Blank Metal runs lean AI-native operations on Claude Cowork and Code

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Blank Metal runs lean AI-native operations on Claude Cowork and Code

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Blank Metal, a 30-person AI-native engineering firm founded in 2025, deployed Claude Cowork, Claude Code, and Claude Enterprise as the operating layer for nearly all of its internal work, with around 90% of engineering output now running through Claude Code and the broader team training 710 people across client engagements as of June 1. “Repetitive tasks that used to require someone’s full attention can run in the background, which frees people up for higher-leverage work,” said Elli Rader, Chief Revenue Officer of Blank Metal. “Claude isn’t just a tool we use, it’s how we scale, build, and grow in a leaner way. Every person on the team is more capable because of it, and that’s the whole point.” Blank Metal helps enterprises move AI projects from pilot to production, and the firm runs its own operations on Claude before deploying anything for a client. Before adoption, the BD lead spent days manually researching, scoring, and entering 3 to 10 leads per day; calendar coordination ate an hour per day cross-referencing a locked-down Microsoft calendar against Google Calendar; and proposals or SOWs took multiple hours of drafting before any client-facing review. The build-out followed the team’s growth. Rader built the first version of the lead-processor plugin in about 20 minutes and the team is now on version three, with roughly one hour of total development time across iterations. The processor scores fit, creates the deal in HubSpot, pulls contact info, and posts a summary to Slack, reducing a day’s worth of lead handling to a couple of hours and saving at least two hours per day across four people. Scheduling now runs as a single prompt that places holds across calendars, surfaces options by email, and finalizes the chosen slot with a Zoom link in one follow-up. Proposal and SOW drafting dropped from a multi-hour process to a structured first draft in minutes. The architecture centers on Claude Cowork for client-facing deliverables, internal workflows, and daily tasks; Claude Code for engineering (around 90% of internal and client engineering); Claude Enterprise for org-wide access controls; and the Anthropic API for client deployments. Connectors to Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft 365 let Claude operate inside the existing workflows, while Excel and PowerPoint add-ins bring the model into the tools the team already lives in. Brand voice and visual guidelines are packaged as reusable skills so decks, docs, and deliverables align automatically. Two internal products sit on top: Lectern, a real-time live-training companion that lets presenters run shared Claude Code and Cowork sessions while participants follow along or navigate at their own pace; and Shippy, an internal Claude-powered platform that lets the 30-person team take on work beyond its headcount. Across customers, 710 people have been trained in Claude Code and Cowork as of June 1, and the lead processor alone has reclaimed a couple of hours per day for four team members. “Watching Cowork roll out, on our own team and across client teams, was the structural moment: it isn’t just a chat window, it’s a workspace,” Rader said. Going forward, the team is paying particular attention to which Claude capabilities arrive off the shelf for clients to use directly, and which still require deep customization — a separation that lets Blank Metal ship hyper-specific tooling only where off-the-shelf is not enough.