I built a custom Slack inbox. It was easier than you’d think. | Yash Tekriwal (Clay)

Yash Tekriwal is the head of education at Clay. A self-described hyper-optimizer, Yash has built multiple custom productivity applications using Perplexity Computer and OpenClaw to manage his overwhelming daily workflow—including a Slack digest system that categorizes over 150 daily notifications into actionable priorities, and a consolidated news/email/Slack dashboard that serves as his personal command center.

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What you’ll learn:

1. How Yash built a custom Slack digest that categorizes 150+ daily notifications into action-required, need-to-read, and FYI buckets

2. Why Perplexity Computer beats Claude Code and Codex for building personal productivity apps

3. His “anti-to-do list” framework: spending an hour daily automating tasks you never want to do again

4. How to use AI for deterministic tasks (APIs, structured data) vs. subjective tasks (categorization, summarization)

5. Why the SaaS apocalypse narrative is wrong—and why we’re about to see an explosion of micro-software

6. How his team uses Perplexity Computer to prototype design systems and communicate with cross-functional partners

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Yash

(02:38) The burden of 150 daily Slack notifications

(05:45) When to use AI for tasks vs. building deterministic code

(06:38) Building the Slack digest with OpenClaw

(11:33) Introducing Perplexity Computer and the visual dashboard

(14:28) Three reasons Perplexity Computer beats Claude Code

(16:14) Using connectors to automate meeting follow-ups across Notion and Asana

(18:21) The Kanban-style Slack dashboard

(20:15) The long tail of customer requests and the future of micro-software

(24:09) The anti-to-do list framework

(26:21) Building a consolidated news, email, and Slack digest

(29:48) How Perplexity Computer handles authentication and deployment

(31:46) Team use case: Prototyping persona-based learning journeys for Clay University

(35:49) Lightning round and final thoughts

Tools referenced:

• Perplexity Computer: https://www.perplexity.ai/computer/new

• OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai/

• Discord: https://discord.com/

• Claude Code: https://claude.ai/code

• Codex: https://openai.com/codex/

• Asana: https://asana.com/

• Airtable: https://airtable.com/

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• Vercel: https://vercel.com/

• ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/

Other references:

• Slack: https://slack.com/

• Notion: https://www.notion.so/

• Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/

• Clay University: https://www.clay.com/university

• Kanban boards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board

Where to find Yash Tekriwal:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yashtekriwal/

X: https://x.com/yash_tek

Company: https://www.clay.com/

Where to find Claire Vo:

ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/

Website: https://clairevo.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/

X: https://x.com/clairevo

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].