№042May 14
PROMPT TEARDOWN
I rebuilt our entire onboarding email sequence in a Sunday afternoon.
The prompt, the brief I fed it, the 4 places it confidently lied, and what I'd never automate.
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NOW PUBLISHING — ISSUE №01EST. 2026 // SOMEWHERE WITH WIFI
✦ Built in public
A Substack for marketers who build
Show YourWorking.
One senior marketer learning to build AI systems for marketing work — in public, with the receipts. No gurus, no engineering degree, no fluff.
mission_statement.md
♡ filed under: honest
"You're not behind. You just don't know what's possible yet."
— the editor (hi, it's me)vol. 01
Real promptsReal screenshotsReal broken buildsNo thought leadershipNo 10X hacksBuilt by a marketerFor marketersReal promptsReal screenshotsReal broken buildsNo thought leadershipNo 10X hacksBuilt by a marketerFor marketers
✦ Yes, hi, this is you
For you if…
…any of this hits a little too close to home.
- ✦You've been in-house long enough to be cynical — but you still want to build things.
- ✦You've used Claude or ChatGPT for ~6–12 months and you're past the novelty stage.
- ✦You don't want to become an engineer. You want a peer half a step ahead.
- ✦You don't have the time to get started, and when you get it, you need to make it count
✕ Hard pass
Not for you if…
I wish you well, just elsewhere :)
- ✕You sell a $2,000 "AI for marketers" course and need new leads.
- ✕You think prompt screenshots are a product category.
- ✕You've used the phrase "reimagining the funnel" out loud, on purpose, without wincing
- ✕You're looking for someone to tell you AI is going to replace your team next quarter.
📎 the receipts
I show my working.
So you can learn from it.
Every issue ships with the actual prompts, the screenshots, the cost, and yes - even the bit where it broke.
THE PROMPT
A 600-token system prompt that turns a CRM export into a quarterly board narrative. Yes, v7. The other six were tragic.
THE NOTEBOOK
The arrows-and-Post-its phase before any of it touches a tool. This is 70% of the work and nobody talks about it.
Recent issues
The whole archive →✦ new
№041May 7
RECEIPT DROP
A custom GPT that writes like our actual product marketer (not a LinkedIn ghost).
How I trained it on her last 30 docs, where she had to step in, and why it's not coming for her job.
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№040Apr 30
MESSY BUILD
I tried to automate competitive teardowns and it cost me $14 in tokens to learn nothing.
An honest post-mortem of a build that didn't ship. Including the budget. Especially the budget.
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№039Apr 23
FRAMEWORK
Stop "using AI." Start designing systems. (Here's the 4-question test I run first.)
How I decide whether something deserves a workflow, a custom GPT, or a polite no.
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who's writing thisI'm a senior marketer
I'm a senior marketer
teaching myself the new bit, out loud.
Nine years in-house at Tyk. Six years before that across agency and in-house at corporates.
I've been the marketing lead, the brand person, the analyst, the one buying the pizza and the one writing the deck on the plane. I'm a builder by disposition and I've been deep in execution for most of my career.
I'm not an engineer. I don't want to be one. But I'm tired of arguing with Claude about copy changes when I could be improving the system.
So I'm learning how to build it myself, in public, weekly, with the working. Half a step ahead of you, max.
questions u might have
The FAQ, but make it honest.
Is this a course?+
Not for now! SYW is a free newsletter you can access via Substack.
Is this written by AI?+
AI assists the writing of this newsletter. I feed it my transcripts, notes, and actual Claude Code prompts + setup I use. I then apply my TOV file, then finally I shape it into the publishable version. The voice is mine, the tools just help me get it out faster, and I'll teach you how to do the same.
Do I need to know how to code?+
Nope. I don't! 80% of the time you'll just need an inquisitive mind and the ability to copy-paste.
Why does this look like a Tamagotchi?+
Because the future of B2B marketing should not look like another grey SaaS landing page. We're millennials. We earned this.
Are you going to sell me something?+
If I ever did, one day, it would be in a normal way that I'll be very obvious about. For now: free Substack newsletter, no upsell, no "join my community" Discord with 4,000 bots.
What does "showing your working" actually mean?+
Sharing the prompts, the broken drafts, the markdown files and folder hierarchies. Plus sharing where it all went wrong. *Not* the polished case study three months later.
Stop being strategic.
Start building things.
Two emails a month. Free. From a peer half a step ahead, not a guru three flights up.