Should I build an AI brain or finish the website?
Three recent conversations with friends who are further ahead with AI left me with plenty of ideas.
They also left me feeling a bit behind.
I’m still fairly new to building with AI. I only downloaded Claude Desktop in September. Since then, I’ve rebuilt my personal website and started working on the TeamUp website rebuild.
That already feels like a lot of learning alongside running two businesses.
Then I hear how other people are working and think: should I be doing all of that too?
Talking to people further ahead
Iain has built what he calls an “AI brain”: a collection of business context, project files and instructions that Claude can draw on. His advice was to start building context for TeamUp, using information from tools we already have, like HubSpot and ClickUp.
I could see how that would improve the answers I get without having to explain everything again.
Brandon uses a local AI workspace too, although he’s found individual workspaces more useful for his team than one shared brain.
Interestingly, his current focus is scaling influencer marketing. He works at a funded tech startup, with different resources from our bootstrapped businesses. But parts of the influencer marketing process he described still sounded quite manual. Being further ahead with AI hadn’t entirely removed the work of figuring out how to reach customers.
My friend Kate has also made huge progress. She’s launched an AI consulting business helping Australian service businesses adopt AI, and has been helping me along the way.
She offered to do an AI audit of TeamUp and Bean Ninjas.
Normally, I’d jump at something like that. But after thinking it through, I realised more information wasn’t what I needed right now.
I needed to execute. Another list of possibilities would probably leave me more overwhelmed. I’d love to take Kate up on it when I’m ready. She’s strong on operations and tech and has worked with businesses of all sizes.
Better context sounds useful. So does finishing.
I initially wanted to switch focus and build the AI brain.
We’re rebuilding the TeamUp website and moving from Webflow to a custom-coded site, so it’s easier to update pages and articles with AI.
The Resources section is where I got stuck.
We have around 40 articles that need updating, some needing a full rewrite. I was trying to decide on the Resources page layout and topic categories while also thinking through that content work.
An AI brain could help me organise and rewrite the articles. But building it would mean starting another project before finishing this one.
Then I paused.
I didn’t need to rewrite every article to improve the Resources page. I could give the designer/developer enough direction for this rebuild, then revisit the content, categories and layout later.
The new site should make those updates easier. The AI brain might help with that next stage, but it doesn’t have to come first.
Meanwhile, I’m using AI for ordinary work
I’m also preparing all of the group discussions and workshops for Fireside in Manila, a retreat we’re hosting for accounting firm owners with teams in the Philippines.
I had one-on-one calls with every attendee to get to know them, answer questions and understand their goals, challenges and hopes for the trip. I wanted to have those conversations myself.
Afterwards, AI helped me find common themes in the transcripts and shape our discussion topics and workshops. It probably saved me two hours of reading and digesting the calls, and knowing I could review them later helped me be more present during each conversation.
It’s a simple use case, but these small time savings add up.
AI amplifies your working style
Something Iain said stayed with me: AI amplifies your working style. Thinkers spend more time thinking, and doers do more.
Isaac and I have been exploring our work styles as part of a founder vision exercise at TeamUp. He defaults to thinking; I default to doing. AI could encourage both of us to keep going, even when we need to pause or change approach.
Iain also described keeping his three business objectives on his desktop wallpaper and putting new ideas into a brain dump for later.
That advice felt particularly relevant. Even with a sophisticated AI setup, he still needs a way to stay focused.
When I feel behind, I’m trying to remember that I don’t need to pursue every possibility. I need to finish the projects that matter to me.
For now, I’m finishing the TeamUp website and adding context where it helps. The AI brain can wait.
I’ll keep asking: Will this help me finish, or give me another interesting thing to start?