Before you build a website, you need an AI that knows your business. Phase 1 is about installing and configuring the Business Brain OS — the AI operating system that runs everything else in this programme.
By the end of Phase 1, Claude will know your voice, your audience, your offers, and how your business works. Every phase after this builds on that foundation.
You need a Claude Pro subscription ($20/month at claude.ai). That's the only thing you need to get started. Work through the lessons in order — each one builds on the last.
Before you can use Business Brain OS, you need to get the files onto your computer. This module walks you through getting your copy via Dropbox — and how to pick up new skills when they're released.
Business Brain OS is delivered via Dropbox. If you don't already have it installed on your computer, do that first — it needs to be the desktop app, not just the website, so the files actually sync to your machine.
If you already have Dropbox installed and syncing, you're good to move on.
You'll receive an email from Dropbox inviting you to a shared folder called Business Brain OS: Client Install. The invite comes from Cathy; the email will show as being from TwoTen Solutions.
This is the master copy — it contains all the skills and shared resources. You have view access only, so nothing you do can affect it.
If you haven't received the invite, check your spam folder or message Cathy in Slack.
The shared folder you received an invite to is the master, so you won't be able to make any changes to it. Instead, make a duplicate by copy/pasting your own copy.
This copy is yours. You'll customise it, add your context files to it, and work from it every day.
New skills are added to the master folder regularly. When one is released, you'll get a message letting you know — then it's a simple copy across to your working folder.
.claude/skills/When you open the Business Brain OS folder, you'll see a collection of folders and files. Each one has a specific job. Together they're what lets Claude show up already knowing your business every time you open a session.
This module covers each one in turn. By the end you'll know exactly where everything lives and why.
You don't need to do anything with them yet. Just understand the layout before you start filling it in.
This is one of the most important files in the whole system. Every time you start a conversation with Claude, this is the first file it reads.
Think of it as the map, or a breadcrumb trail. It tells Claude what's in your system and where everything lives. From there, depending on what you've asked it to do, it follows the trail — going to the next relevant file, reading the context it needs, and so on.
When you first install the system, CLAUDE.md is already set up with everything it needs. As you fill in your context files and work with Claude over time, it will update this file automatically behind the scenes. You don't need to open it or manage it directly.
Once a month or so, ask Claude to read your CLAUDE.md and check if anything needs updating, trimming, or moving elsewhere. The file should be an overview of your system, not a document that contains everything.
The dot at the start of the name means this is a hidden folder on your computer. If you can't see it, you'll need to update your Windows settings to show hidden files.
You won't ever really need to go into this folder directly, but here's what's in it:
This is your library of 50+ pre-built workflows. Each one handles a specific task — writing a Facebook post, running a keyword search, drafting an email sequence. When you run a skill, Claude goes to this folder to read the instructions, loads your context files, and does the work.
These are the shortcuts that tell Claude to run a skill. You type a forward slash followed by the skill name (e.g. /wrap-up) and it pulls it up. Nothing you need to touch in here directly.
Behind-the-scenes automation that Claude uses. Nothing you need to do with these.
The brand context folder is where we build out a picture of your business and your brand. When you first install the system, these are mostly empty templates. They get filled in as we work through the setup process together.
About Me: where you save existing material about yourself or your business.
Audience Language: this is where you collect language from your audience, pulled from call transcripts, old content, and similar material. When the system writes for you, it draws on this folder to make sure it sounds like it's speaking to the right people.
Brand Stories: your origin story, personal stories, business stories.
Testimonials: client testimonials go here.
Writing Samples: this one is important. You need to find samples of your own writing, ideally from before you were using AI. For AI to write in a way that genuinely sounds like you, it needs real examples of how you write.
When you first install the system, the context folder contains placeholder files. As you work through the setup, these get filled in. Here's what each one does:
ceo-north-star.md: your big picture — what you're building towards, your goals, your priorities. Claude checks in with it to make sure decisions stay aligned with what you said you're working towards.
parked.md: ideas and projects you're not ready to act on yet. Instead of losing them, ask Claude to park them here.
revenue-tracker.md: if you want Claude to help you track income, this is where that lives.
rhythm.md: your standing daily or weekly tasks. If there are things you want to do every week, they go here.
SOUL.md: Claude's personality and behaviour rules. This comes pre-configured.
tomorrow.md: your to-do list. As long as you run wrap-up at the end of every session, Claude keeps this updated automatically.
USER.md: about you, your business, and your brand. Filled out during setup.
weekly-focus.md: optional. If you want Claude to help you stay focused on 2–3 priorities each week.
The memory folder is a core part of the system. When you first install it, it's empty. Over time, it becomes the record of everything you've worked on.
MEMORY.md: the index file. Claude reads and writes to this to keep an overview of what's in the memory. You never need to open it.
sessions/: a subfolder with one file per day. Every conversation you have gets saved here.
You don't need to read any of these files. They're for Claude. At the start of a new session, when you say "where did we get to on X project?", Claude goes into this folder, reads through the sessions, and pulls out anything relevant.
The memory system grows over time. The more you use it, the more context Claude has about you and your business. This is how the system gets smarter the longer you use it.
The habit that makes all of this work: run /wrap-up at the end of every session. That's what saves everything into memory in the first place.
This is where your offers live. Over time, the goal is to have all your offers in here as fully written-out sales pages, so the system has all the context and detail it needs when writing for you.
There are a few ways to fill it out. If you have existing sales pages, we can create copies of them here. If you have ideas that aren't fully developed yet, there's an offer template to help you flesh them out — so you have something for the system to work from even before you have a finished sales page.
We go through this in more detail when we're building out your system together.
This is where you upload material about your business: documents, presentations, PDFs, Google Docs, anything you want to bring into the system. What goes in here will depend on what you've got and what you want Claude to be able to draw on.
When filling this folder out, Word documents and Google Docs are best converted into markdown files first. We cover how to do that in the Markdown Files module.
The source folder is one of the most powerful parts of the system. You can give Claude everything you have and ask it to go through it and pull out what's useful: refining your offers, creating programme curriculums, writing sales pages, generating new ideas. Think of it as giving your Business Brain the full picture of your business to work from.
Markdown is a plain text file — you can tell because it ends in .md. Most of the files inside your Business Brain OS are markdown files. They're lightweight, easy for Claude to read, and best practice for working with an AI system.
Here's what the formatting looks like in practice:
# at the start of a line = Heading 1## = Heading 2*asterisks* = italicClaude reads markdown natively. And it goes both ways — if you paste the content into a Google Doc and choose "Paste from Markdown", it formats correctly as headings, italics, and so on.
As you build out your Business Brain OS, get into the habit of keeping documents in markdown format wherever you can. It keeps everything lightweight and easy for Claude to work with.
There are a couple of ways to open and edit your markdown files. You can open them directly from your folder — they'll open in Notepad — but it's not recommended. Notepad just shows you the raw code, not the formatted version.
The best way to view and edit your markdown files is through Claude Code itself. Once you've started a chat, go to the file panel on the right. Find the .md file you want, click it, and it opens with the formatting applied — headings, bullets, all of it.
You can also ask Claude to open a specific file for you: "Can you show me my north star file?" Claude will give you a clickable link, and when you click it, the file opens in the right-hand panel with full formatting.
You can see what's in the file, ask Claude to make changes, and watch the edits happen, all in one place.
You can bring existing documents into your system as markdown files, or create new ones from scratch.
Open the Google Doc, go to File → Download → Markdown (.md). It saves to your Downloads folder. Then move it into the right folder in your Business Brain OS.
Drop the Word file into the relevant folder, then ask Claude: "I've added a Word document at [path] — can you convert it to a markdown file?" Claude creates the .md version automatically.
You don't need to create markdown files manually very often — Claude creates them for you when it saves memory, context, or output files. But if you need one, just ask: "Create a new file at [path/filename.md] with the following content..."
You might already be using Claude in your browser. The Business Brain OS runs specifically through the Claude desktop app, not the browser version. So the first step is to download it.
Go to claude.com/download and download the version for your computer, Windows or Mac. Once it's installed, you launch Claude as an app rather than opening a browser tab.
From now on, whenever you're working on your Business Brain OS, open the Claude desktop app, not the browser. Open the app, go straight to the Code tab, and work from there.
When you open the Claude desktop app, the chat panel is in the middle. The important step when you start a new chat is to connect it to your Business Brain OS folder.
At the bottom of the chat panel, you'll see an option to add a folder. Click it and select the folder where your Business Brain OS is installed, whatever you've named it on your computer.
Once you've connected the folder, everything in that conversation is working with the contents of that folder. Claude has the full context of everything inside it: your brand voice, your offers, your context files, all of it.
You do this once per new chat. From that point on, Claude knows where it is and what it's working with.
The mode selector sits at the bottom of the chat panel. There are four options — here's what they mean and which one to use.
Claude acts on your instructions without asking permission for every step. It still respects the hard limits built into the system. Use Auto for everything.
Before doing anything, Claude writes out a step-by-step plan and shows it to you. You can read it, revise it, ask questions, and approve it before anything actually happens. Good for big or complicated jobs where you want to see the approach first.
Claude asks for permission at every individual step. This slows everything down significantly. You can use it if you're curious to see exactly what Claude is doing under the hood — but it's not practical for day-to-day use.
Don't use this. It removes the safety guardrails built into your system. There's no reason to ever switch to this mode.
The context bar shows how much of the current chat has been used up. Every time you ask Claude to do something, it reads back through the entire conversation from the top before responding.
The longer the chat, the more it has to read, and the more tokens it uses each time. It also becomes more likely to start making mistakes, because it's holding more and more in memory at once.
The limit is 200,000 tokens. A good rule of thumb: when the context bar gets to around 50–70%, start wrapping up that chat. Type /wrap-up and Claude will save everything important before you start fresh.
Every chat you have with Claude gets saved in the left sidebar, most recent at the top. You can rename chats and pin the ones you're still working on.
Pin any chat you haven't fully wrapped up yet. Once you've run /wrap-up and confirmed nothing's been lost, archive it. Treat archived chats as gone — that's fine, because the memory system has captured everything worth keeping.
Artifacts are visual outputs Claude generates — HTML pages, diagrams, that kind of thing. Use them as a scratchpad. Once you're happy with something, get it saved properly as a file back into your Business Brain OS folder so it's in the system.
Routines let you set Claude up to run tasks on a schedule — they currently only run when your laptop is open, not in the background.
The $20/month Claude Pro plan gives you a usage allowance split across two levels: a weekly total and a 5-hour session limit. Most day-to-day marketing work stays well within both.
You're given a set number of tokens per week, which resets on Saturday. Keep an eye on it if you're doing heavy work — building systems, processing large files, or running multiple complex sessions in a day.
Within any 5-hour window, there's a cap on how many tokens you can use. If you hit it, you have two options: wait for it to reset, or add usage credits to your account which top you up automatically when you hit the limit.
Use the time for work that doesn't need Claude: recording videos, reviewing content, admin tasks. Most users only bump into the limit occasionally.
Claude Code is not running in the background. It doesn't do anything unless you open a session and give it an instruction. When you close the app, nothing runs.
The Business Brain OS comes pre-configured with a permissions file that controls exactly what Claude is and isn't allowed to do.
.env filesEven if Claude misunderstood an instruction and tried to delete a folder, the system would stop it.
Left to itself, Claude can only work with files on your computer. It can't see your email, your Google Drive, your Airtable, or any other external tool — unless you connect it.
That's what MCP connections do. Each connection is something you set up deliberately, and it only gives Claude access to that specific tool.
Cathy will walk you through setting up your connections on a live call. You don't need to do this on your own.
The Initial Install is where you run the setup skills that build your Business Brain's core files. You do this once when you first get started. Everything else builds on top of what this creates.
Before you begin, spend some time gathering existing material into your folders — a rough first pass is enough. The system works with what it's given and gets better as you add more over time.
Builds your user profile from whatever's already in your brand-context folder. Anything missing, and it walks you through questions one at a time. The output is USER.md — a file Claude reads at the start of every session so it already knows your business, your offers, and how you like to work.
Creates your strategy layer: your mission, what you're working toward, your 90-day priorities, and your income target.
Reads your writing samples and brand stories and builds your voice profile — the tone, rhythm, and patterns that make your writing sound like you. Every content skill reads this before writing anything.
Builds your ideal client profile and your first audience language file. Copy skills draw on these whenever they're writing anything promotional.
Creates a list of words and phrases Claude is never allowed to use in your content. Any time Claude produces something that jars, say: "Add that to my language rules." That phrase won't appear again.
Close Claude Code and reopen it. Type: Who am I and what am I working on? Claude should respond with your name, your brand, and your current priorities.
Before you run the setup skills, spend some time gathering existing material and putting it in the right places. You don't need everything — just whatever you already have. A useful starting point: open a new Claude chat and ask it to help you sort through your Downloads, Documents, and Google Drive to surface anything relevant.
The core folder Claude draws from when writing or designing for you. Put in:
Everything related to your current and past offers — sales pages, PDFs, course content, templates. Organise by status: live, potential, retired.
Anything you want the system to draw on as raw material — old blog posts, video transcripts, Facebook Lives, lead magnets, training recordings. Think of it as your content library: everything worth keeping, in one place.
There are three ways to call a skill.
For the most-used skills. Type a forward slash followed by the skill name: /content-router, /seo-blog-writer, /wrap-up.
For any skill: type run [skill-name] in the chat.
Claude finds the right skill for you. Say what you're trying to do and Claude picks the best match from your library.
If you have any repeatable framework, process, or template you use again and again, you can turn it into a skill. Claude walks you through the whole thing.
Tell Claude what you want the skill to do. It handles the rest: it looks at how existing skills are structured, builds the new skill, registers it in your system, and gives you a summary of how it works.
Once it's built, test it a couple of times. Anything that feels off — give Claude the feedback, and it'll update the skill. The more you refine it, the better it gets.
The install comes with a full skill library, but the most powerful skills are often the ones you build yourself — based on the frameworks and formats that work for your specific business. If you keep doing something the same way every time, that's a skill waiting to be built.
The skills that come with your install are a starting point. They're not a fixed system you have to follow — you can edit any of them, give them feedback, or build new ones from scratch. Over time, this becomes your system, not ours.
Every skill has a section at the top called Front Matter — a summary of what the skill does and how it runs. If you're not happy with how a skill is behaving, ask Claude to explain it first: "How does this skill work? Walk me through the workflow."
Give Claude your feedback on how you want it to work differently — longer, shorter, different format, skip a step, add a step. Claude updates the skill's learnings file with your changes. The next time you run it, those changes are already baked in.
You don't need to go into the files yourself. Do it through the chat.
The one thing to do before you close Claude every time.
At the end of every session, type /wrap-up. This is the single most important habit in the whole system.
Wrap-up does three things:
Without running this, you risk losing context between sessions. The system gets better the more you use it — but only if you wrap up. Two minutes at the end of each session, and nothing gets lost.
Phase 2 is where you build your Smart Website — a hand-coded, SEO-ready site with no monthly platform fee, connected to the Business Brain OS you built in Phase 1.
By the end of this phase you'll have a live website: your home, about, services, and blog pages written in your voice, your keyword strategy in place, and Google Search Console tracking your progress.
Phase 3 adds the lead generation layer to your Smart Website — a lead magnet that attracts the right people, an opt-in page that converts, and a 4-email nurture sequence that moves them toward an enquiry.
By the end of this phase you'll have a complete funnel: someone finds your site, downloads your lead magnet, receives four emails that build trust and make the case for working with you, and books a call.
Phase 4 sets up the content engine that makes your Smart Website compound over time. Each blog post you write gets repurposed into social content and images, scheduled from inside Claude — no separate tool, no Canva, about twenty minutes a week.
The skills you'll use most throughout the programme. Run them from inside Claude Code by typing the command or describing what you want.
Every call is recorded and added here. If you miss a session or want to revisit something, it's all here.
Recordings will appear here after each call.
Check back after our first session.