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Break down three posts you admire into an interview-first writing prompt

Tools:
Claude, ChatGPT
Who it's for

Founders and ghostwriters who want AI drafts that follow a specific style they chose

What they report

No metric reported. Dan Koe showed this process on Greg Isenberg's Startup Ideas Podcast. He uses it to build a two-phase prompt that first interviews him for context and then writes nine posts (three variations of three post types). He says it beats pasting a newsletter in and asking for ten tweets, which he says produces 'the worst tweets you've ever read.'

Example

Koe pasted his own post: 'How to know you are doing something meaningful: You feel like you don't make any progress for weeks, months, or years. Then the growth hits you all at once.' The model broke it into hook statement, pain and struggle, payoff, and insight/warning, then gave him a formula.

from source

How to do it

  1. Pick three posts you want to learn from (yours or others').
  2. For each one, run the breakdown prompt below in the same chat.
  3. Ask the model to combine all three breakdowns into one guide.
  4. Ask: 'From that guide, what is everything you would need from me in order to start writing posts?'
  5. Start a new chat. Paste the guide and the context list. Ask it to build a two-phase prompt: phase 1 interviews you, phase 2 writes three variations of each post type.
  6. Save that prompt in your notes. Run it whenever you write.

The prompt

Fill in the [brackets]
Copy prompt

Break down the structure of this post so that I can recreate it from scratch. Break down why it works, the psychological patterns involved, what context is needed from me, and anything else I would need to understand how to recreate it. [paste post] (After three posts:) Combine all of these into a single guide. (Then:) From that guide, what is everything you would need from me in order to start writing posts? (New chat:) I want to create a prompt that helps me write posts based on the guide below. Structure it in two phases. Phase 1 is context gathering: interview me one question at a time using the context list below. Phase 2 is post writing: write three variations of each post type in the guide using only what I told you. GUIDE: [paste] CONTEXT LIST: [paste]

Prompt:
First prompt verbatim from source; follow-ups adapted from the episode
Source:
Dan Koe on The Startup Ideas Podcast with Greg Isenberg, 'Inside Dan Koe's AI Content Engine'
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Legacy Builder Lab

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Legacy Builder Lab is Clifton Sellers' community for founders who write their own content with AI. Members get his prompts and bot setups, five new post templates every Monday and a monthly live teardown.

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