I Was Supposed to Build a Newsletter... Things Escalated Quickly. 😅

Day 1 took me 2 days. 😅

I joined the AIS Challenge expecting to build a simple newsletter automation. What I didn't expect was how much I'd learn by actually getting my hands dirty.

Over the last couple of days I:

Learned the WAT (Workflows, Agents, Tools) framework
Connected Claude Code, Perplexity, Anthropic, and Gmail
Fought through API keys, environment variables, and OAuth
Built my first end-to-end AI workflow
Successfully delivered my first AI-generated newsletter to my inbox

What started as a challenge project quickly became something much bigger. Instead of just completing the exercise, I began adapting it to fit my own business goals and exploring how it could evolve into contractor market intelligence, content automation, and lead generation.

The biggest lesson for me was that building teaches faster than consuming. Every roadblock forced me to learn something new, and every small win built confidence.

Huge thank you to @Nate Herk for creating a challenge that encourages people to actually build instead of just watch videos. The hands-on approach made all the difference.

Looking forward to seeing where the next 6 days take me.

#AISChallenge

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I Was Supposed to Build a Newsletter... Things Escalated Quickly. 😅