neck if at all
• very tops of shoulders if any
• at most a tiny hint of the tank top

The extra vertical space belongs ABOVE the subject as sky.

The image should look like the person noticed something interesting in the sky, held the camera low, tilted it dramatically upward, and quickly took a spontaneous selfie.

==================================================
INSTAGRAM + TIKTOK TEXT SAFE ZONE
==================================================

ALL ON-IMAGE TEXT MUST REMAIN COMPLETELY INSIDE A CONSERVATIVE SHARED INSTAGRAM REELS, INSTAGRAM STORIES, AND TIKTOK SAFE ZONE.

On the 1080 × 1920 canvas, keep the ENTIRE typography composition inside this exact region:

• no closer than 8% from the LEFT edge
• no closer than 22% from the RIGHT edge
• no closer than 15% from the TOP edge
• no closer than 36% from the BOTTOM edge

Approximate pixel boundaries:

• left boundary: x = 86 pixels
• right boundary: x = 842 pixels
• top boundary: y = 288 pixels
• bottom boundary: y = 1229 pixels

In proportional terms, every part of the typography must remain between:

• x = 8% and x = 78% of the canvas width
• y = 15% and y = 64% of the canvas height

THIS SAFE ZONE IS ABSOLUTE.

Every:
• letter
• number
• punctuation mark
• serif
• italic flourish
• ascender
• descender
• curved baseline
• enlarged central letter
• warped outer edge
• fisheye bulge

must remain completely inside this safe zone.

Do not allow the fisheye distortion to push any portion of any letter outside the safe zone.

Keep the entire rightmost 22% of the image free from text so TikTok and Instagram interface buttons cannot cover it.

Keep the entire bottom 36% free from text so captions, account information, call-to-action buttons, and platform controls cannot cover it.

Keep the entire top 15% free from text so profile information and top interface controls cannot cover it.

If the supplied quote is long:
• use additional lines
• adjust line breaks
• reduce the overall type size slightly
• tighten the editorial composition carefully
• increase the internal margins before applying the fisheye warp

Do NOT:
• crop text
• abbreviate text
• remove text
• push text outside the safe zone
• sacrifice readability for oversized typography

Complete text visibility is more important than maximum text size.

The safe-zone restriction applies to the typography. Preserve the extreme sky-heavy subject composition described elsewhere.

==================================================
CAMERA + VINTAGE PHOTO LOOK
==================================================

Use a low handheld selfie perspective from approximately upper-chest height, angled sharply upward toward the person and sky.

Use a slightly wide field of view without distorting the person’s facial identity.

Make the finished image feel like a vintage disposable-camera snapshot mixed with an imperfect older consumer-camera/selfie aesthetic.

It should NOT look like a professional DSLR portrait.

Add subtle:
• fine film grain
• slight color noise
• mild analog softness
• imperfect sharpness
• slightly warm film rendering
• subtle highlight blooming
• occasional crushed shadows
• clipped bright highlights
• slight lens haze
• imperfect exposure
• mild compression/scanned-photo texture
• tiny optical imperfections

Keep these effects realistic and subtle.

NO fake film border.
NO timestamp.
NO fake scratches.
NO heavy sepia.
NO obvious vintage filter.

==================================================
HAIR
==================================================

Give the person a very aesthetic, intentionally effortless:

HALF-UP, HALF-DOWN hairstyle.

This is NOT a full bun.

Approximately the upper half of the hair is gathered into a HIGH, LARGE, VERY MESSY, VERY LOOSE BUN near the crown/top of the head.

The remaining half stays DOWN.

The bun must be:
• large
• loose
• airy
• imperfect
• asymmetrical
• casually twisted
• slightly collapsing
• textured
• messy
• full of escaping pieces

NO slick bun.
NO ballerina bun.
NO neat top knot.
NO perfectly round bun.

Leave LOTS of hair down around and behind the head.

Most importantly, leave MANY loose face-framing pieces.

Include:
• highlighted pieces around both temples
• long pieces beside the sunglasses
• strands falling toward the cheeks
• loose pieces over or near the forehead
• tiny flyaways around the hairline
• escaped strands around the bun

Add a gentle natural breeze.

Several front pieces and flyaways should visibly blow sideways or across the face.

Keep the wind subtle and realistic.

Respect the person’s natural overall hair color while adding flattering dimensional sun-kissed highlights:
• beige
• honey
• warm dimensional pieces
• brighter face-framing highlights

Do not make the highlights stripey.

==================================================
SUNGLASSES
==================================================

Add chunky BUTTER-YELLOW sunglasses.

Use thick pale creamy-yellow acetate frames with dark lenses.

Shape:
• stylish
• vintage-inspired
• slightly oversized
• softly oval/rectangular
• substantial frame

The sunglasses completely cover the eyes.

Do NOT lower them down the nose.

Include realistic reflections and bright sunlight glare in the dark lenses.

The butter-yellow frames should become one of the signature visual elements.

==================================================
EXPRESSION
==================================================

Relaxed closed-mouth expression.

Soft neutral lips.

No teeth.
No exaggerated smile.
No duck face.
No dramatic modeling expression.

The person looks naturally toward the camera through the sunglasses.

==================================================
POINTING HAND
==================================================

The subject raises ONE hand beside their head and POINTS UP AT THE SKY with the index finger.

The pointing gesture should feel casual.

==================================================
ABSOLUTE LEFT-SIDE HAND PLACEMENT
==================================================

THE POINTING HAND MUST APPEAR ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE FINAL IMAGE FROM THE VIEWER’S PERSPECTIVE.

IMAGE-LEFT IS REQUIRED.

This means:
• the hand appears to the LEFT of the person’s head in the finished image
• the raised index finger appears on the LEFT side of the canvas
• the arm enters from the lower-left area
• the hand remains beside the left side of the visible composition
• the hand must NEVER appear on the viewer’s right side

Use the subject’s RIGHT hand and render it on the VIEWER’S LEFT side of the final image.

Do not mirror the hand placement.

Viewer orientation controls placement.

Regardless of selfie-camera mirroring conventions, the finished image must visibly show the pointing hand on the LEFT side of the image.

Do NOT:
• place the pointing hand on image-right
• place the hand to the right of the person’s head
• mirror the final composition
• switch the hand to the opposite side
• center the hand directly above the person’s face

Leave a small amount of blue-sky breathing room between the hand and the extreme left canvas edge.

Do not crop the pointing finger or any visible portion of the hand.

==================================================
HAND HEIGHT + GESTURE
==================================================

Keep the hand LOW.

The knuckles/base of the hand should sit approximately beside the upper side of the head on the VIEWER’S LEFT.

The pointing fingertip should reach approximately to the height of the messy bun or only slightly above it.

Do NOT extend the hand far upward toward the heart cloud.

There must be lots of blue sky between the fingertip and the cloud.

The BACK OF THE HAND faces the camera.

The palm should NOT face the camera.

The index finger extends upward.

The other fingers naturally curl inward.

The pointing index fingernail must face the camera and be clearly visible.

Hand anatomy must be completely realistic.

Exactly five fingers.
No extra fingers.
No fused fingers.
No malformed joints.
No duplicated fingertips.
No disappearing fingers.
No twisted wrist.

==================================================
NAILS
==================================================

All visible nails are sophisticated ARMY-GREEN CHROME.

Think metallic muted olive/army green with a reflective chrome finish.

NOT emerald.
NOT lime.
NOT teal.
NOT black.

Shape:

SKINNY ALMOND-OVAL.

The nails should be:
• narrow
• elegant
• tapered
• softly pointed
• almond/oval hybrid
• moderately long

NOT square.
NOT coffin.
NOT bulky acrylics.
NOT extreme stilettos.

The pointing index nail is especially visible.

Harsh sunlight should create a metallic highlight across the army-green chrome polish.

==================================================
RINGS
==================================================

Add approximately 3–5 mixed warm GOLD rings to the pointing hand.

Combine:
• chunky gold bands
• thin stacking bands
• subtle textured rings
• small signet-inspired pieces
• delicate gold rings

The styling should feel casually collected and mismatched.

Mix chunky and dainty pieces.

Do not put a ring on every finger.

==================================================
CLOTHING + JEWELRY
==================================================

The person wears a simple BUTTER-YELLOW tank top.

Because of the extreme crop, show very little clothing.

Only a tiny strap/top-edge hint should be visible if necessary.

Do not extend the composition downward just to show clothing.

If necklaces are visible, use subtle layered delicate warm-gold chains.

==================================================
EXTREME SUNLIGHT
==================================================

LIGHTING IS CRITICAL.

Create BRUTALLY HARSH DIRECT LATE-AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT.

The person is essentially FACING INTO THE SUN.

The actual sun remains OUTSIDE THE FRAME.

DO NOT show the sun itself.

Instead, communicate its intensity through extremely strong direct illumination.

The sunlight blasts across:
• forehead
• nose
• cheeks
• lips
• sunglasses
• top of head
• messy bun
• loose highlighted hair
• flyaways
• pointing hand
• gold rings
• chrome nail

The forehead and crown should have partially CLIPPED highlights.

Individual highlighted hairs and flyaways should glow intensely.

The sunglasses should contain bright specular glare/reflections.

The rings should catch tiny gold highlights.

The chrome nail should catch a strong metallic reflection.

This should look almost slightly overexposed because the person is facing directly into intense sunlight.

NO studio lighting.
NO beauty lighting.
NO ring light.
NO soft cloudy illumination.
NO evenly lit AI portrait.

==================================================
SKIN
==================================================

Make the skin look flattering but unmistakably REAL.

Preserve:
• pores
• freckles if present
• natural pigmentation
• fine lines
• realistic texture
• natural tonal variation
• realistic under-eye structure
• subtle shine
• tiny imperfections

Direct sunlight can make the skin glow, but do NOT airbrush it.

No plastic skin.
No waxy skin.
No porcelain smoothing.
No beauty-filter appearance.

==================================================
SKY + CLOUDS
==================================================

Create a vivid, rich, believable BLUE SKY filling almost the entire image.

Include scattered natural white clouds with LOTS of open blue negative space.

Cloud placement should feel random and meteorologically plausible.

Use different sizes and densities.

Do not make the sky look like a digital backdrop.

==================================================
HEART CLOUD
==================================================

Include ONE naturally occurring cloud in the UPPER-MIDDLE portion of the sky that unmistakably RESEMBLES A HEART.

Place it high enough that it remains clearly separated from:
• the pointing fingertip
• the messy bun
• the main typography block

The heart cloud is a key visual element.

It should be recognizable immediately but still look like a REAL CLOUD.

Use:
• imperfect fluffy edges
• uneven heart lobes
• wispy areas
• irregular atmospheric texture
• slight asymmetry

It should look like someone genuinely looked up and thought:

“Wait, that cloud looks like a heart.”

NOT a perfect graphic heart.
NOT clip art.
NOT CGI.
NOT a symbol pasted into the sky.

The pointing finger on the LEFT side of the image visually directs attention toward the heart cloud while remaining far below it.

==================================================
REALISM + IMPERFECTIONS
==================================================

The image should feel spontaneous rather than staged.

Include subtle real-photo imperfections:
• asymmetrical messy bun
• random escaping hairs
• slight wind movement
• a few hairs crossing the face
• imperfect cloud placement
• slightly awkward low selfie angle
• film grain
• minor softness
• clipped sunlight
• mild lens haze
• imperfect exposure
• slightly inconsistent sharpness
• slight motion softness in individual hairs

Do NOT make the image clinically perfect.

It should feel like an imperfect real photograph that happened to turn out exceptionally aesthetic.

==================================================
ON-IMAGE TEXT
==================================================

Add the EXACT text supplied after “TEXT:” at the bottom of this prompt.

Reproduce it WORD-FOR-WORD.

Do not:
• rewrite it
• correct it
• paraphrase it
• add words
• remove words
• repeat words
• change punctuation

Bake the text permanently into the photograph.

==================================================
TEXT STYLE
==================================================

Use warm BUTTER-YELLOW typography that visually coordinates with the sunglasses.

Use an elegant HIGH-FASHION VINTAGE EDITORIAL SERIF.

The typography should have:
• dramatic thick/thin strokes
• narrow elegant letterforms
• oversized editorial proportions
• selective italic words or phrases
• irregular line widths
• varying line sizes
• tightly art-directed composition

==================================================
TRUE TWO-DIMENSIONAL FISHEYE TYPOGRAPHY
==================================================

Apply a TRUE TWO-DIMENSIONAL RADIAL FISHEYE-LENS DISTORTION to the ENTIRE typography composition.

This must look like the complete text block is being viewed through the rounded center of a real ultra-wide fisheye camera lens.

This is NOT ordinary curved text.

Do NOT create only:
• one curved baseline
• a simple upward arch
• a simple downward arch
• a rainbow-shaped layout
• a single horizontal bend
• a single vertical bend
• flat text with curved lines
• identical curves on every line
• text arranged along one arc

The distortion must occur simultaneously across BOTH AXES:

• horizontal curvature
• vertical curvature
• diagonal curvature
• radial center enlargement
• edge compression
• corner recession
• spherical convex projection
• multidirectional optical warping

Treat the complete typography composition as ONE unified rectangular text surface being projected outward through the center of a rounded glass fisheye lens.

The CENTER of the full typography field should appear:
• enlarged
• closer to the viewer
• pushed outward
• visibly magnified
• slightly wider
• slightly taller
• convex
• optically dominant

The OUTER EDGES should appear:
• smaller
• compressed
• pulled backward
• curved away from the viewer
• progressively narrower
• increasingly distorted toward the corners

Create genuine RADIAL distortion extending outward from one central optical point.

The left, right, top, and bottom edges of the full text composition must all bend and recede around the enlarged central area.

The text block must curve in multiple directions at the same time:

• upper lines curve upward and backward
• lower lines curve downward and backward
• left-side letters curve toward and around the left edge
• right-side letters curve toward and around the right edge
• central words bulge forward
• outer words become progressively compressed
• all four corners recede
• diagonal areas bend toward their nearest corners

The baselines must NOT all curve in the same direction.

Each line should follow a different portion of the spherical projection based on its position inside the overall typography field.

Lines above the optical center should bow differently from lines below it.

Letters to the left of the optical center should warp differently from letters to the right.

The upper-left, upper-right, lower-left, and lower-right portions must each visibly recede in their own direction.

Letters near the center may become:
• larger
• wider
• taller
• more open
• slightly stretched outward

Letters near the outer edges may become:
• smaller
• narrower
• compressed
• subtly angled away
• optically pulled toward the surrounding corners

Allow subtle deformation within the letterforms themselves so the typography feels projected through curved glass rather than merely arranged along curved paths.

The complete text composition should resemble:
• typography photographed through a true circular fisheye lens
• a convex glass bubble
• text wrapped over the front of a rounded globe
• a spherical vintage magazine-print distortion
• an ultra-wide lens enlarging the center while compressing every outer edge

The typography must visibly curve:
• left to right
• top to bottom
• diagonally toward all four corners
• radially outward from the central optical point

The distortion must have a clearly enlarged convex center and visibly receding edges on every side.

This is a FULL RADIAL FISHEYE BULGE.

It is NOT a one-direction curve.

It is NOT a simple arch.

It is NOT text placed on a circular path.

It is NOT several lines bending identically.

It is NOT a flat text block with one curved baseline.

The overall effect should feel intentional, editorial, strange, nostalgic, high-fashion, and optically real.

Keep every word readable.

Do not distort individual letters so aggressively that spelling becomes unclear.

The fisheye effect must remain immediately visible while preserving complete readability.

==================================================
FISHEYE SAFE-ZONE CONTROL
==================================================

The complete warped typography must remain entirely inside the defined Instagram and TikTok text safe zone.

This includes:
• every letter
• every serif
• every italic flourish
• every punctuation mark
• every ascender
• every descender
• every enlarged central character
• every compressed edge character
• all warped corners
• the full spherical bulge

If the radial fisheye warp risks crossing the safe-zone boundaries:

1. Start with a smaller unwarped text block.
2. Increase blank internal padding around all four sides.
3. Keep extra padding especially on the right and bottom.
4. Apply the full two-dimensional radial warp.
5. Scale the entire finished warped composition down as one unit until it fits.

Do NOT flatten the fisheye effect to make it fit.

Do NOT convert the warp into a simple curve.

Preserve the genuine two-axis spherical distortion while reducing the overall typography size enough to remain safe.

==================================================
TEXT PLACEMENT
==================================================

Place the typography entirely within the INSTAGRAM + TIKTOK TEXT SAFE ZONE defined above.

Position it primarily across the open middle-sky area.

The typography may occupy a substantial portion of the safe sky area, but it must remain completely inside:

• x = 18% to 68% of the canvas width
• y = 25% to 64% of the canvas height

Keep the typography away from the right-side interface-control area.

Keep it well above the bottom caption and call-to-action area.

Do NOT cover:
• face
• sunglasses
• pointing hand
• pointing finger
• army-green nail
• gold rings

Keep visible blue negative space around the typography.

No text box.
No outline.
No drop shadow.
No glow.
No gradient.
No background panel.

Do not add any text except what I provide.

The entire warped text composition must be fully readable before aesthetic distortion is considered successful.

If necessary:
• reduce the typography size
• use more lines
• tighten the line spacing carefully
• reposition the optical center
• increase the unwarped text margins

Never allow text to be:
• cropped
• cut off
• hidden behind platform controls
• pushed into the right-side UI area
• pushed into the bottom caption area
• pushed into the top profile area
• warped beyond the defined safe-zone boundaries

==================================================
ABSOLUTE DO-NOT LIST
==================================================

DO NOT:
• change the person’s identity
• create a generic attractive AI face
• overly smooth the skin
• use a full bun
• make the bun neat
• remove the hair-down portion
• remove the loose front pieces
• remove the windblown flyaways
• change the butter-yellow sunglasses
• expose the eyes above the sunglasses
• place the pointing hand on the RIGHT side of the image
• mirror the hand onto image-right
• center the pointing hand above the face
• make the hand too high
• extend the arm toward the heart cloud
• show the palm toward the camera
• hide the pointing fingernail
• change the army-green chrome nails
• use square or coffin nails
• remove the gold rings
• create malformed hands
• create extra fingers
• create a perfect graphic heart cloud
• show the actual sun
• use soft lighting
• center the subject vertically
• fill the frame with the person
• add unnecessary torso
• reduce the massive amount of sky
• make the image professionally polished
• make the typography flat and ordinary
• use a simple one-direction curve
• curve every line in the same direction
• create only an arched text layout
• create only a rainbow-shaped text layout
• apply distortion on only the horizontal axis
• apply distortion on only the vertical axis
• keep the center and outer edges the same size
• fake fisheye typography using only curved baselines
• place text on one circular path
• use identical curvature across every line
• omit the radial center enlargement
• omit the edge compression
• omit the four-corner recession
• allow the radial distortion to push letters outside the safe zone
• place any text outside the specified safe zone
• place text in the rightmost 22% of the image
• place text in the bottom 36% of the image
• place text in the top 15% of the image
• crop any letters or punctuation
• add UI elements
• add Instagram or Edits interfaces
• add TikTok interfaces
• add buttons
• add captions
• add usernames
• add logos
• add watermarks
• add borders

==================================================
FINAL RESULT
==================================================

ONE clean vertical 9:16 photograph at 1080 × 1920 pixels.

Exact person from uploaded selfie.
Massive vivid blue sky.
Person confined to bottom.
Half-up half-down highlighted hair.
Huge high loose messy bun.
Lots of front pieces and flyaways.
Gentle wind.
Butter-yellow sunglasses.
Low pointing hand clearly positioned on the VIEWER’S LEFT side.
Hand located to the left of the person’s head.
Back of hand facing camera.
Army-green chrome skinny almond-oval nails.
Mixed chunky and dainty gold rings.
Naturally occurring-looking Heart-shaped cloud high in sky.
Extremely harsh direct sunlight.
Vintage disposable-camera grain and imperfection.
True two-dimensional radial fisheye typography.
Spherical convex center bulge.
Simultaneous horizontal, vertical, and diagonal curvature.
Magnified center.
Compressed outer edges.
Receding corners.
Different curvature across different lines.
All text fully centered and contained inside the shared Instagram and TikTok safe zone.
No text behind platform interface areas.
No cropped letters.
No interface or watermark.

TEXT:
unfortunately for my haters, I will keep posting with the unfazed audacity of a below average man who just caught a mediocre fish

If the first image is close, but not right

Do not start over right away. Ask ChatGPT to fix one thing at a time.

If the face changed, say:

Fix only the identity. Match the uploaded selfie more closely. Keep the pose, sky, hand, hair, sunglasses, light, quote, and layout unchanged.

If the hand lands on the wrong side, say:

Move the pointing hand to the viewer's left side. Keep it low beside the head. Change nothing else.

If the quote is clipped or sits under the app buttons, say:

Scale the complete warped text block down. Keep every letter inside the safe zone. Keep the right 22%, top 15%, and bottom 36% free from text. Change nothing else.

If you see black lens corners, say:

Remove the black fisheye rim and every dark lens corner. Extend the blue sky naturally to all four corners. Change nothing else.

Small fixes work better because they tell ChatGPT what to keep.

If you try this prompt, tag @liz.on.the.web so I can see your version.

Want more full prompts like this? Subscribe to Liz on the Web. I share simple AI ideas you can use right away.

Adam Marshall had the kind of gift list that makes you want to give everyone cash and call it a day.

His older brother wanted a smart speaker. His sister-in-law loved games. His 17-year-old niece had very clear likes. His 88-year-old grandmother already had most of what she needed.

Adam gave each problem to ChatGPT.

It came up with gift ideas for his niece and grandmother. It made a table of smart speakers for his brother. Then it searched popular and lesser-known stores for a Nintendo Switch 2 game for his sister-in-law.

He told it to count shipping and next-day delivery. ChatGPT pointed him to Walmart. He asked for the link and was checking out a few minutes later.

That is a very good use of AI.

And to be clear, I did not do this shopping trip. Adam wrote about his own test for Tom’s Guide. I read his story, pulled out the useful parts and turned them into a plan you can copy.

What the old way costs you

Last-minute gift shopping usually starts with a pile of tabs.

You search for ideas. You read reviews. You open Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and any other store you can think of. You find a low price, then learn the item will arrive late. Or the shipping fee wipes out the deal.

Then you do it all again for the next person.

The worst part is that you are making two choices at once.

First, you have to pick the right gift. Then you have to find the right place to buy it.

AI can help with both.

I am going to show you how to build a clear profile for each person, get gift ideas that fit, compare products in a table and search for the lowest real cost.

The “real cost” part is key. A cheap item with a big shipping fee or a late delivery date is not the best deal.

This works for Christmas, birthdays, weddings, baby showers or any other day when you need a gift and your brain has left the chat.

Quick and honest note before we start

AI shopping data can be old or wrong.

A price may have changed. A coupon may be dead. An item may be out of stock. The delivery date may be different for your address.

ChatGPT also cannot promise that it checked every store on the internet. Adam asked it to check popular stores and any smaller stores it could find. That is a smart way to ask, but it is not a full scan of every shop that exists.

Always open the store page. Check the item, price, shipping fee, seller and delivery date before you pay.

Behind the paywall, you get the full how-to:

• The prompt that turns one hard person into a clear gift list.

• The prompt that compares products in one simple table.

• The price search prompt that counts shipping and delivery.

• The final check that catches stale prices and bad sellers.

• What AI cannot check for you.

• A short plan you can save for your next gift panic.

Subscribing opens the rest of this exact post right now. You can copy every prompt and use it for the next person on your list.

The full walkthrough is below the paywall.

Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now.

Subscribe to unlock this article now

Read more

Then it got bigger.

Brake pads. Rotors. Calipers. A coolant flush. A brake fluid flush. A power steering flush.

Most people would look at that list, feel lost, and say yes.

Kyle James did something else. He pasted the estimate for his 2004 Chevy Silverado into ChatGPT.

ChatGPT turned the repair talk into plain words. It explained what looked urgent, what might be able to wait, and what other shops may charge for the same work.

Then it gave him a question to ask at the counter.

Since the brake pads, rotors, and calipers were being done at the same time, could the dealership lower the labor charge?

The service tech said yes.

Kyle saved $350.

This happened to Kyle, not me. He wrote about it in a first-person article for ConsumerAffairs. I linked the full story at the bottom.

His truck had about 145,000 miles on it. The repair list was not made up. Some of the work may have been needed. ChatGPT even told him that replacing the calipers was not a wild idea for a truck that old.

The smart part was not using AI to fight every charge.

It was using AI to understand the bill before saying yes.

What checking a repair estimate the old way costs you

You can try to check a repair bill on your own.

First, you search each part. Then you read car forums full of words you do not know. You try to work out what a fair price is. You call other shops. You still may not know which repair is about safety and which one can wait.

Kyle said the other choice was to approve every item without asking questions or spend hours digging through car forums.

That is a rough choice when your truck is already at the shop.

AI can do the first read for you. It can explain the estimate, group the work, compare prices, and give you a short list of questions.

You still make the call. A real mechanic still checks the car.

What you get in this one

I broke this down into a simple check you can use on almost any car repair estimate.

By the end, you will have:

• A clean way to paste your estimate into ChatGPT.

• A prompt that turns repair talk into plain words.

• A prompt that sorts urgent work from work that may be able to wait.

• A prompt that checks price ranges.

• A prompt that writes your questions for the service desk.

• A short script for asking about a labor discount.

You do not need to know cars. You just need the estimate.

Quick and honest note before we start

AI cannot look under your hood. It cannot test your brakes, touch a part, hear a sound, or confirm what is broken.

Do not use ChatGPT to skip a safety repair.

Use it to understand the estimate and ask better questions. Let a trained mechanic inspect the car and confirm the work.

Also, the $350 result belongs to Kyle James. It came from his ConsumerAffairs story. Your shop may say no, and your price will be different.

Behind the paywall, you get the full how-to:

• The 5 steps in order.

• All 4 copy-paste prompts.

• The details to give AI so it can read the estimate.

• The words to use when several repairs share the same labor.

• The safety checks that keep AI in the right role.

Subscribing opens the rest of this exact post right now. You will get the prompts, the counter script, and the full repair-estimate check below.

The full walkthrough is below the paywall.

Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now.

Subscribe to unlock this article now

Read more

The system was supposed to be invisible.

Ten posts a day. Every day. Scheduled across the morning, the afternoon, and the evening. A different note each time. No repeats.

That is the promise of full automation. You set it up once, you walk away, and it runs.

Except one morning I checked the queue and saw it.

The same note. Posted twice. Pulled from the backlog like nothing happened. Like the system had no memory at all.

The problem was real. The automation was looping back to notes it had already used. The lane it pulled from was not checking what had already been sent. It was just grabbing whatever was next in the list, loading it up, and posting it again.

For a content brand that runs on trust, that is embarrassing. A repeat post tells your audience one of two things. Either you are not paying attention, or your tools are broken. Neither is a good look.

So I stopped running the automation and handed the problem to my AI.

I did not want a patch. I wanted a system that could never do this again.

Here is what I told it to build.

What the old system did wrong

The old flow pulled notes from a queue, posted them, and marked them done.

The problem was the "marked them done" part. The system only tracked whether a note had been sent through the posting step. It did not check whether that note was still sitting in the recent history window. It did not check whether all the social channels had confirmed the post before it moved on. It did not rotate away from notes that had been used too recently.

So when the queue ran low and the backlog filled in, the same notes came back around.

The system also had a stale-radar problem. There is a freshness check built into the lane that is supposed to flag old content. But when that check ran on a thin backlog, it was treating old notes as fresh because there was nothing newer to compare them against. The fail state was not closed. It pretended stale content was fine.

That is how a ten-posts-a-day system becomes a greatest-hits reel of your old content.

What I handed to my AI

I gave my AI the two main files that run the note system.

The refill file controls how new notes get pulled into the lane. The autopost file controls how notes get picked, scheduled, and confirmed across channels.

I told my AI to read both files and then answer one question first: where does this system trust that a note has not been used when it has not actually checked?

It found four gaps.

The lane was not checking Posted history before adding a note to the active queue. The autopost was marking a note as Posted after the first channel confirmed, before the other channels had finished. The stale-radar was allowed to pass when it should have blocked. And there was no rotation rule that forced the system to skip a note that had been used recently, even if it had technically aged out of the immediate dedup window.

I told my AI to close all four gaps and write tests for each one.

Receipts I can prove

The fix lives in two files in my ATHENA repo.

content-system/substack/lotw-lane-refill.mjs — this is the file that controls which notes get pulled into the active lane. The updated version now checks the Posted history before a note can enter the queue. If a note appears in recent Posted records, it does not get loaded. It waits.

content-system/substack/device/substack-autopost.mjs — this is the file that runs the actual posting. The updated version does not mark a note as Posted until every channel it was supposed to hit has confirmed. If one channel fails or does not respond, the note stays in a pending state instead of being written off as done.

Both files have test suites: lotw-lane-refill.test.mjs and substack-autopost.test.mjs. The tests cover the dedupe check, the all-channel-settle requirement, the stale-radar fail-closed rule, and the rotation logic that forces the system to skip recently-used notes even when the backlog is thin.

The tests are local. They run against the code. They are not proof that every post landed clean on every network. What they prove is that the logic now handles all four gaps that caused the repeat problem.

I am not claiming a full clean day of posts is already logged. The system was repaired on 2026-07-27. What I have is the code, the tests, and the guardrails. The live run is still ahead of me.

Behind this paywall

Paid readers get:

• The exact prompt I gave my AI to find where the system was trusting without checking.

• The four-step fix broken down in plain language you can follow even if you have never read code.

• The checklist I now use before turning any autopost system live.

• The parts my AI could not decide on its own and why those stayed with me.

• A copy-this prompt you can use if your own automation is repeating itself.

What paid subscribers get every week

Paid subscribers do not only get this one automation repair. You also get:

• Real work I handed to my AI inside my actual business.

• The prompts I used, written so you can copy them.

• The receipts that prove what worked.

• The problems that slowed the job down.

• The safety checks that kept AI from making a risky call on its own.

• Simple playbooks you can use in your own business.

Subscribe and the rest of this article opens right away. You get the full repair, the prompts, the checklist, and the copy-this recap now.

The full walkthrough is below the paywall.

Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now.

Subscribe to unlock this article now

Read more

I watch this happen to beginners every week. They think Instagram money works one way: go viral, get famous, wait for a brand to slide into the DMs with a bag of cash. So they chase views for a year and earn nothing. Meanwhile, creators with tiny accounts quietly get paid every month, because they picked a lane and worked it:

New here? Use the free One Person Empire course outline to read this series in the best order.

• Creators with 2,000 followers sell $150 to $400 videos to brands. The brand posts the video, not the creator.

• Nano creators charge $50 to $300 for one sponsored Reel.

• Creators at 10,000 followers run a $4.99 monthly subscription. 150 subscribers is about $524 a month.

• Creators with no product at all link other people's stuff and keep a 10 to 30 percent cut.

Here is the rule: views only turn into money when you send them into a lane.

And here is what kills beginners before they start:

• Chasing viral with no lane picked. That is a hobby with extra steps.

• Waiting for 100K followers. Some lanes open at 500. Some open at zero.

• Taking free product as payment. Exposure does not pay rent.

• Building everything on Instagram alone. You are renting that land, and the landlord changes the rules whenever he wants.

This article is the whole map. Every way Instagram pays in 2026, what each lane really pays at your size, and the exact steps to your first dollar in the next 30 days.

Who this is for

• This is for you if you have under 10K followers and have made zero dollars from Instagram so far.

• This is for you if you post and post and cannot see how views become money.

• This is for you if a brand offered you free product and you said yes, and something felt off.

• This is for you if you have no product yet and want the full menu before you pick.

• This is for you if you already sell one thing and want to know which lanes you are leaving empty.

The three buckets of Instagram money

Every dollar on Instagram comes from one of three places. Once you see the buckets, the whole platform makes sense.

Bucket 1: Instagram pays you. Gifts on Reels, subscriptions, badges, bonus programs. Meta writes the check. These are easy to turn on and small at small size. Think tip jar, not paycheck.

Bucket 2: Brands pay you. Sponsored posts, UGC videos, affiliate cuts, whitelisting, shoutouts. A company writes the check. This bucket is big, and in 2026 it is moving toward small accounts fast.

Bucket 3: You pay yourself. Your own digital products, services, coaching, and paid communities. Your customer writes the check. This is the biggest bucket, and the only one you fully control.

Most beginners only ever hear about buckets 1 and 2. That order is backwards. Bucket 1 is the smallest money on the platform. Bucket 3 is where one-person businesses actually get built. The paid section below maps all 12 lanes across the three buckets, with honest 2026 dollar ranges for each one.

Small accounts have the edge in 2026

This is the part nobody tells beginners, so here are the receipts.

Instagram stopped being a popularity contest. Instagram's own boss, Adam Mosseri, said this year that the signals that matter most are watch time, likes per reach, and sends per reach, meaning how often people DM your post to a friend. The app now pushes good content to strangers who never followed you. Buffer's 2026 algorithm guide confirmed the shift: recommendations from accounts you do not follow now show up in Reels, Explore, and the main feed. Translation: a 300-follower account with a great video can outreach a lazy 50K account. That was not true five years ago.

Small accounts even get a reach bonus. A 2026 strategy report found accounts under 5,000 followers see around a 20 percent view rate on Reels, the highest of any account size, with engagement rates of 4 to 6 percent. For scale, Socialinsider's 2026 benchmarks put the average Instagram engagement rate at 0.48 percent. So a small, engaged account is running at roughly ten times the platform average. That number is exactly what brands buy.

And the brand money is moving your way. The 2026 Influencer Marketing Hub benchmark report found 87 percent of brands plan to raise influencer budgets this year, and about half plan to expand spending on nano and micro creators, versus only around 20 percent for macro creators. Another big 2026 stats roundup found micro creators return $7.14 for every $1 brands spend, against a $5.78 average across all creator sizes. Brands did the math. Small and trusted beats big and ignored.

One more free tool for your plan: Buffer studied 52 million posts and found carousels earn the highest engagement (6.90 percent median, versus 3.31 percent for Reels), while Reels reach 36 percent more people than carousels. So the 2026 combo is simple. Reels to get discovered by strangers. Carousels to build trust with the people who stayed.

Why this works (and how I know)

I made $100K in my first 27 days online with zero experience. Instagram is my home turf: 241K+ followers on @liz.on.the.web, and it is the front door for almost everything I sell. My first digital product did $30K, and it started as Instagram attention pointed at one simple offer. I also replaced a $10K a month team with AI, so every play in this article is sized for one person with a phone and a laptop. I am not selling you a course about Instagram. I am running this playbook in public and writing down what actually works.

What you get below

Behind the paywall, this turns into the full money map:

• All 12 Instagram income lanes with honest 2026 dollar ranges: brand rate cards by follower tier, UGC rates, affiliate commission norms, subscription math, whitelisting fees.

• The "which lane at your size" path: exactly what to do at 0 to 1K, 1K to 10K, 10K to 100K, and 100K+.

• The comment-to-DM money machine: the 7-step setup plus the exact scripts, with 2026 conversion benchmarks so you know if yours is working.

• The brand pitch kit: copy-paste prompts for your pitch DM, your media kit, and your rate negotiation.

• Pricing rules of thumb so you never get lowballed again.

• A 30-day plan to your first Instagram dollar.

This one sits inside the funnel arc we already started. Part 9 gave you the funnel map: the four jobs that turn attention into money you own (get seen, get kept, get paid, get repeat). Part 10 showed you how to get seen and pick one channel. This article goes deep on the single biggest get-seen channel there is: Instagram. Next, Part 12 covers owning your audience, Part 13 covers your first offer and price ladder, Part 14 covers repeat monthly money, and Part 15 covers the four numbers that show where your funnel leaks. Paid subscribers get every step, prompt, and template. Free readers get the headlines.

Here is the map.

The full walkthrough is below the paywall.

Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now.

Subscribe to unlock this article now

Read more