Most Claude content is written by people who don't run businesses. This newsletter is our attempt to fix that.
The Signal
Claude crashed $300B in software stocks. Here's what operators should actually take from it.
On Friday 30 January, Anthropic released a legal plugin for Claude. By the following Tuesday, Thomson Reuters was down 16-18% depending on the measure. The broader software selloff wiped around $300 billion from the sector over the following sessions. Analysts are calling it the "SaaSpocalypse."
The plugin does contract review, NDA triage, and compliance checks — tasks companies pay thousands per month for specialised software to handle. It's open source. It costs nothing beyond your Claude subscription.
But legal was just the headline. Anthropic quietly released eleven plugins covering sales, finance, marketing, data, productivity, and product management — all on the same day.
Why it matters for operators: The moat around specialised business software is thinner than anyone thought. Tools that used to require enterprise contracts now come bundled with your Claude subscription. The question isn't whether to learn these tools — it's whether you learn them now or later.
New to the Claude ecosystem? We put together a Toolkit Reference Guide covering everything — Cowork, plugins, skills, MCP connectors, and how to get started.
Tool Review
The Productivity Plugin
What it does: Gives Claude persistent memory of your team, projects, and terminology. Tasks, context, and a visual dashboard — all synced between sessions.
The problem it solves: Every Claude conversation starts fresh. You explain your business, your team, your shorthand — again and again. The Productivity plugin fixes this.
Key commands:
/start — Initialises your workspace with tasks, memory, and dashboard
/update — Triage stale tasks and flag memory gaps
The honest take: This is the plugin most operators should install first. It's not flashy, but it removes the friction that makes Claude feel like a stranger every time you open it.
Worth it if: You use Claude more than a few times a week. Twenty minutes of setup, weeks of not re-explaining yourself.
Operator Workflow
Setting Up Workplace Memory
Here's how to get the Productivity plugin working:
1. Install it Claude Desktop → Cowork tab → Plugins → search "Productivity" → Install.
2. Run /start Claude creates four things: TASKS.md (your task list), CLAUDE.md (working memory), a memory/ directory, and dashboard.html.
3. Seed your context When Claude asks about your role, be specific:
"I'm COO at a 15-person ecommerce company. Direct reports: Sarah (ops), Marcus (finance), Priya (marketing). We're migrating from Shopify to headless. Key acronyms: PSR = product status report, WBR = weekly business review."
4. Use it naturally Once seeded, you can say "ask Marcus to prep the PSR for the WBR" — Claude knows who, what, and when without clarifying questions.
5. Keep it current Run /update weekly. Claude flags stale tasks and gaps in memory.
Quick Hits
Opus 4.6 launched. 1M token context window (up from 200K), strong performance on knowledge work benchmarks. Useful for long documents and entire codebases. Claude blog
MCP Apps add UI to chat. Claude can now render interactive elements for Slack, Asana, Figma, Canva, and Box. Approve tasks, send messages, update cards — without leaving the conversation. MacRumors
All plugins are open source. Fork them, customise them, build on them. GitHub
The Bottom Line
One thing to try this week: Install the Productivity plugin and run /start.
Seed your context — your role, your team, your key acronyms. Next time you open Claude, notice how much less explaining you have to do.
Next week: How to build a custom plugin by describing what you need. We'll walk through building one for trial conversion and churn analysis — segmented by subscriber type and marketing cohort.
Claude for Operators is an independent publication. Not affiliated with Anthropic.
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