Kia ora {{ First name | friend }},
I owe you an honest email.
A few months ago I started building Upstream. The landing page, brand, product docs, the whole thing. I had a logo. I had a whole thing. I was building a company.
And then life happened. I got married, my dad had a heart transplant, lots of other weird and exciting things. I fell off sending this weekly newsletter and felt kinda shit about that… but it didn’t feel resonant to pick it up again.
Upstream felt a bit like eating dry chicken. Hiding behind a brand and not owning “myself” as a person. Just sending a weekly newsletter of AI updates you can find anywhere else on the internet. Boring.
So, I sat on my yoga mat. Got barefoot on the grass. Did a bit of farm work. Took a look inside myself.
I’ve spent the last 10 years as a storyteller, mostly in brand and video work. Simplifying complex ideas for the people.
I realised that being in community, connecting with others, and celebrating the beautiful mahi/work that is being done around the place is actually my favourite thing. And all of that is built on my personal relationships.
The person-to-person connection has always been what mattered most to me. Closely followed by creating more beauty/art/magic/auspiciousness in the world.
So. Long story short. AI is now helping me do that.
More importantly, it’s helping me to help you do that.
AI has changed a lot for all of us. In recent months, since I sent my last email, AI has changed the trajectory of my whole career.
I’m still having this “holy shit” moment where every day blows my mind with possibilities. All of that has been a byproduct of my relationship to Claude Code.
Basically I’ve built a “digital brain” that is like a third-eye command centre for my whole digital business/life/systems/ops with AI. One interface that connects it all.
I can ask about my Mangaroa Farms work (Shopify, CRM, Airtable, etc), my wife Amy’s Lucid Living site we built in ~4hrs, complete with automatic bookings, payments and emails (Zoom, Stripe, Airtable etc), my internal systems (Gmail, Google Sheets, Drive, etc) that keep my ship sailing straight. All from one interconnected web of context, accounts and autonomous action-taking instructions.
Then the AI actually makes stuff happen. It doesn’t tell me how to do it. I ask it to do things, and they happen. Extremely fast.
That’s why Upstream AI is now Build with Billy.
(I still have the Upstream domain/brand and have future plans for that)
Anyway, here’s how life looks now:
I want to help other people to obtain this wonderful leverage I have unlocked, through my own exploration, support from generous friends and a lot of “wtf do you mean” convos with Claude
More of a spiritual correction than a “rebrand”... I stopped pretending I was a building a “company” (wtf is a company anyway?) and started sharing what it actually is: the way I work.
Let’s get it straight. AI alone is not the answer… I drank that Kool-Aid and came back out the other side. It’s a force multiplier for the clarity, passion and drive that lives within you.
The leverage comes from using AI the right way. Taking you from “Advisory” based usage (how do I do this?) to Active Usage (do this for me).
You can absolutely free up your time with AI. If not, at least reduce your mental load, even just a little. Not productivity hacks. Not "10x your output." Just creating space in your mind and life.
If you’ve been copy/pasting from ChatGPT, manually waddling around on Claude or getting frustrated saying “DO IT FOR ME” to AI, then this is for you.
The creative who can't figure out DNS website BS. The wellness chick who wants a booking system but gets lost in API keys. The impact founder who tried Claude and got overwhelmed. You're not dumb. You're just not being met where you are.
So come along for the journey.
I'm building this in the open. Sharing what I make, how I make it, and the thinking underneath. No hustle. No sugar high. Just realness and genuine
If that's your vibe, stay on the list. I’m also hosting a community call next week Tues 12 May 7pm - 8:30pm NZT to discuss all of this. Bring your ideas, concerns, curiosities, fears, questions, silence, whatever. It’s all welcome.
If you stay on the list, you’ll get a weekly email from me sharing actual tools, workflows, ideas, etc, starting Mon 18 May.
If not, no hard feelings. Unsubscribe below.
Thanks for being here for the journey.
Stay human,
Billy