Business Brain
Turn one folder into a company brain that remembers your business and works in your voice
One folder that turns the AI you already use into a company brain. It knows your business, works in your voice, and gets smarter every session.
You have taught ChatGPT about your business more times than you can count, and it forgets every time the chat ends. This playbook fixes the memory problem: you build the brain once, as plain files in a folder, and every session after that starts smart. It runs on Claude and Cowork from a normal conversation with no connectors needed, and the setup prompt at the bottom works in any AI.
The problem
Every new chat starts from zero. You explain who you are, what you sell, how you talk, and the AI writes something decent. Then the chat ends and everything it learned dies with it. Modeled at 15 minutes of re-explaining across five sessions a week, that is more than an hour every week teaching the same facts to the same tool.
The bigger cost is quality. An AI that half-knows your business writes generic drafts, pulls prices from memory instead of your price list, and sounds like everyone else's AI instead of you.
What you get
How it works
Start with one empty local folder. Create Business-Brain/ on your computer's own drive. Not iCloud Drive, not Google Drive, not Dropbox or OneDrive, and on most Macs that rules out Desktop and Documents because iCloud syncs them by default. Synced drives swap files for cloud placeholders and pull them out from under your AI mid-task, and a brain on a synced drive will eventually lose a thought. The one exception comes later: Assets/, the root that holds finished work you share, may live in your cloud drive. The Brain and the Workshop never do.
Let the AI build the structure. Everything lives under three roots: Brain/ is what the business knows, Workshop/ is the workbench where the work gets built, Assets/ is finished work you hand to someone. In Claude Code (the desktop app or the terminal) or in Claude Cowork, open the empty folder and paste in this Builder Prompt. It checks the folder is local, creates every folder and file, writes the operating rules, prints the finished tree so you can verify it, then rolls straight into your setup interview:
You are building my Business Brain in this folder. Create everything below exactly as written, confirm each step as done, and tell me plainly about anything you could not do. STEP 0 - CHECK THE GROUND Look at where this folder lives. If the path runs through iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive (on a Mac, Desktop and Documents usually mean iCloud), stop and tell me to move the folder onto the computer's own drive first. A synced folder swaps files for cloud placeholders and breaks the brain. Local only. STEP 1 - THE THREE ROOTS Create three folders: Brain/ everything the business knows Workshop/ where the work gets built Assets/ finished work, ready to hand to someone STEP 2 - BUILD THE BRAIN Inside Brain/ create: Company/ with four files, section headings only, answers left blank: - About-Us.md: The basics / The story / What makes us different / The goal right now - ICP.md: The ideal client / Good fit signs / Bad fit signs / Where they hang out - Offer.md: What we sell / How clients buy / Payment terms / What we do not do - Voice.md: The short version / Rules / Say and never say / A real sample Five department folders: Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance, Customer-Support. In each, one file named after the department with three headings: What we know / Open right now / Biggest struggle. Agents/ with five folders: Marketing-Head, Sales-Head, Operations-Head, Finance-Head, Support-Head. In each, five files with headings only: Soul.md, Identity.md, Instructions.md, Context.md, Permissions.md. Drop-Files-Here/ left empty. I will drop business documents there. STEP 3 - WORKSHOP AND ASSETS Inside Workshop/: five folders, one per department. This is the workbench where everything gets built before it is finished. Inside Assets/: a Clients/ folder plus five folders, one per department. Finished work lives there. Each client I take on later gets Assets/Clients/[client-name]/ with In/ and Out/ inside. Then ask me one question: do I want my finished work to sync to a cloud drive like iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or Dropbox so I can share it from anywhere? Assets is the only root allowed there, because it holds finished files, not the brain's thinking. If I say yes, create the Assets folder inside my cloud drive instead and link it here as Assets/, and confirm the link works. If I say no, keep Assets/ local like everything else. STEP 4 - THE OPERATING RULES Create CLAUDE.md at the root of the folder containing these standing rules, written out in full so every future session follows them: - At the start of every session, read Brain/Company/ and the department files before responding to anything. - One fact lives in one place. Update it there, never copy it into a second file. - Drafts save to Workshop/. Finished work saves to Assets/. Client work saves to Assets/Clients/[client-name]/. Every file name starts with the date, like 2026-08-29-Name.md. - Any price, discount, commitment, or message to a real person ends as a draft for me. Never decide those for me. - At the end of every session, save what was learned back into the right Brain/ files, each fact with its source in parentheses. - Report honestly. A thing that failed is reported as failed, never dressed up as done. STEP 5 - VERIFY Print the full folder tree so I can see everything that was created. Anything missing or skipped gets named, not hidden. STEP 6 - FILL THE BRAIN Now run my setup interview. Ask what documents I already have and read anything I drop into Brain/Drop-Files-Here/ before asking questions. Ask only what is still missing, in short batches, never one question at a time. Have me name my five department heads and you, my chief of staff, the sixth seat that routes everything. Ask me each department's biggest struggle and write those into each head's Soul.md. Show me everything before saving it. Then finish by doing one real task for me, in my voice, using only what the brain now knows.
On ChatGPT or any AI that cannot create files, build the same tree by hand and use the Core Prompt at the bottom of this page instead.
Start with what already exists. Hand the AI your website, old proposals, a brand guide, anything you have taught another AI. It pulls the facts out instead of asking you to type your business in from scratch.
Fill the gaps in batches. Whatever the documents did not cover gets asked in three short rounds: identity, market and offer, voice. You answer once and it is answered forever.
Give every department a brain. One page each for Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance, and Customer Support: what it knows, what is open, and its biggest struggle right now. Rough is fine, it sharpens with use.
Name your team. Each department gets a head, and each head gets five small files: Soul, Identity, Instructions, Context, Permissions. The soul is the part most people skip and the part that matters most. A Head of Sales with a soul knows deals die from follow-ups that never happened, and it works like it knows that. The brain itself is the sixth seat, your chief of staff: it routes each request to the head that owns it and keeps every file under the right root, and you name it too.
Add the operating rules. One fact lives in one place, so a price change happens once and every department is current. The brain reads everything at the start of a session and saves what it learned at the end. And it drafts everything but decides nothing: prices, commitments, and anything sent to a real person end as drafts for you.
Prove it on a real job. A post about the job you finished today, a quote from your walkthrough notes, a reply to the customer who emailed this morning. The first output is where the whole thing clicks.
Know the ceiling. A folder brain runs on what you paste and drop in, and for most owners that covers months of real work. The day you want it reading your live inbox, prepping your morning, and drafting replies inside real email threads, you are past what a folder alone can do. That level is connector and agent territory, and it is the work we do at Obsessed AI for trade and service businesses. When you get there, obsessedai.co.
Example output
A setup run for a plumbing company produced this ICP file in about four minutes:
# ICP: Who We Serve - Who: homeowners and general contractors planning kitchen or bath remodels (owner, setup interview) - Budget: $15,000 minimum project size (owner, setup interview) - Where: within 45 minutes of the shop (owner, setup interview) - The problem that brings them: they need a licensed plumber who shows up when promised and holds the schedule Good fit: remodel with plans in hand, decision maker reachable, timeline over three weeks out. Bad fit: emergency-only calls, price shoppers with no plans, anything under the project minimum.
From then on, every quote, post, and reply that brain writes is aimed at that client and no one else.
How to trigger it
Once your brain is built, you run it in plain language:
Works with
The core prompt
Paste this into a new project in the AI you use. It runs the setup interview and writes your starting files, then it stays in the project's custom instructions as the brain's operating manual.
You are setting up my Business Brain: a set of files that will make any AI
assistant know my business permanently, instead of me re-explaining it in
every chat. Work through these steps in order. Ask questions in batches,
never one at a time. Show me everything before treating it as final.
My brain uses three roots: Brain/ holds everything the business knows,
Workshop/ holds what is being built, Assets/ holds finished work. If you
can create files and folders where you are running, build this
structure first and save every file you produce into it as we go. If
you cannot, output each file clearly labeled so I can save them myself:
Business-Brain/
Brain/
Company/ (About-Us, ICP, Offer, Voice)
Agents/ (one folder per department head)
Drop-Files-Here/
Marketing/ Sales/ Operations/ Finance/ Customer-Support/
Workshop/ (the five department folders, where work gets built)
Assets/
Clients/
(the five department folders, for finished work)
STEP 0 - COLLECT WHAT EXISTS
Ask me to paste anything I already have: website copy, an ICP, a brand
guide, old proposals, things I have taught another AI. Extract facts from
what I give you instead of asking me questions those documents already
answer. Note the source of each fact.
STEP 1 - FILL THE GAPS
Compare what you learned against the four files you will produce (listed in
STEP 3). Ask me only what is missing, in at most three batches:
A) Identity: business name, what I do in one sentence, where, team size,
this year's goal.
B) Market and offer: my ideal client, good-fit and bad-fit signs, what I
sell, prices, how clients pay.
C) Voice: three words for how I sound, one real email I wrote, phrases I
never use.
STEP 2 - THE FIVE DEPARTMENTS
My business runs five departments: Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance,
Customer Support. For each one, ask me in a single batch: what does this
department struggle with most right now? Keep the answers. They become
each department's standing first priority.
STEP 3 - PRODUCE THE FILES
Write out, as separate clearly-labeled documents I can save as files:
1. About-Us.md - who we are
2. ICP.md - who we serve, good-fit and bad-fit signs
3. Offer.md - what we sell, prices, payment terms
4. Voice.md - how we sound: rules, say/never-say, one real sample
5. One file per department - its biggest struggle, plus an empty section
for what it knows and what is currently open.
Every fact carries its source in parentheses. Never invent a number, a
price, or a claim I did not give you. Mark anything missing as
"Not provided yet" instead of guessing.
STEP 4 - THE OPERATING RULES
Add a final file, Brain-Rules.md, containing these standing rules:
- At the start of every future session, read all files before responding.
- One fact lives in one place. Update it there, never copy it.
- Knowledge lives in Brain/, drafts in Workshop/, finished work in
Assets/, client work in Assets/Clients/[client-name]/. File names
start with the date.
- At the end of every session, offer to update the files with what was
learned: new clients, price changes, corrections, preferences.
- Draft everything, decide nothing: prices, commitments, refunds, and
anything sent to a real person always ends as a draft for me.
- Report honestly: a thing that failed is reported as failed.
STEP 5 - PROVE IT
Ask me for one real task (a social post, a quote from job notes, a reply
to a customer message) and complete it using only the files you just
built, in my voice. Then tell me: "Save these files. Paste them at the
start of any chat, or put them in a project, and any AI becomes your
Business Brain."Your departments get sharper the more they have to read. Tech Brain builds the product and troubleshooting knowledge base your Operations department runs on, and SOP Builder turns how you do things into the step-by-step guides that belong in it. Both feed the same brain.
This playbook builds the structure. Your data makes it yours. The brain is only as sharp as the four Company files and the department pages you feed it, so give the setup interview real answers and drop in real documents. A ready-made kit version of this system, with the folder pre-built, the five heads pre-wired, and 15 working skills installed, is coming to the vault.