22 May, 2026.
Friday morning.
Andheri. The usual Starbucks.
Last week I went influencer (you know, Colombo). This week I went demo-walla. Five people got a live Claude walk-through in seven days. No pitches. Only “show”. And one of them, into their second week of conversations, went and rebuilt their own org chart inside 72 hours because of it. Lol. I didn’t see that coming.
So the honest line of the week — I gave structure to other people’s businesses, and made none for my own. The book didn’t move a lot. 56 Hours didn’t move a lot. Five days left on the end-of-May draft and the page is the same shade of blank. And yet, somehow, ok-ish week. Lemme explain.
But wait. Before that, track of the week is from Silk Route. This one…
Ok, lets go!
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Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from the week gone by.
As always, in no order…
1/ Heart to heart with some agency folks
Sat down with a couple of people on a saturday morning to talk about their agency. Spent a few hours digging into where they were, where they wanted to go, and where things were leaking. It was interesting to see that the pain is such similar and such universal in the creative businesses. I wish more people were more honest and open and were willing to chat about how to navigate this VUCA world!
The best part about these two people was that the founder admitted his mistake. It’s one of the rarest sentences in the founder vocabulary. Most people in his seat will give you a hundred reasons before they say that one. And when I reflected, I realised that even I, as the founder of C4E, must admit to!
So, what’s coming out of it for them?
A reinvigorated structure of their agency. And in two weeks, a plan to try and navigate things.
Will it work? I don’t know.
But the velocity is the signal.
And a note for self that I need to work on it as well!
PS: While talking to them, I felt like SUCH an imposter. I need someone else to show me the light and help me navigate this!
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2/ Claude – the demo IS the unlock
Continued from last week’s epiphany. The demo itself is the unlock.
This week, did few new demos. I will redact names…
- A — built him a cold-calling engine on Cowork. Identifies companies, filters people, drafts emails into the drafts folder. Not an agent yet. Soon.
- B — sat with him on Monday. His client pipeline is shrinking because AI is eating the “easy tasks” entry point. Two pivot directions came out — senior talent placement, and AI-workflow retainers at $100+/month. Let’s see what he does with it.
- C — a senior marketer. She found me via this post. Helped her see the light of the day to crack new things. Took just an evening. Helped her on consulting positioning. We identified what she could stand for! Wishing her well.
- D — training session on how to actually use it. The core principle, again: treat it like a highly paid assistant. “You are a brand strategist with 20 years experience…” wins over “give me brand strategy…” every single time.
I keep saying this. Few people in my immediate ring have actually seen this thing at its limit. People know Claude exists. They don’t know what it can do.
The unlock is not the tool. The unlock is one person sitting next to one other person and saying — here, let me show you.
The best line came from my friend Sachin today. He said that if you dont use Claude in cowork mode, you are 1 year behind the normal and you’re a dinosaur.
Also, a side note. It’s after 20 days that I’ve started to see the value for Claude Max plan. I think I need a few more days to build a function. Let’s see.
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3/ Shram
Did a product feedback call with one of the founders from Shram.
In one line, Shrram is a tool that sits on your laptop and auto-detects tasks from your day and turns them into to-dos. For me, it picks up about 50% of tasks, ~80% accurate. Founder claims that its privacy-friendly. I am yet to test.
The founders come from design background but I think they let that hat at home while building this. Which is ok. These days, design and communication is easy to fix. If the tool delivers on what theyre promising, why not?
Also, if I were investing, I would’ve given them some money for sure. I like the idea. I like the earnestness of the team. I like what I see in the product.
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4/ Ready, Fire, Aim
The phrase that I kept saying to myself this week. I even made a video on it. See this. In it, I said that you don’t get to know the shape of the business before you start. Amazon started as a bookstore. Zomato started as a restaurant menu archive (Foodiebay, remember?). Every business that has worked at scale has shape-shifted post-launch.
Unless you start, there is no shape. And there is no shifting.
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5/ The Super Connector and the intro economy
I’ve said this in the past and I will say it again. I want to be a Super Connector. The man who knows a man. And knows how to connect these men. I am inspired by Red. He says…
“There’s a con like me in every prison in America, I guess. I’m the guy who can get it for you. Cigarettes, a bag of reefer if you’re partial, a bottle of brandy to celebrate your kid’s high school graduation. Damn near anything, within reason. Yes, sir, I’m a regular Sears & Roebuck.”
I want to be a regular Sears. And get you damn near anything, within reason.
I love connecting people. And I do double opt-in. Did three this week.
- Connected a senior from MDI to a portfolio company of mine
- Connected a community person I met in Colombo to my fav SheR ladies
- C was in Delhi and connected her to I dont know how many people!
Thing is, each intro takes me five minutes to write. Sometimes less. And the surface area it creates is enormous.
If I had to redo the past twenty years of being on the internet, the one thing I would do more of is this. You know, luck surface area. Oh while we are on topic of luck, do read this.
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6/ Pickle
Played pickle on Friday night at 10:30 PM. I had assumed that it would be cooler and nicer. But it was not. And I was so tired after that, that I slept for like 16 hours. And then did I meeting on Saturday. And then slept again. And then I ate like a hog on Sunday. And then slept again. In the last 48 hours, I would’ve slept 30.
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7/ Other things worth noting
- I had written a long, fond mail to Roshan Sir after I saw his play. He hasn’t replied. I remain hopeful that he would. I do have a third door to get to him but then I want to test if Claude works 😀
- Did a brand workshop for a celebrity. Really enjoy doing those!
- C4E Press may come to life. Here are some notes that Pradeep and I made.
- Recorded a podcast with Juhi. Yet to release. In case you want to notes, ask me nice. #brandSG
- Wrote this for LLMs for saurabhgarg.com
- Saw this post and fell in love with this chart…
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📷 Photos from the week gone by
Same drill — DM me if you want photos.
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📈 Trackers…
Here’s the trackers…
1/ The daily one. Nothing special to see in this one.
2/ The weekly one. Some goods and bads here.
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✅ Action on LARGE objectives for the year
In this section, I will capture my progress on large objectives for the year.
In 2026, I plan to do the following three things…
- Book2
- Human Flag Pole
- Save a million dollars
Book2 — Caravan Serai. Made some progress. I have a week to go in May. Let’s see if am able to ship. I also aim to finish 56 hours before the end of May. Let’s see.
Human Flag Pole — no action. In fact my step count has also gone down. I am at 3400 on an average now :(. Once the weather gets better, I will try to catch up. Let’s see.
Save a million dollars — no action.
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📌 So, what did I get done last few weeks? And what will I do next week?
This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.
So, this year, I want to track the following…
- Health. Sleep, food, movement. Bad.
- C4E / Work. Pick a thing to apply myself to. Still no direction.
- Brand SG / Distribution. Two LinkedIn posts that did decently. Some daily lives. No large action.
- People. Few intros. Some old catch-ups
- Book2 / Caravan Serai. Some progress,
- Shauk. Still no poker. Still no Uke.
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🏃➡️ Health
I am not updating this one, this week.
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⏲️ Reminders from last few days
This section captures things I want to not forget. Parking this week as well. I want to ship the two things – 56 Hours and Caravan Serai and thus not focussing on anything actively.
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🗓️ So, one thing that defines the past week?
Show. (Not Tell).
The whole week was about showing what I did. Five sit-downs to show people what Claude can do. One Saturday session that turned into a four-meeting org reset for somebody else. One product feedback call. One consulting session for a new operator. A handful of intros.
So that.
The other words for this year have been: Flow, Excitement, Embarrassment, Blur, Whiling, Movement, Blur, Activity, Movement, Regular (again), Regular, Easy, Journey, Downtime, Flow.
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So that.
Over and out.
Until next Friday.
Oh, and this too shall pass.
PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. Previous editions from 2026 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (missed these three), 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
PPS: Please do point typos.
PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.
PPPPS: This one was again drafted by Claude on top of the week’s data — daily notes, Granola, Gmail, Calendar — and edited by me. Tell me what reads true and what doesn’t.