Prompts & Pliers
★ AI tutorials for people with real jobs ★ the Founding 100 is now boarding ★ no jargon ★ no hype ★ no "synergy" ★ Gary the robot approves this message ★ be home by 6 ★ 100 spots, then the doors close ★ 
FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS, NOT TECH BROS

Your competitors are using AI badly. Beat them politely.

Plain-English AI playbooks for the work that eats your week: customer emails, estimates, Google reviews, hiring, social posts. Copy the prompt. Do the thing. Go home.

Claim a founding spot → See the playbooks

Who this is for

You run a salon, a landscaping crew, a bakery, a three-truck HVAC outfit, a law office with one lawyer (you). You've heard AI can help. Every tutorial you've found assumes you have a CTO care about "vector embeddings."

We assume one thing: you have 20 minutes and a real problem. Each playbook is a specific scenario — "answer all my Google reviews," "draft my estimates" — with the exact prompts, the screenshots, and the part nobody else includes: how to check the robot's work before you trust it.

Never used AI? Start here. It's a 20-minute setup.

Every playbook assumes you've done these four things. Do them once, on a slow Tuesday, with coffee.

1

Get an AI assistant

Sign up free at claude.ai (our pick) or chatgpt.com. The free tier is plenty to start. No credit card, no installing anything — it's a website where you type and it types back.

2

Say an actual thing about your business

Skip "write me a poem." Try this instead:I run a [your business] in [town]. What are 5 tasks I do every week that you could help with? Ask me questions first.

The "ask me questions first" part is the whole trick.

3

Learn the one rule

AI gives back what you give it. "Write a customer email" gets you mush. "Write a 60-word reply to a customer asking why their fence quote went up $200 — friendly, no groveling, materials cost more now" gets you something you'd actually send.

4

Never trust, always verify

AI confidently makes things up — prices, policies, staff members you don't employ. Read everything before it leaves your shop. Every playbook includes a checklist for exactly this.

Done? Get your first playbook free →

The Playbooks

These will cost $19 each someday. The Founding 100 get every playbook free, forever — including everything we ever ship. 100 spots. One question at the door. When they're gone, the doors close.

PLAYBOOK 00 · DO THIS FIRST

Set Up the Robot

The 20-minute starting point: get a free AI account, learn the one rule of prompting, and find out why you should never fully trust Gary. Every other playbook assumes you've done this.

PLAYBOOK 01

The Review Whisperer

Answer every Google review — the glowing ones, the unhinged ones — in your own voice, 15 minutes a week. Includes the "1-star from someone who's never been a customer" protocol.

FREEGet it
PLAYBOOK 02

Quotes While You Sleep

Turn a voice memo from the job site into a clean, priced estimate before your coffee's done. Your margins stay yours; the typing doesn't.

FREEGet it
PLAYBOOK 03

Inbox Zero-ish

The shared inbox is haunted. We can't fix that, but AI can draft 80% of the replies and flag the three emails that actually need you.

FREEGet it
PLAYBOOK 04

The Social Media Stand-In

A month of posts in one sitting — in your voice, about your actual work, with zero stock photos of people high-fiving in an office.

FREEGet it
PLAYBOOK 05

Hiring Without Crying

Job posts that attract humans, screening questions that filter politely, and interview scripts so you stop winging it. The robot reads the résumés; you meet the good ones.

FREEGet it
PLAYBOOK 06

Where Did My Tuesday Go?

Follow-ups, scheduling, no-show reminders, "just checking in" emails — the admin sludge, automated. Reclaim one full afternoon a week. Use it for anything. Even a nap.

FREEGet it

Meet Gary.

"Gary answered 31 Google reviews this week, drafted 14 estimates, and wrote a job post for a bakery in Ohio. Gary does not want a raise. Gary wants you to double-check his math, because Gary is a robot and occasionally invents a discount that does not exist." — Every playbook includes a "Check Gary's Work" section. This is why.

Join the Founding 100

The first 100 businesses get every playbook free, forever — plus a direct line to request what we build next. One question at the door, because founding spots are for people with real businesses, not collectors of free PDFs.

Weekly playbook drops by email. No spam. Unsubscribing is one click and zero guilt.