It's a new season · Clief Notes

It's a new season

I did not come from a technical background. I did not go to college. I have always had a knack for technology, and always been a voracious learner. I was recently let go as the director of finance for a construction company that I had been with for 19 months. I started as an unqualified project manager and asked to be the CFO because of my banking background after being with the company for 6 weeks.

I said I wasn't comfortable with the title because of how unqualified I knew I was. We settled on the title of director, but I essentially was asked to operate as the CFO.

I leaned heavily on ChatGPT to fill in the educational gaps. I didn't just want the answers, I wanted to understand the questions, the answers, and how the two correlate. I never wanted to lose those lessons, and I didn't want ChatGPT to start from scratch when I had to begin a new session, so I copied all of my logs into word documents. No one told me there was a better way, and it was better than having to start with a blank slate each session.

In February I decided to try Claude and I felt like an entirely new world was opening up for me. The first day of chatting it created a deal assesment dashboard. Immediately I began to imagine all of the possibilities for improving our company. I tried providing the context to Claude that I had acquired from working with ChatGPT, but after I uploaded my word docs I was already at 80% on my context capacity. That was when I asked it to help me trim it down so we had more room to work. That was when I was first introduced to an MD.

I didn't quite understand the full power of that file type, but I began to take the same approach with the MD's that I had with my word docs. I crammed everything I could into one MD. It was about two weeks later that my boss talked to me about Jake. He sent me the video and said that the method I had stumbled across was actually the best way to work with AI. I immediately began to rework the mess my MD was and setup a proper ICM system. I used it to create an accounts payable agent that saved me and my team the headache of entering in 150 new bills over the next three weeks.

Just as I was questioning if I wanted to continue to work for this company, my boss said that he wanted to shift my role and cut my pay by 30%. We attempted to come to a workable arrangement but were unable to come to an agreement. I left the company on April 15th, created a business with my brother to offer a SaaS to sub contractors. Additionally, I have started an AI consulting business where I come in to help other businesses create their own ICM so they can begin utilizing AI effectively on their own.

I say all of this to just say thank you again to

@Jake Van Clief

for empowering me. I know that I am not the guy a large company would hire to be their AI consultant, but my first client loved the fact that I have proof of what a non technical individual can do when the right framework is in place with AI.

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