I built a Claude Cowork system that does a week of PM work in a day

Daniel Blum is a product manager at Melio, a B2B payments company, and one of the most systematic thinkers I’ve had on the show when it comes to personal AI infrastructure. He’s spent the past year building a Claude- and Cowork-based productivity system that manages his Notion board, processes his Slack and email, and runs self-improvement loops every week without needing to be prompted. Beyond his own workflow, Daniel built and scaled a “Workstation” onboarding plugin that gets any Melio employee up and running with a personalized Claude setup in about 15 minutes. *What you’ll learn:* 1. Why Daniel says the two rules that make any AI system powerful aren’t about the tool you pick 2. How his weekly prep automation fills an entire Notion board from scratch every Sunday, without his touching it 3. The morning brief feature that teaches Claude new internal terms on its own, so company jargon never slows it down 4. Why he describes Notion as “read-only” now, and what that says about how PM workflows are changing 5. The self-improvement loop that watches Daniel’s edits, spots recurring friction, and suggests new skills to build 6. How he uses a skill called “Improve” to filter the endless flood of AI tips without drowning in them 7. What he built to scale his personal system to every PM at Melio, and the UX lesson he learned the hard way 8. The capability gap that’s still keeping him from running 100% of his work through Claude *Brought to you by:* Optimizely—Your AI agent orchestration platform for marketing and digital teams: https://www.optimizely.com/howIAI Jira AI SDLC—Get your tokens’ worth with Jira: https://jira.dev *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Daniel’s background and the PM overhead problem he needed to solve (03:30) His AI stack at Melio (05:00) The two rules that make any AI system genuinely powerful (06:00) The Notion board Cowork built for him (and manages on his behalf) (07:30) How he contextualizes Claude with voice memos, links, and recurring updates (09:00) His weekly prep automation (11:00) His morning brief (15:00) How Claude flags unknown internal terms and saves them to context (17:30) Running 70% to 80% of his workday through Cowork (19:00) Chrome connector vs. MCPs for tools without integrations (20:00) The real ROI question: why the early weeks feel slow, and why you push through anyway (25:00) Scaling the system to the team with the Workstation plugin (26:30) The self-improvement loop (31:00) How the Improve skill separates actually useful AI tips from the hype (32:00) The Workstation onboarding flow, and the UX lesson from distributing “Spectacular” (38:00) The 20% Claude still can’t do, and what changes when it can (41:00) What Daniel spends his reclaimed time on (42:30) Claude rage *Blog and detailed workflow walkthroughs from this episode:* Claude Cowork for PMs: My Self-Improving Productivity System: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/claude-cowork-for-pms-my-self-improving-productivity-system ↳ Create a Meta-Workflow to Continuously Improve Your AI Assistant’s Performance: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/create-a-meta-workflow-to-continuously-improve-your-ai-assistant-s-performance ↳ Build a Self-Improving AI Morning Brief to Capture Action Items and Learn Company Jargon: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/build-a-self-improving-ai-morning-brief-to-capture-action-items-and-learn-company-jargon ↳ Automate Your Weekly Planning with an AI-Powered PM Assistant: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/automate-your-weekly-planning-with-an-ai-powered-pm-assistant *Tools referenced:* • Claude: https://claude.ai • Notion: https://notion.so *Other references:* • From a $6.90 newsletter to $3M API: How a non-coder built Memelord | Jason Levin: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/from-a-690-newsletter-to-3m-api-how?utm_source=publication-search • How the founder of Morning Brew built a Claude content machine that never runs out of ideas and never sounds like slop | Alex Lieberman: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-the-founder-of-morning-brew-built?utm_source=publication-search *Where to find Daniel Blum:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blumd/ Website: https://www.imdanielblum.com *Where to find Claire Vo:* ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ X: https://x.com/clairevo _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co._