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17h •
I'm dumb. Here's proof.
I was today years old when I realized I did not have some of the most important files that you need in the folder structure that Jake teaches. During today's video call with the VIP group, he went on a deep-dive rabbit trail about the ICM folder methodology that he teaches in his foundations course (free). As he was discussing it, I went to check what my root folder looked like and I did not have a Claude.md or context.md file!!! My productivity skyrocketed ever since I implemented his folder strategy over a month ago, but little did I know that I hadn't even implemented it correctly. 🤯 🤯 🤯 This goes to show that massive action beats over planning every time!
Pinned
Mar 15 •
Welcome to Clief Notes. Here's where to start.
1. Watch the intro video and introduce yourself in the intro post here 2. Start with The Foundation (free course). Concepts, folder architecture, prompting framework. Everything else builds on this. 3. Check in at the bottom of each lesson. Polls, discussion posts, other members working through the same stuff. Use them. 4. When you're ready to build real things, move to Implementation Playbooks (Level 2). When you're ready to build your own tools, Building Your Stack (Level 3). 5. Post your work. Ask questions. Help others when you can. What are you here to build?
Poll
4926 members have voted
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6d •
🏆 WEEKLY COMP #3: THE SPECIALIST 🏆
💰 $325 CASH PRIZE 💰 That's a full year of Premium. Win this and your membership pays for itself. 📋 THE CHALLENGE You just got hired again. Different client this time. Meet Sarah, a freelance copywriter who's drowning in context-switching. 📎 Download the full client brief attached to this post. Short version: She works with three types of clients (SaaS founders, ecommerce brands, local service businesses) and starts from scratch every project. She doesn't need another tool. She needs a system. Your job is to build her a folder-based AI specialist she can drop into any Claude project. The folder IS the deliverable. 🗂️ THIS WEEK YOU LEARN ICM Up until now, comps have been "build a thing." This week you utilize the methodology taught throughout the community. 🧠 Folders as architecture. That's it. That's the whole concept this week. Your specialist is a folder with five things: - 📄 identity.md (who they are) - 📐 rules.md (how they respond) - 💬 examples.md (what good looks like) - 📚 reference/ (source material) - 📖 README.md (how to use it) Drop the folder into a Claude project. Claude becomes the specialist. Reusable. Shareable. Portable. 🎯 PICK YOUR SPECIALIST Don't pick copywriting. That's Sarah's example. Pick something YOU would actually use. A few sparks to get you thinking: - A salary negotiation coach - A meal planner that knows your dietary restrictions - A code reviewer for your stack - A real estate market analyst for your city - A technical recruiter screener - A grant writer for nonprofits in your space The more specific, the better. "Marketing expert" is not a specialist. "B2B email expert for enterprise SaaS targeting CFOs" is. 💼 WHY THIS ONE LANDS ON YOUR RESUME Real talk. Winning a comp in a Skool community doesn't get you a job by itself. But shipping a working folder-based AI specialist with a clean README and a public repo? That's a portfolio piece.
Mar 15 •
🏁 Foundations 2.5 Check-In
This one breaks down orchestration. Vote below, then pick one AI tool you actually use and tell us in the comments: can you identify which part is the model and which part is the routing layer around it?
Poll
454 members have voted
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12d •
Each dot is 3.2 million people.
📊 You've probably seen this chart floating around LinkedIn and Twitter Each dot is 3.2 million people. ⬜ Grey is the 84% of humans who have never used AI 🟩 Green is the 16% who have used a free chatbot 🟨 Yellow is the 0.3% who pay for one 🟥 Red is the tiny sliver who use AI coding tools Most of the people sharing it have not actually said what it means. So here it is. 🔁 We live inside an algorithm. Mine shows me AI all day. Yours probably does too. Every reel, every post, every podcast clip, every ad. The feed makes it feel like the whole world has moved on without you and you are sprinting to keep up. Inside Clief Notes that feeling gets louder. You log in and see people building agents, shipping side projects, automating their inbox, talking about Claude Code and MCP servers like it is normal. In this room, it is. Step outside and almost nobody is doing any of it. 6.8 billion people have never opened a chatbot. Plenty of the ones who did opened it once, asked it something dumb, got a dumb answer, and decided the whole thing sucked. They are not coming back this year. Maybe not next year either. 🪖 When I was in the Marine Corps I never felt like I was doing anything special. I was surrounded by other Marines. Everyone around me could do what I could do. The standard was the standard. It was not until I left and stood next to people who had never served that I understood. The thing I thought was ordinary was rare. I just could not see it because I was inside it. That is what is happening to you in here. If you feel behind in this community, that is the right feeling to have. It means you are standing next to the people pushing the edge. Step outside this room and the thing you are calling behind is so far ahead of where most of the world is sitting that they cannot see you from where they are. And do not forget. The thing you built last week, the workflow you set up this morning, the conversation you just had with Claude. A version of you from two years ago would have paid good money to do any of it.
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Jake Van Clief, giving you the Cliff notes on the new AI age.
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