How to Build Your First Claude Skill (Tutorial + Real Example)

Most people are trying to get more out of AI by writing better prompts. But there's a completely different lever that almost nobody outside engineering circles is talking about, Claude Skills. In this video, I walk you through what a skill actually is, why it matters, and we build one together from scratch using a real example from my own inbox: triaging the 20-40 vendor pitches I get every week. By the end, you'll have a framework you can apply to any repeated task in your own work. What we cover: • What a Claude Skill actually is (and why it's different from a prompt) • The systems thinking principle that makes skills powerful • Live demo: building a Vendor Pitch Triage skill in Claude Cowork • Testing the skill on two real pitches — one pass, one pursue • Where this goes next: connecting skills to Gmail, Slack, and beyond • Your homework: how to find skills hiding in your own work If you're a founder, operator, or anyone who finds themselves doing the same task over and over, this one's for you. 🔔 Subscribe for more on AI, building, and the modern tech stack! Prompts can be found here: https://getlightswitch.notion.site/Building-Claude-Skills-Prompts-35d788c13245807eb533f7770b0618ea?source=copy_link Resources: → Claude Cowork: https://claude.ai Chapters: 0:00 AI Skills: The hidden leverage operators are missing 0:23 Skills vs. prompts: Why playbooks beat one-off requests 1:16 Building AI skills that multiply team capacity 2:34 What is a skill? Persistent instructions for AI 4:28 Systems thinking: How senior operators automate decisions 5:13 Vendor pitch automation: Building a real AI skill 7:01 Creating the skill: Instructions as markdown 9:09 Testing AI skills on bad vendor pitches 10:26 AI skill evaluation: Good pitch analysis 12:13 Scaling skills: From atomic units to full workflows 13:23 Specification vs. execution in the AI era 15:07 Your skills roadmap: Extracting systems from your head ## Hashtags #ClaudeAI #Anthropic #ClaudeCowork #AITutorial #AISkills #SystemsThinking #IndieHackers #BuildInPublic #AIForFounders #ProductivityHack #AITools #LeverageStack