Claude Is My Silent Business Partner — Here's How That Actually Works

Hi Reader,

Six months ago, I was running two businesses by myself and another as a wish in the back of my head. Not "by myself" in the founder-brag sense — actually by myself. I was the strategist, the copywriter, the bookkeeper, the launch planner, the tech support person, and the one answering emails at 11pm, all in the same day, all in one brain. If you've ever looked at your task list and felt your chest get tight, you already know the version of me I'm describing.

I want to walk you through what changed. It didn't happen the way I expected, and I think it'll be useful to you even if you never touch a single tool I mention.

I didn't start using AI because I had a grand plan. I started because I was tired. Can you relate? Reconciling my books, drafting launch emails, figuring out messaging, keeping up with three separate audiences — none of it was hard, exactly. It was just all mine, all the time. I'd finish one thing and there'd already be four more waiting.

If that's where you are right now, I'm not going to tell you it's fine, because it isn't, not long-term. But it's fixable. And it doesn't take the thing I assumed it would take — money for employees I couldn't afford yet.

If you're new to this: when people say they've "built an AI team," they don't mean they hired people. They mean they've taken something like Claude and given it a role — a name, a job description, some context about how they work — so instead of one generic assistant you re-explain yourself to every time, you've got something closer to a specialist who already knows the job.

I had to think about it this way: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs — none of them talked to every employee every day to get things done. They had one main person they worked alongside, a Chief of Staff, and they delegated everything else through that person.

That's basically what an "agent" is, in plain terms — an AI set up to do one kind of work reliably, the same way, every time you hand it that kind of task, instead of you starting from zero in every conversation. It's less like hiring and more like writing yourself a really good set of instructions once, and never having to write them again.

Once that clicked, something shifted. I wasn't looking for a tool anymore. I was looking for a way to stop being the only person doing the thinking.

So I built a team. And because it worked — genuinely, noticeably worked — I kept going. A strategist. A launch planner. A messaging lead. A social scripts person. An SEO specialist. A partnerships manager. A client onboarding specialist. If I could imagine a function my business might someday need, I gave it a name and added it to the roster.

By the time I stopped, I had twenty-two of them.

Then I couldn't remember who did what. Lol.

I want to be honest about why that didn't work, because it's the mistake a lot of people make right after this idea clicks: more roles didn't mean less on my plate. It meant I now had a roster to manage on top of the businesses I was already running. I still had to remember which of the twenty-two handled what, still had to be the one deciding who got looped in. I'd taken some of the doing off my plate. I hadn't taken off the deciding. And the deciding was the part that was actually wearing me down.

In May, I sat down and asked myself a different question than "what could I use help with." I asked: what does my business actually, recurringly need, and where do I keep losing time?

The answer was a lot smaller than twenty-two.

Now it's me, as CEO — I bring the direction and the decisions, because that part was never the problem and it's genuinely my job. Then Deanna Prince, my Chief of Staff. Deanna is who I actually talk to every morning. She runs my daily briefings and, this is the part that fixed everything, she's the one who routes work out to the specialists below her. I'm no longer the one deciding who gets looped in. I just talk to Deanna.

Below her, five directors, each with one clear lane:

• Natalie Romanoff — Content & Communications
• Terence Challa — Technology & Operations
• Anthony Starks — Revenue & Launch Strategy
• Stephanie Strange — Finance & Business Advisory
• Suzannah Storm — Creative

Okay, confession time, since you've probably already spotted it if you're a comic book person: those aren't random names. Prince. Romanoff. Challa. Starks. Strange. Storm. Every one of my team members is named after a superhero's secret identity.

My favorite is Wonder Woman — has been since I was a kid. I have shelves of paraphernalia to prove it, and my favorite piece of all is a photo of my sister with Lynda Carter, the original TV Wonder Woman.

So when I built my Chief of Staff, the one person I talk to first, the one who has to be steady and sharp and handle everything I hand her — of course she got Diana Prince's last name. Deanna Prince. My Wonder Woman.

You don't have to do any of this, obviously. Name your team Bob and Susan and Steve if you want. But here's the part that actually matters: I went a step further and gave each of them a face and a bit of a backstory too. Not necessary. But it helps us mere mortals actually picture them as employees — and it's a lot easier to hand work to someone you can picture than to a blinking cursor.

The twenty-two didn't fail because the idea was wrong. It failed because I'd built an org chart without a manager. Six works because it mirrors how a small team actually runs — someone sets direction, one person runs point, and a few specialists own their lane end to end without me having to referee it.

And underneath all six of them is still just Claude. That's usually the question I get when I explain this: is it really one AI, playing six parts? Functionally, yes. What changed wasn't the tool. It was giving the tool a structure that matched how I actually think, instead of a wish list of every job I thought I might someday need filled.

I'm not going to pretend I got it right the first time — I built the wrong version first, and that's a completely normal place to land on your way to the right one. The point isn't to skip the twenty-two. The point is knowing you're allowed to cut it down once you see what you actually use.

You don't need twenty-two roles. You need clarity on the handful of things your business leans on every week, and one person — one Deanna — standing between you and the specifics so you're not the one doing the routing. Here's the prompt I'd hand you if you were starting today:

Run it. Answer honestly. And if you end up with fewer roles than you expected — good. That's not you doing it wrong. That's you skipping the six months it took me to find that out the long way.

Terry

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