INSTIG8.

Chart 2, 13 October 2026PreviousNextAll charts

The CRM that fills itself

For whoever builds it.

Everything below is for the person who will set this up: the case, the chart, the tools and the steps.

Just shipped. 13 October 2026
Build order
Capture firstEvery other square reads the record. Then Roster and Motions, then the rest. Nothing sends until the owner has read a week of drafts.
Time to first result
UnknownNot measured yet
What you need from the owner
The goalsWho is in the network, how close, and what each key relationship is for, in the owner's words.
Monthly cost
About $40 + €20About $40 and €20 a month in tools
What breaks first
CaptureConversations on personal phones and WhatsApp never reach the record: 15% of touches in one audit.
Folders
9relationships/ in the middle, eight around it

1Build it

One prompt. Paste it into your AI and it draws your business on this chart and makes the nine folders the system runs from, with your rules written in. About 15 minutes. Nothing sends to anyone.

What to do

  1. 1Hit the button. It copies the instructions.
  2. 2Open Claude Code in the folder where this system should live. Paste, and send.
  3. 3Answer its questions, one at a time. When it shows your chart, say go and it builds the first square.

Written from this chart's research. Nothing to edit.

Pro adds the finished folders for this chart in Claude Code: every step, every prompt, an example setup. See the plans.

2The nine folders

Every square on the chart is a real folder. The middle, Relationships, holds the rules every square reads and the record they all write to; it runs nothing itself. The eight around it each do one kind of work, with their steps, their prompts, their automations and the tools they connect to. Measuring results and building the automations are shared with the rest of a business, so they sit outside this tree. Build these nine folders and you have the system for keeping in touch with the people your firm already knows.

relationships/

The judgment no tool supplies: who is in the network and how close, what the firm owes each person and what it is going after with them, and what a message to a real relationship has to do. Written down once, as rules every square reads, with the record they all write to. It does none of the work.

You can see what this folder is for. What's inside comes with Pro: the instructions your AI (such as Claude or ChatGPT) reads before it works here, the steps the work moves through in order, anything set to run on its own and how to stop it, and the software it connects to.

3What it runs on

Tools are shown by what each one does. INSTIG8's own stack, by name, comes with Pro: one way to build it, not the only one.

AI coding workspace serves 7 of 9Where the thinking happens (sessions that sort, research, draft and check), and where the automations are built
Workflow automation serves 3 of 9Runs each step on its schedule and hands work to the next
Web scraper serves 1 of 9Reads public LinkedIn pages: the people who commented on a post, or one person's or company's profile
Database serves 7 of 9Holds the lists, and the screen where a person approves
Email serves 3 of 9The firm's own mailboxes (Gmail): mail is read in from them, and approved email goes out from one
LinkedIn inbox and sending serves 3 of 9Reads the LinkedIn inbox, and sends approved LinkedIn messages into existing conversations
Meeting transcripts serves 1 of 9Saves each call's transcript as a document the record can read

What it costs to run

4Build order

Start here
Switch on Capture first, and write the goal of each key relationship. Nothing sends until you have read a week of drafts.
Then
Set up the eight workspaces around those rules, one at a time. The chart gives no build order; this one follows the way the work flows: Capture, then Roster and Motions, then Queue and Brief, then Write and Send, then Follow-through.

Open the folders

5What it costs

An estimate from public prices, for one relationship holder: a database at $20 a month billed annually, an AI subscription at $20 a month, and workflow automation at €20 a month billed annually. Add $79 a month per LinkedIn account if LinkedIn sending is automated. Email is the workspace seat most firms already pay for ($14 a month list). The alternative inside the vendor's own CRM: its professional sales tier, $100 a seat a month (or $90 billed annually) plus $1,500 onboarding; the price of the self-updating CRM itself is not published.

Itemize it each month: the record, the automation, the AI sessions, and LinkedIn sending if you use it. The estimate under What it takes shows the parts.

See the sources

6The five rules

Where the work lives

Every email, message, call and promise lands on the person's own record, with a link to where it came from. The goal of each relationship is written in the owner's words. Every message keeps its first draft, the edits and who approved it. Nothing lives only in one person's inbox or head, so it keeps working when someone is on holiday.

Nine folders handle outreach. A whole business needs them to work together.

Your AI does better work when it reads the right instructions before it acts. These are real folders on a computer. Each holds plain text files of instructions for one kind of work, which your AI reads before it starts.

These nine handle outreach. A business has many areas: sales, delivery, finance, content, the owner's own week. Each needs its own folders, and they have to work together. When they don't, your AI reads the wrong instructions, two folders say different things about the same fact, and every new conversation with your AI starts from zero.

Five rules keep them working together:

  • One file read first. A single file tells your AI which folder handles which kind of request.
  • One home for each fact. A rule lives in one folder. Every other folder reads it there, and only that folder changes it.
  • Hand work over, don't reach in. Work meant for another folder is dropped into a folder inside it called inbox, and the work is done there, by that folder's rules.
  • Write down where things stand. Each folder keeps a file of its decisions and progress, which your AI updates as it works, so the next conversation starts where the last one stopped.
  • Nothing runs unseen. Anything set to run on its own, like a scheduled email or a nightly update, is listed with when it runs and how to stop it.

Large companies already run this way: one home for each fact, written rules read before the work starts, a record of every change. AI can read those rules and work from them.

When Expert opens, it teaches you to build this for your business: a full course on setting up the folders and rules, from your first folder to all of them working together, Nick's group coaching while you build, and a community of people building theirs. It includes everything in Pro.

7Sources

For the owner: decidePreviousNextAll charts