Turn your skill into a priced offer and a first post in 7 days

The problem

It's Sunday night, the kids are finally down, and if you don't have kids, you have free time on your hands. You've had the same idea open in your notes app since spring.

You know you're good at it (whatever your thing is). Your friends keep asking you to do it for them, for free.
Maybe it's video editing, maybe it's design, maybe it's marketing, maybe it's fashion, maybe it's coaching.
But every time you sit down to "start the business," you end up googling LLCs or how to start a business, taxes, branding, color schemes, logos ... EVERYTHING for an hour and closing the laptop with nothing to show for it.

Steps

Day 1: Brain dump the skill. Before you open Claude, write down what you're good at in your own words, who keeps asking you for it, and what those people were stuck on when they asked. Don't clean it up. Messy is fine, messy is honest. This is the raw material for the prompt below, and Claude can only work with what you give it.

Day 2: Text three people. The SBA's own guide on market research says that asking people yourself gives you "a nuanced understanding of your specific target audience," and an interview counts. So text three people who fit the person you wrote about yesterday and ask them two things: what's the hardest part of [the problem] for you right now, and what have you already tried or paid for. Write down their exact words. Those words are better than anything you or Claude could make up, and you'll paste them in tomorrow.

Day 3: Run the prompt. Open a new chat in Claude, paste the prompt from the next section, and fill in the brackets with your day 1 notes and the day 2 answers. Claude will ask you questions one at a time before it writes anything. Answer them honestly, including "I don't know." By the end of the chat you should have one offer in one sentence, one person it's for, and what's included.

Day 4: Set the price. In the same chat, ask Claude to search the web for three businesses that sell something close to your offer and to show you what they charge, with a link for every number. Open the links yourself and check them. Then you decide the price, the payment plan if you'll offer one, and your rule on discounts. Claude can lay out the options; the number is yours to pick, and nobody else's.

Day 5: Do the paperwork check (read, don't panic). Today is about knowing what might apply to you, not deciding all of it tonight. Read these official pages and write down the questions you have:

• How business structures work, including sole proprietorships and LLCs: SBA: Choose a business structure. The SBA says that if you do business as yourself under your legal name, you won't need to register anywhere, and that as a sole proprietor you can be held personally liable for the business's debts.
• Business names and DBAs: SBA: Register your business. If you use a name that isn't your legal name, you might need to register it with your state, county or city.
• Licenses, permits and zoning: SBA: Apply for licenses and permits. What you need depends on what you do and where, and zoning rules can still apply to a business you run from home.
• Tax ID numbers: SBA: Get federal and state tax ID numbers. Applying for an EIN is free, and the SBA warns not to use websites that charge a fee for it.
• Taxes when you work for yourself: IRS: Self-employed individuals tax center. The IRS says you have to file a return if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more.

This guide isn't legal or tax advice, and Claude isn't either. For questions about your own situation, the SBA lists free mentoring through SCORE by email, phone or video; you can find a mentor near you by ZIP code at sba.gov/local-assistance/district.

Day 6: Give your offer a home. Create a Project in Claude for your business (it works on the free plan) and put your offer, who it's for, your price, your payment plan and your discount rule into the Project's instructions. From now on every chat inside that Project already knows what you sell and what it costs, so you stop re-explaining your business every time you ask for help.

Day 7: Write and post your first post. Inside the Project, ask Claude for a first post that says what you do, who it's for, the price, and how to book or reach you. Then rewrite it until it sounds like you talking to a friend, not like an ad. Post it. One post, one place, today. Ya está, you're open.