The Founder's
Guide to Claude
Everything you need to use Claude well. Models, setup, prompting, tools, and the phrases that make it all click.
Made by Your AI Partner — @stevearnesonofficial
Chapter 1
Welcome to Claude
Claude is built by Anthropic — a company focused on making AI that's genuinely useful and safe. It's not a search engine. It's a thinking partner, writing collaborator, analyst, and strategist. Think of it as the sharpest colleague you've ever had.
The Model Lineup
Haiku 4.5
The Speed DemonSonnet 4.6
The WorkhorseYour go-to for 80–90% of everything you do. Smart enough for complex work, fast enough that you're not waiting around. Balanced intelligence and speed.
Opus 4.6
The HeavyweightPlans
Sonnet & Haiku. Limited messages. Great for trying it out.
All models including Opus. Cowork, Claude Code, Research mode, web search, file creation, Google Workspace.
Everything in Pro with much higher usage caps and priority access. The plan for automations and serious workflows.
Shared Projects, admin controls, centralized billing for small teams.
Where to find Claude: Web (claude.ai), desktop app (Mac + Windows), mobile (iOS + Android). Everything syncs across devices.
Chapter 2
Set Yourself Up Right
Most people skip setup and dive straight into asking questions. That's like hiring a new team member and never telling them about your business. Fifteen minutes of setup makes every conversation dramatically smarter.
Your Profile & Preferences
Head to Settings › Profile. Tell Claude your industry, role, communication style, and formatting preferences. Be specific: “I run a boutique marketing agency with 12 employees, primarily serving B2B SaaS. I prefer concise, actionable responses.”
Memory
Claude remembers you across conversations. Enable it in Settings › Memory. You can view, edit, or delete memories anytime. Different Projects maintain separate memories.
The First Conversation
Before any real work, have an intentional “get to know me” conversation. Tell Claude about your business, goals, challenges, and communication style. This single investment compounds in every future interaction.
Spend 15 minutes on your profile and a “get to know me” conversation. It's the single highest-leverage thing you can do with Claude.
Starter prompt — copy & paste this
“I want you to get to know me and my business so you can help me better over time. Ask me one important question at a time — about my company, my role, my goals, and how I like to communicate. Keep going until you have a clear picture.”
Chapter 3
How to Talk to Claude
This is the most important section. The gap between mediocre results and extraordinary ones isn't the model. It's how you communicate.
Context is everything
“Write me a social media post.”
Generic. No context. Claude has to guess everything.
Four things to always include
Format
Bullet points, table, email draft, slide outline
Length
“Keep it under 200 words” or “thorough analysis”
Audience
“For my board” vs. “for my Instagram followers”
Tone
“Professional and authoritative” vs. “casual”
Iterate, don't start over Tip
When Claude gives you something 70% right, tell it what to fix: “Make the opening more direct and cut the second paragraph.” Specific feedback is dramatically faster than starting from scratch.
Push back Tip
Claude isn't always right. If something feels off, say so. It responds well to constructive pushback.
Ask Claude to ask you Tip
Try: “Before you start, ask me 3–5 clarifying questions so you can do this well.” This single sentence transforms the interaction.
“The quality of Claude's output is directly proportional to the quality of your input.”
Chapter 4
What's In the Toolbox
Most people use Claude for one thing: answering questions. It's like having a fire-breathing dragon and instead of asking it to fly you to a new dimension, you ask it to warm up some broccoli.
via Allie K. Miller — my favourite AI follow
Web Search
Claude searches the internet in real time for current events, competitor research, market data, and fact-checking.
File Creation
Ask Claude to create Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs. Ask for deliverables, not answers.
Artifacts
When Claude builds something — a document, visualization, code — it appears in a separate panel you can view, edit, and iterate on.
Research Mode
Deep investigation across multiple sources. Perfect for market research, competitive analysis, and due diligence.
Image Understanding
Upload photos, screenshots, whiteboard sketches, or documents. Claude can see and analyze visual content.
Google Workspace
Connect Drive, Gmail, and Calendar. Claude references your existing documents and emails directly.
Data Analysis
Upload a CSV or spreadsheet and ask Claude to find patterns, create charts, or summarize insights. No technical skills needed.
Stop asking Claude questions. Start asking Claude to build things for you. If you'd normally spend 2 hours on it, Claude can draft it in 2 minutes.
Chapter 5
Projects — Your Secret Weapon
Projects are dedicated workspaces where Claude maintains specific context for a specific area of your work. Each has its own instructions, reference files, and history. It's like having a specialized assistant for each department.
How to set one up
Create a new Project from the sidebar
Name it specifically — “Q1 Marketing Campaign” beats “Marketing”
Write Project Instructions with your goals, context, and format preferences
Upload reference files — brand guidelines, templates, examples
Ideas for founders
Tap any card to see a starter prompt you can copy.
Content Creation
Brand voice, audience personas, content calendar
Client Work
Client backgrounds, templates, communication history
Business Strategy
Business plan, financials, competitive landscape
Operations
SOPs, team roster, tool stack, processes
Sales & Proposals
Templates, pricing, case studies, objection notes
Chapter 6
What Claude Can't Do
Smart trust means understanding where Claude shines and where it doesn't.
Claude can be wrong
It can generate confident-sounding information that isn’t accurate. Always verify facts, figures, and legal or financial claims. The higher the stakes, the more you verify.
Knowledge has a cutoff
For recent events, Claude needs to use web search. If something feels outdated, ask it to search.
It can’t access what you haven’t shared
Claude doesn’t know your email, CRM, or tools unless you’ve connected them or uploaded files.
Memory is good, not perfect
For critical context, use Projects with reference documents rather than relying solely on memory.
Not a licensed professional
For legal, medical, or financial decisions with real consequences, consult a licensed professional.
Long conversations can drift
If quality dips, start fresh. Five focused conversations beat one sprawling thread.
“Trust Claude like you'd trust a brilliant new hire — capable of amazing work, but you still review the deliverables.”
Chapter 7
12 Phrases That Change Everything 🔥
These are the phrases that unlock Claude's best work. Tap any card to see why it works.
“Think through this step by step.”
Tap to reveal
“Ask me 5 clarifying questions before you start.”
Tap to reveal
“What am I missing?”
Tap to reveal
“Be direct — tell me what’s wrong with this.”
Tap to reveal
“Give me three options and explain the tradeoffs.”
Tap to reveal
“Write this as if you’re explaining it to [audience].”
Tap to reveal
“Here’s what I liked, and here’s what needs to change.”
Tap to reveal
“Before you respond, tell me what you understood.”
Tap to reveal
“I’m going to give you context in stages. Don’t start yet.”
Tap to reveal
“Pretend you’re [role] with [X years] of experience.”
Tap to reveal
“Summarize this conversation so I can paste it into a new chat.”
Tap to reveal
“What would you do differently if you could start over?”
Tap to reveal
Chapter 8
Level Up — Go Pro
You've got the fundamentals down. These are the tools that take you from using Claude well to running your business on it.
Claude Cowork
Open the Claude desktop app, point it at a folder of files, and tell it what you need. Claude reads everything, makes a plan, and executes multi-step tasks on its own. No terminal, no technical setup.
Real-world example
A practitioner office pointed Cowork at a folder of 50 patient intake forms and said “Audit these for completeness, flag missing fields, and rewrite the follow-up templates.” Done autonomously.
Claude Code
Describe what you want built in plain English and Claude builds it for you. No coding skills needed. Founders call this “vibe coding” — you explain the idea, Claude writes the code, tests it, and ships it.
Real-world example
A retail franchise with 40 locations said “I need a dashboard that pulls sales, foot traffic, and inventory data from every store so leadership can spot underperformers, compare regions, and make decisions based on real numbers instead of gut feel.” Claude Code built the entire reporting tool from scratch.
MCP & Integrations
MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets Claude plug directly into the tools you already use — your CRM, project management apps, databases, and more. Instead of copy-pasting between tools, Claude reads and acts on your live data.
Real-world example
A real estate team connected Claude to their CRM. Now they say “Pull all leads from the last 30 days who haven’t received a follow-up” and Claude generates the list and drafts the emails.
Master the chat experience first. Explore Projects deeply. When you're ready, Cowork and Claude Code open up possibilities that would have required a technical team just a year ago.
“Right now, AI is as dumb as it's ever going to be.
”
The best time to start was yesterday.
The second best time is right now.
Open Claude. Set up your profile. Create your first Project. Start building.
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