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"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story"
— Terry Pratchett
Matt Giaro built a six-figure business by doing one thing really well: writing consistently.
He publishes helpful articles on his blog, Medium, and Substack to attract subscribers.
Then he sends them a daily email.
And in each email he sells one of his practical, on-demand courses or another offer.
No big team, fancy funnels, or burning out.
He’s been doing it since before AI, and now with AI as leverage he’s able to create more and better in less time.
He’s got a simple AI workflow he uses to get a clean outline for his Substack newsletter, and then a full draft in just a few minutes.
Result?
He writes faster, publishes consistently, and keeps his voice intact.
No writer's block. No staring at a blank page.
Just a repeatable system that works.
How He Does It
Matt uses a three-part workflow that separates structure from creation from a final human edit:
Step 1: Build the outline with AI
He feeds Claude or ChatGPT a detailed prompt that includes:
The topic
Target audience
Main problem they're struggling with
Desired outcome they want
The AI returns a structured outline with:
✅ An attention-grabbing hook
✅ A clear promise
✅ Space for a relevant story
✅ 2-3 main teaching points
✅ One actionable takeaway
Step 2: Turn the outline into a draft
Once he's happy with the outline, he asks AI to expand it into a full draft using another prompt that specifies:
Key points to cover
Tone (conversational but knowledgeable)
Length (800-1000 words)
Step 3: Make it human
This is where Matt adds:
Personal stories and examples
His unique voice and personality
Fact-checking
Simplification of complex ideas
He doesn't just copy-paste what AI gives him. He shapes it into something that sounds like him.
My Take
I've been following Matt for a long time.
He's one of those people who figured out a simple model and has stuck with it.
If you're trying to build something around email, he's worth following.
I tried his prompts for my next Unscaled Solopreneur post.
I used ChatGPT for the outline, Claude for the draft.
And it worked well.
I had a full post ready to edit about 5 minutes.
But here's what I'd do different:
1. Give the AI your stories, ideas, inputs before having it make the draft
This way the draft already has that incorporated, and is easier to edit.
I like to use dictation for this as it helps me share my thoughts and ideas faster and in my natural voice. (I use a tool called Flow for this)
2. Coming up with ideas is half the battle.
The outline prompt only works if you already know what you're writing about. Matt gives some research ideas.
But you still have to come up with a good hook.
The other day I saw an email breakdown with 5 powerful social media hooks.
I figured they would work for email so took one of them and asked ChatGPT:
"Give me 5 ideas based on my content/expertise for a post using this hook:
(Number) Signs You're Doing (common activity) Wrong—and what to do instead"
ChatGPT knows me and my audience, and it gave me a bunch of solid angles.
I picked one, ran it through Matt's outline prompt, then the draft prompt, and now it’s ready for my final edit.
Dig Deeper
More ways I can help:
The Email List Launchpad - Everything you need to start or restart your email list—no burnout, no blank screens, just emails that get results.
Chat one-on-one - If your email list isn’t growing or you’re overwhelmed by tools and strategy, book a session. I’ll help you cut through the noise and build a plan that fits how you work.
What did you think of today's edition?
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