Claude Code for Sachin

Why we are doing this

You already know Claude or ChatGPT in a browser: you ask, it answers, and that is where it ends. Claude Code is the same brain installed on your computer, where it can actually act. It can create files and spreadsheets, read documents, crawl the internet through paid tools, and publish things. Here is what Mark actually uses it for, all of which you will be able to do too:

• Build outreach lists from the real world. The restaurant list for your outreach came from exactly this: Claude crawled Google Maps for every vegan spot in New York and came back with names, phone numbers, websites and reviews.
• Find people and their emails. Pull someone's LinkedIn background, find their email address with a lookup tool like RocketReach, and have Claude check the address looks real before you send.
• Scout markets. Crawl Amazon for a product's listings and reviews to size up a competitor, or pull Instagram and TikTok to see who is loud in a space.
• Rate companies the same way every time. Give Claude your checklist once, then feed it companies. It scores each one and shows its reasoning, instead of you going on gut feel.
• Draft and track outreach at volume. Hundreds of personal emails and follow ups, with a spreadsheet that tracks who replied.
• Put real websites online. The page you are reading was written and published by Claude Code from one instruction. If you own a domain, yours can do the same.

None of that works in the phone app. It needs Claude sitting on a computer where it can use tools. That is the whole reason for the terminal window you are about to install.

Pick one home base

You have a MacBook and a Windows desktop. Use one as the main place Claude works, so your files and history live in one spot. Mark's advice: the MacBook. You are always on the move, and Part 3 lets your iPhone reach it from anywhere.

1 Get your Claude account

Sign up at claude.ai on a paid plan: Pro (about $20/month) works, Max is better if you use it heavily. Confirm you can log in before you continue.

2 Install iTerm

Download it from iterm2.com and install the app from your Downloads folder, then open it. A mostly empty text window appears: that is the terminal, the window Claude lives in. It looks bare, but you only ever type plain English and the commands on this page into it.

3 Install Claude Code, one command

Copy this line, paste it into iTerm (Cmd+V), press Enter:

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

Text scrolls for a minute. When it stops, quit iTerm completely (Cmd+Q) and open it again. That restart is required.

4 Start it and log in

In the fresh window, paste this and press Enter:

mkdir work; cd work; claude

That makes a folder called work for Claude and starts it there. The first run opens your browser: sign in with your account from Step 1. When it asks whether to trust this folder, say yes. You are in.

5 Use it

Type what you want in plain English and press Enter. Good first jobs:

• "Draft a short, friendly outreach email to a restaurant owner introducing my product."
• "Make me a spreadsheet to track outreach: name, email, date contacted, reply."
• "Read this company's website and rate it 1 to 10 as a customer: [paste a link]"

It asks permission before doing anything risky, so you cannot really break anything. Esc stops it mid answer. Type exit to quit, and claude to start again any time (after cd work).

6 Same thing on Windows

Hit Start, type PowerShell, open it, and paste:

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Close PowerShell, open it again, then run mkdir work; cd work; claude and log in with the same account. Same Claude, second machine. The MacBook stays home base.

7 Set up remote access

The free way is Chrome Remote Desktop: your MacBook's screen on your iPhone, from anywhere.

• MacBook: in the Chrome browser, go to remotedesktop.google.com/access, sign in with a Google account, install the small helper it offers under "Set up remote access," and choose a PIN.
• iPhone: install the Chrome Remote Desktop app, sign in with the same Google account, tap your MacBook, enter the PIN.

Two catches. The MacBook must be plugged in, awake, and lid open: a closed MacBook sleeps and the phone cannot reach it. In System Settings, search sleep and turn on the option that prevents sleeping while plugged in. And if the phone connects but shows a black screen, open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, and allow Chrome Remote Desktop under both Screen Recording and Accessibility. After that you can kick off a job from the couch or check one from the road.

8 Apify, your web crawler. This is the big one

On its own, Claude can read websites one at a time. Apify is a crawling service with ready made robots for the big sites, and once Claude has your Apify key it drives them for you. You never touch Apify again after setup; you just ask Claude in plain English. This is the engine behind the restaurant list. What it unlocks:

• Google Maps: "every vegan restaurant in Manhattan with phone, website and review scores." Any business type, any city.
• LinkedIn: a person's work history, or a company's team and headcount.
• Amazon: a competitor's products, prices and reviews.
• Instagram and TikTok: who is getting traction in a space.
• Any website turned into clean text Claude can work with.

Setup, about 5 minutes:

• Sign up at console.apify.com/sign-up (use "sign in with Google," no card needed to look around).
• Take the Starter plan, $29/month. Some of the best crawlers, including the LinkedIn ones, only run for paying accounts, and the $29 includes $29 of crawling credit each month. Real jobs cost a few dollars each, so the credit usually covers everything.
• Go to console.apify.com/settings/integrations and copy your Personal API token. A token is just a long password that lets Claude use the tool on your behalf; this one starts with apify_api_.
• In your Claude terminal, type: "Here is my Apify token: [paste]. Save it for future use and run a small test crawl to confirm it works."

Treat the token like a password: paste it only into your own Claude window, never anywhere public. And know that crawls spend real credit, a few dollars for a big one, so start small. Try: "Use Apify to find every vegan restaurant in Jersey City with phone numbers and websites, and put them in a spreadsheet."

9 RocketReach, the email finder

Crawling gets you names and companies. When you need a specific person's email address, that is RocketReach. Sign up at rocketreach.co and start by using the site itself: look up the person there, then paste what you find to Claude. Automated access, where Claude drives RocketReach with a key, is a separate paid add-on on the bigger plans; skip it until you know you need the volume, and ask Mark first. Claude can also find many emails through Apify alone, and either way you can ask it to "check this address looks deliverable" before you send.

10 Connect your Gmail

This one has two halves. First, the Claude website: go to claude.ai → Settings → Connectors, connect Gmail, and approve. Second, the terminal: Claude Code needs its own separate connection, which is a short setup to do together with Mark, so message him when you reach this step. Until that second half is done, Gmail requests in the terminal will not work. Once it is: "Draft outreach emails to the first ten restaurants on my list" puts ten real drafts in your Gmail for you to review and send.

11 Put a website online

If you own a domain (or buy one, about $10 a year), Claude Code can build and publish real pages on it: a one page site for the business, a menu, a press page, a private list only you can see. This very guide is one of those pages. Create a free account at cloudflare.com and add your domain to it (the site walks you through). Then just tell Claude: "Build a one page site about [X] and put it live at [yourdomain.com]." Claude will ask you for one thing from your Cloudflare account, a limited API token, and tell you exactly where to click to make it. Two rules there: make the limited token it asks for, never the "Global API Key," and paste it only into your own Claude window, like every other key on this page. This is a thing the chat app flatly cannot do; the terminal version can, because it can run the publishing tools.

12 Later, from Mark: Harmonic

Harmonic is the paid company database Mark uses for real funding data: who raised, how much, headcount, growth. Numbers from Google are stale; this is the clean source. When you are up and running, Mark can share access as a favor, and then you can search for companies the way he does.

The path

Do Part 1 today and use it for a week on drafts, lists and ratings. Then add the power tools one at a time, Apify first. Each one is a five minute signup plus handing Claude what it needs, and each one makes the plain English requests you can make bigger. Text Mark at every step; he has done all of these and it goes fast with a second pair of eyes.