Most solo creators spend 20+ hours a week on content. Researching topics. Writing drafts. Recording videos. Editing. Scheduling. Responding. The cycle never ends.
I do it in under 6 hours. Not because I'm faster. Because I'm running a different system entirely.
This is the complete pipeline — every phase, every tool, every prompt — that powers The Leveraged Builder. You can copy it exactly.
The 5-Phase Pipeline
The pipeline has five phases. Each one feeds the next. Each one uses AI to do the heavy lifting.
Research — Perplexity (45 min)
Before writing a single word, I need to know: what's actually happening in the space right now, what questions people are asking, and what angle hasn't been covered yet.
Perplexity is better than Google for this because it synthesizes sources instead of listing them. I don't want 10 links. I want the answer.
I'm creating content about [TOPIC] for entrepreneurs who use AI to build one-person businesses.
Give me:
1. The 3 most asked questions about this topic right now
2. What's changed or evolved in the last 6 months
3. The most counterintuitive or contrarian angle on this topic
4. 5 specific data points or stats I can reference
5. Who is doing this best and what can I learn from them
Format as a brief I can hand off to a writer.Output: a 1-page research brief. This becomes the skeleton for everything else.
Writing — Claude (90 min)
I don't write from scratch. I write from the research brief, using Claude to generate structure and first drafts that I then edit to add my voice and experience.
The key insight: Claude is not a ghostwriter. It's a drafting partner. I always add the specific detail, the honest observation, the one thing that makes the content mine.
Using this research brief [paste brief], write a 1,500-word article for The Leveraged Builder.
Audience: Entrepreneurs who want to use AI to build businesses without a team.
Tone: Direct, honest, no fluff. Like a smart friend who's done this, not a consultant.
Structure: Strong hook → Problem → System → Step-by-step → Results → CTA
Voice rules:
- Short paragraphs (max 3 sentences)
- No jargon without explanation
- One specific example per section
- End with a clear next action, not a vague summary
Include: [specific angle or personal experience I want woven in]Take this article and rewrite it as a newsletter issue for The Leveraged Builder.
Format:
- Subject line (curiosity + specificity, max 50 chars)
- Preheader (completes the hook)
- 3-bullet "this week" summary
- Main section: 400 words max, punchy
- "From the Build" section: 3 sentences of honest update on my media company
- Tool of the Week: [tool name] with one natural mention and affiliate link
- CTA: link to the full article
Keep the voice identical to the article but more conversational, like I wrote it in one sitting.Turn this article into a 10-tweet X thread.
Rules:
- Tweet 1: Bold specific claim or result (no "thread incoming 🧵")
- Tweets 2–8: One insight per tweet, flows naturally from previous
- Tweet 9: The counterintuitive twist
- Tweet 10: Summary + link to article or newsletter
Tone: confident, direct, slightly contrarian. No emojis except sparingly.
Max 280 chars per tweet.Audio — ElevenLabs (30 min)
I don't appear on camera. My content is screen recordings with AI narration. ElevenLabs generates the voice that sounds like a real person — because it is trained on one.
Setup: pick a voice that matches your brand (I use "Adam" — clear, confident, slightly warm). Paste the script. Generate. Done.
The process:
- Export the article as a clean script (no markdown, no headers)
- Break it into chunks of 800–1000 characters (ElevenLabs processes these separately)
- Generate each chunk, download as MP3
- Stitch in Descript
The audio quality is indistinguishable from a professional studio recording. The only thing that costs money is the ElevenLabs subscription — and it pays for itself with one affiliate conversion.
Video — Descript + Runway (60 min)
The video is simple: my screen + the ElevenLabs audio. Descript handles the sync and the edit. Runway ML handles any visual polish or B-roll generation.
Descript workflow:
- Import audio + screen recording
- Auto-transcription creates a text editor for the video
- Delete filler words and pauses by editing the text (not the timeline)
- Add captions (auto) and simple text overlays
- Export at 1080p for YouTube, 1080x1920 for Shorts/Reels
Total edit time: 30–45 minutes for a 10-minute video. That's not a typo.
Distribution — Buffer + Make.com (45 min)
I schedule everything at once, usually on Sunday night, for the entire week. Buffer handles social posts. Make.com handles the email broadcast trigger and analytics collection.
Distribution schedule:
- Monday 8am: Newsletter goes out (Beehiiv scheduled send)
- Monday 10am: YouTube video published
- Monday 12pm: X thread posted
- Wednesday 10am: Short-form video (Reel/TikTok/Short)
- Friday 12pm: Newsletter teaser or standalone tip on X
Make.com automation: when the newsletter sends, it logs the send time, pulls open rate 24h later, and adds it to a Notion dashboard. Zero manual tracking.
The Real Time Investment
Here's the honest breakdown of where the time actually goes:
| Phase | Human time | AI time |
|---|---|---|
| Research (Perplexity) | 20 min | Instant |
| Writing (Claude → edit) | 45 min | 3 min |
| Audio (ElevenLabs) | 15 min | 5 min |
| Video edit (Descript) | 40 min | Auto |
| Distribution (Buffer) | 20 min | Auto |
| Total | ~2h 20min | ~10 min |
The rest of the "6 hours" is the session planning and context-switching. The actual production is under 2.5 hours. And it gets faster every week as the system gets more dialed in.
The One Thing That Makes This Work
None of this works without a clear content angle upfront. The biggest mistake solo creators make with AI: they ask it to generate ideas from scratch.
Wrong direction. You bring the perspective. AI brings the production capacity.
The Perplexity research tells you what's being said. Your job is to say what everyone else isn't. That's the 20% that is human. The 80% — the draft, the audio, the edit, the schedule — AI handles.
What's Next
This is the foundation. In the next issue of The AI Leverage Brief, I'll go deeper on the Make.com automation that handles the distribution and analytics automatically — including the template you can import.
Subscribe below if you want that when it drops.