How we use Claudeto run a two-founder sales business.

In the Claude app, Claude can only answer you. Claude Code can do things: it opens the files in a folder on your computer, reads them, makes changes and runs tools, and it shows you each change and waits before it makes it.

That's the whole difference, and it's a big one. Instead of pasting a spreadsheet into a chat and copying the answer back out, you point Claude at the folder and say what you want done.

What you need

• A paid Claude plan. Claude Code comes with Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, not the free plan. Prices are on Claude's pricing page.
• The Claude desktop app for Mac or Windows. Its Code tab is the easiest way in: no terminal, nothing else to install.
• One new, empty folder to work in, for example "Claude work" in your Documents. Not your whole home folder.

Your first ten minutes

1. 1Open the Code tabDownload the desktop app, sign in with your Claude account and click Code at the top.
2. 2Choose your folderPick Local, then open the folder you made. The first time, Claude asks whether you trust the folder. Say yes: it's yours.
3. 3Ask for something in plain EnglishType it like you'd brief a new assistant. Drop a file into the folder first if the job needs one.
4. 4Approve, or don'tWhen Claude wants to change or create a file, it shows you exactly what and waits. Yes, No, or yes to that kind of change from now on. While you're learning, say yes one at a time.

Five first jobs worth doing

Each one saves real time in a founder's week. Copy one, change the parts in [square brackets], and paste it into the Code tab.

Three habits that keep you safe

• Keep it asking before it changes anything while you learn. The app calls this Manual. Plan mode goes one further: it shows you the plan before it touches a file.
• Never paste a password, a key or a client's private data into it. If a job needs a login, connect the tool properly instead.
• Read everything before a client sees it. Claude drafts; you send.

Then give it ten lines about your business

Every session starts by reading a file called CLAUDE.md in your folder, if there is one. Put in what you'd tell a new assistant on day one: what you sell and to whom, how you like things written, and what it must never do without asking. It stops you explaining the business again every time.

You can type /init and Claude drafts one from what's in the folder, but in a new folder there isn't much to go on. Our prompt has Claude interview you instead, one question at a time. And any time it gets something wrong, say "remember that..." and it keeps a note for next time.

• Anthropic's desktop quickstartThe official first steps, with screenshots.
• Claude Code 101Anthropic's free course, if you'd like it from the start.

The 36-second video on my post about those calls wasn't made in editing software. Claude wrote it as a web page, then turned the page into a video.

It's the most fun I've had with Claude this year, and the method works for any short piece of moving text: quotes, numbers, a launch, a one-line idea.

How it works

1. 1Real words onlyEvery line on screen came out of the call research, word for word. Nothing written for effect.
2. 2One page, one clockClaude builds a single web page where everything on screen is worked out from one number: the time. Ask for second 12.4 and you always get the same picture.
3. 3Photograph every frameA script steps through the time 30 times a second, screenshots each frame, then joins them into an MP4 with a free tool called ffmpeg.
4. 4Open on the finished frameLinkedIn often shows the first frame before a video plays, so ours opens on the full list for half a second, then starts.
5. 5Check frames, not codeClaude grabs stills across the video and looks at them. Two small checks catch dead gaps where nothing moves, and text that flashes past too fast to read.

Eight versions in one evening

The first version was fine, and I said so: fine, but it could be a lot better. So we gave it words that rise into place, a red underline that draws itself and a pause on the finished list.

Then the long quotes went by too fast to read, so they slowed to about four and a half words a second. Then I pointed out it had no beginning, middle or end, so it got an opening line, the quotes, and an ending on our homepage headline.

Each note took minutes to apply, not a re-edit. That's the point: when the video is code, changing your mind is cheap.

Two people taught us most of this, and both give their skills away. Charlie Hills' motion graphics skills set the look; Jack Roberts' Claude Video 2.0 gave us the checks. Both are in the next chapter.

This is the bit people ask about most. Chris and I each run Claude on our own laptops, but they share one brain: a folder that both Claudes read at the start of every session.

When Chris tells his Claude something about a client, mine knows it by the time I next open a session. When I correct a rule, his Claude follows the new one. Neither of us has to remember to tell the other.

Four ideas that make it work

1. 1One fact per memory, with a name and a date"Joe, 25 Oct: lead on pain" beats a vague rule nobody remembers agreeing. When two memories disagree, the newest dated words from a founder win, and Claude says so.
2. 2A page per client, read before every callAfter a call, Claude folds the notes into that client's page. Before the next one, it reads the page. Every call starts briefed, whoever is taking it.
3. 3Obsidian is the windowThe brain is plain text, so we open it in Obsidian and see exactly what Claude believes. If it's wrong, we fix the page, and both Claudes have the fix.
4. 4Keep it leanClaude only reads so much at the start of a session, so the index has a budget and a Monday clean-up suggests what to merge or archive. We tick a box, and only then does it go.

The guardrails

• Nothing is sent, posted or booked without the owner's yes on that exact item. Claude drafts; a person sends.
• No passwords, keys or secrets ever go in the brain. A check blocks any commit that looks like one.
• Anything personal stays in private files that never leave the laptop they're on.
• Never invent a number, a quote or a story. A gap becomes a question for one of us.