Prompt: Create a collection of icons representing [a theme], they belong together as a single theme. Put them in a 3x3 grid. The background is white. Make the icons in a colorful and tactile 3D style. No text.
- dogs with different emotions
- bananas
- January
- the same cat in different emotions
A few steps and creators have systems that used to require full teams.
I'm building a study guide on this. Should be ready soon.
Next week's goals:
- Get better at Substack formatting
- More posts across platforms
Mark Zuckerberg Said My Ideas Out Loud
I watched a YouTube short of Zuckerberg with a sunburned face and white goggle marks around his eyes. Beach flex. Cool for him.
He laid out my hypothesis beat by beat. The things I've been thinking about for months.
🧵
Every business will have an operations system running in the background.
The market is hundreds of millions of small businesses. Most of them need this and don't know it exists yet.
The work to set these up isn't massive.
Let me know if your content and feed needs attention.
I’ll come and like, comment your stuff and repost my favorites.
AI focused accounts, art accounts, coding and creativity. Let me know if your feed needs some love.
I will do it for the next 24 hours as much as I can.
Building in public:
Starting this account from zero to talk about operational systems for creators.
If you're interested in:
• AI as infrastructure (not replacement)
• Custom workflows vs generic platforms
• Shipping without burnout
Follow along. Let's build together.
New newsletter launching:
Talent Is Baseline
Weekly insights on operational systems, AI as infrastructure (not output), and how to build without burnout.
For creators who want to stop rewriting chapter one.
Link in bio 📬
Your "all-in-one platform" has 47 features.
You use 3.
That's not a solution. That's bloat with a subscription.
Creators don't need more features.
They need focused tools that match their actual workflow.
Question for creators:
Where are you asking your talent to compensate for missing systems?
Not ideas. Not creativity.
What operational system is missing that's slowing you down?
Reply and tell me. I'm genuinely curious. 👇
Hot take: AI won't replace you.
But a creator with AI operational systems will outpace you.
The difference? They're using AI as infrastructure (not creative output).
AI handles operations. Humans handle creativity.
That's the edge.
You're not blocked because you lack talent.
You're blocked because you're missing operational systems.
The writer endlessly rewriting chapter one.
The photographer with no client pipeline.
The teacher with no studio infrastructure.
Different nouns. Same problem.
Talent is no longer a moat.
In 2026, the creators who win aren't the most talented.
They're the ones whose operational systems let their talent show up consistently.
Everyone else is stuck rewriting chapter one.
Let me explain 🧵
Absolutely thrilled that this is a response to knowing less than glowing press on the way. Great case study from @AnthropicAI. Impressed that their showing the sausage is STILL being made.
You might remember Project Vend: an experiment where we (and our partners at @andonlabs) had Claude run a shop in our San Francisco office.
After a rough start, the business is doing better.
Mostly.