Customer service
Can handle things like
Instead of your nightly hour in the inboxThe routine questions answered the way you would. You see the tricky ones.
What kind of business are you running?
Sealegs Digital: First Mate
Building your First Mate is like hiring a CEO with six team leads working under it. It learns your business, keeps your to-do list and brings you the finished work to approve. You train it, and you make the final calls.
Saltline Candle Co.Updated 1h ago
Give it a job…Hand off
Ready for your yes
Get your
time back.
Maybe you’ve got a day job and a business on the side you’re hoping will set you free. Maybe the business already is the day job. Either way, there’s a pile of work you never get around to.
Your First Mate gets through it while you get on with your life.
Before Your list, doing it alone
To do
Still there tomorrow.
After The same list, with your First Mate
With your First MateOpen any job
What’s left for you: yes or no.
For the first time,
it felt like I had a team.
For almost ten years I ran side hustles around a full-time job. There was never enough of me to go around.
Learning AI and building it into my businesses changed that. It finally felt like I had people working under me. Today a ukulele brand, an online course and a live music night all run on the first version of First Mate.
Now I’m opening it up to other owners, so you don’t have to spend the years I did figuring it out.
Dave Simpson · Sealegs Digital
Nothing knows
your business
like you do.
I’m a big believer in AI. But a lot of the people selling it say it’ll do all your work and make you a millionaire while you sleep. That’s bull.
Here’s the honest version. In the early days you’ll check most of what it does, because nobody knows your business like you do. Every call you make teaches it something.
It’s like training one person to do every job in the business. The more you work with it, the smarter it gets, the better it knows you and your business, and the more you can hand off.
If you keep hearing you should be using AI and have no idea where to start, this is a friendly place to start. You learn it by working with it.
Early days
It does the work and you check most of it. Yes, no, or change this bit.
Every call
It files why you said yes or no: your preferences, your ideas, what worked. The next draft starts there.
Over time
It knows you and the business better every week, so you hand off more and check less.
One screen for
your whole business.
Your First Mate lives on a dashboard of your own: the numbers that matter, the work waiting for your yes and your to-dos, in one place. Built around your business, nobody else’s.
Saltline Candle Co.Morning · Tuesday, Oct 21Updated 1h ago
Give it a job…Hand off
Your team picks it up on its next check. Nothing goes out without your yes.
Ready for your yes
To-do
Your team
This week
Coming up
Private to your Claude account. Every tap saves here, and Claude on your computer reads it.
Your dashboard shows your own numbers, and it’s private to your account.
A to-do list
that does
the work.
Your to-do list lives on the dashboard, and much of it fills itself in while your team finds the gaps and blind spots you haven’t got to. Open any job to see what it knows, add what it doesn’t, and hand it off.
How your First Mate worksTry it below
Add anything you’d put on your own to-do list.
Your list is built from your own business.
It keeps your list
Then it finds the work you’ve missed and fills in your blind spots.
Drop anything in
From your desk or your phone. Big or small.
Talk it through
Discuss any job with your team before you hand it off.
Hand it off at bedtime
It’s waiting for you with your morning coffee.
A CEO and
six team leads.
Think of it as hiring a CEO with an entire team under it. Your First Mate is the CEO: it keeps every department on what matters and only brings you what you need.
Each lead has skills built for its job. Every skill reads what you told it at setup and everything it’s learned since, so the work gets better the longer you use it.
Your First MateThe CEO
Sets the day’s priorities, checks the leads’ work against what you’d want, and writes you a one-minute report: what needs you first, then what it did and why.
Instead of holding the whole business in your headYou always know what matters today, and why.
Can handle things like
Instead of starting every email from scratchAn email programme that keeps getting better.
Social media
Can handle things like
Instead of staring at a blank calendarShowing up every week, without it eating your week.
Ads
Can handle things like
Instead of guessing in your ads account at midnightAds you understand, checked against what actually came in.
SEO & web
Can handle things like
Instead of a website you never get toA business that gets a little easier to find every week.
Money & ops
Can handle things like
Instead of spreadsheets you never openYou always know where the money’s going, and what to do next.
Your Claude,
supercharged.
You’re not starting from a blank chat window. Before your First Mate does a thing, your Claude account gets the kit I run my own businesses on: vetted skills, the infrastructure and the whole architecture, set up for yours. Here’s what you notice:
Tested before it goes in
Every skill is tested side by side against plain Claude, and only goes in if it wins.
Copy that sounds like you
Written in your voice, with the robotic tells stripped out before you read a word.
The whole setup, already built
Your First Mate and six leads, the dashboard, the day and night runs, jobs handed off from your phone, the notes where it keeps what it learns, and the rules that keep it inside its limits.
It starts by
getting
to know you.
The moment you install it, it gets to work. First it researches everything it can find about you, your competitors and your market. Then it interviews you to fill in the gaps: how you sound, what you care about, what you want to see each morning.
Your dashboard and your team are built from the answers, so the work it does reads like you did it yourself.
Your first winThe morning after you finish setup, your first brief is on your dashboard: your numbers, and the first drafts waiting for your yes.
You set it up yourself in the Claude app. It walks you through every step.
It gets smarter
the more
you use it.
Every yes, no and “change this bit” gets filed: your preferences, your ideas, what worked and what didn’t. Each skill reads those notes before it starts, so next week’s work starts where this week’s left off. That’s why it starts with limits, and why they don’t stay put.
Day oneIt just gets on with
- 01Reading your numbers.
- 02Sorting the inbox.
- 03Drafting anything you ask for.
- 04Small fixes it can undo.
Day oneIt always asks before
- 01Spending your money.
- 02Sending anything to a customer.
- 03Publishing in your name.
- 04Deleting, or anything it can’t undo.
Those are the starting limits. As it earns your trust, you hand over more, one area at a time. You can always take it back.
Your data
stays yours.
In your own accountsIt runs in your Claude account and on your computer. Nothing sends your data to me.
Official sign-insEach tool connects through its own sign-in. Never a password pasted into a file or a chat.
Read-only to startIt looks before it touches anything. You switch on more, one job at a time.
Private dashboardYour dashboard is in your account only, and holds summaries, never your customers’ details.
Early access,
by invitation.
I’m opening it to a handful of owners first. You get your own First Mate and a direct line to me.
What you get
Yours to keep- Your First MateA CEO and six team leads, set up around your business. Not a folder of prompts.
- Your dashboardYour numbers, the work waiting for your yes and your to-do list, on one private screen.
- The setup interviewIt researches your business first, then asks you the rest and learns how you sound from emails you’ve sent.
- The courseShort lessons that take you through setup and your first weeks, so you’re never guessing what’s next.
- Checked tools for your kind of businessEvery skill and connection is tested and pinned to a version, so nothing random gets installed.
Join now and your first 3 months are free
Membership
Keeps it workingClaude changes fast. Membership keeps your First Mate up to date with it.
- Monthly updatesI keep improving it, and you get each version as it’s ready.
- A catch-up when Claude changesWhen Anthropic ships something big, you get the steps to bring your First Mate up to date.
- Live calls with me, every weekBring a job you’re stuck on, or see what other owners are handing off.
- The members’ communityQuestions, answers and show-and-tell between calls.
My promise
Running in 7 daysIf your first morning brief isn’t on your dashboard within 7 days of starting setup, I’ll work with you one‑on‑one, free, until it is.All I ask: follow the setup steps, and reply within a day when I need something from you.
You give
Honesty- Real feedbackWhat’s useful, what’s noise.
- Use it on a real business
- A testimonial, if it earns one
You’ll need
A business- An online store with sales
- A computerAnything from the last five years or so, with 8GB of memory.
- A paid Claude planPro, US$20 a month, is enough to start.
- Your yes each morningDrafts wait on your dashboard. Say yes, no or change.
Fair
questions.
Do I need to be technical?
No. If you can run your business on a computer, you can do this. The course walks you through setup one step at a time, and when something needs typing in, it tells you exactly what to paste. The setup interview does the rest by asking about your business. After that, your daily job is reading drafts and saying yes, no or change. Stuck on something? Bring it to a weekly call.
What do I need?
- A computer. Anything from the last five years or so, with 8GB of memory or more. It doesn’t need to be fancy, because the heavy lifting happens in the cloud, but it does need to be on when you want work done overnight.
- A paid Claude plan. Pro (US$20 a month) is enough to start. If you hand off more later, Max (from US$100 a month) gives the day and night runs more room.
- Speech-to-text (nice to have). Typing works fine, but talking is faster. I use Wispr Flow, and there’s a lesson inside on it.
- Works best with: Shopify if you sell online, Klaviyo for email marketing, and Google Workspace for your business email. Using something else? Tell me in the form.
Which AI does it run on?
The first version is built for Claude, made by Anthropic. It’s the one I run my own businesses on. Versions for other AI tools may come later.
How is this different from just using AI?
An AI chat starts every conversation from scratch. First Mate is a dashboard built around you and your business, supercharged out of the box with skills for the work your kind of business does. It keeps your list and finds the work, and when you hand a job off, it writes the instructions and does the work itself. And it gets smarter the longer you use it.
Isn’t this just a pack of AI prompts?
No. Prompts and skills are one part of it. First Mate is a working setup: a CEO and six leads, a dashboard, a to-do list that fills itself in, day and night runs, and the notes it learns from. It’s built around your business, not handed over as a folder of files.
What kinds of business is it for?
Online stores, shops and storefronts, coaching businesses and service businesses. One business per setup, so nothing gets mixed up. If you run something else, tell me in the form and I’ll let you know honestly whether it fits.
Will it sound like me?
That’s what the interview is for. It learns how you sound from emails you’ve actually sent, every draft is checked for the robotic tells, and every edit you make teaches it a little more.
Will it do things without asking?
Not until you say so. On day one it asks before it spends money, sends anything to a customer, publishes in your name or deletes anything. You hand over more as it earns your trust, one area at a time, and you can always take it back.
Is my data safe?
It runs in your own AI account and on your own computer. Nothing in it sends your data to me. Your tools connect through their own sign-ins, it starts read-only, and your dashboard stays private to your account.
How much time will it save me?
I don’t have a number for you yet. I’m measuring it with the first owners, and I’d rather show you real hours than guess.
What does it cost?
Early access is by invitation, and I’ll go through it with you when I invite you.