Market Simulator Max, Live with Nico
- Chris CarolanHost
- Nico LafakisHost
October 30, 2026
Chris Carolan and Nico Lafakis set the plan aside for stories. Nico walks through Market Simulator Max, his beta tool for filling a HubSpot portal with realistic practice data, then his 3D builds with Claude. Chris on getting Breeze to fetch a record it said it couldn't reach.
Moments from this episode
12 short cuts from this conversation.
Landscape
6 of 12
Chris CarolanAI said it couldn't. A small correction, and it did.
Nico LafakisAsk again: how you word it the first time matters
Chris CarolanAsk at least once: are you sure?
Chris CarolanBreeze said it couldn't. I typed: No. You.
Chris CarolanClaude's fix: don't use the word HubSpot
Nico LafakisConcept art, storyboard, motion reel, then Haiku, Sonnet, Opus
Key takeaways
Nico Lafakis on Market Simulator Max, his own build: "it allows you to populate your CRM with records and data in a realistic fashion." (13:25-14:04)
Nico on where it stands: "it's still in beta right now. So this is not live, it's not for purchase or anything." (19:06-19:20)
On air Nico walked the setup on a draft built from Value-First Team's own website; no simulation was started, because the app showed it was being updated and could not start new work (on screen at 26:29).
Nico on the fair-use check for the made-up people: "a big red bar comes across, and you'll be blocked from being able to do anything with your simulation if you try to start it." (24:59-25:44)
Chris Carolan on Breeze saying it couldn't reach a record: "So I type, no, period, you. And guess what? Breeze is like, okay, I'll go get it." (06:24-06:43)
Chris: "a lot of the human value right now is directing AI from a perspective of just a little bit of course correction." (06:49-07:22)
Chris: "if you've seen it do it once before, don't overthink it. Ask at least one time: are you sure?" (08:03-08:31)
Chris on the term he uses: "that's why I made up this customer value platform concept, because HubSpot as a namespace puts you in marketing and sales land." (12:05-12:21)
Chris: "we're learning every day that context is literally everything when you're trying to work with AI." (28:47-28:57)
Nico on building 3D scenes with Claude: "it's not like a one-shot process at all." Concept art, then storyboards, then a motion reel, then Claude. (36:18-37:09)
Nico started with Haiku, moved to Sonnet, then Opus: "And from there it was very much a matter of refinement." (37:09-37:51)
Nico on his latest scene: "I didn't give him anything to go on, so it's kind of my fault a little bit." (48:14-48:26)
Chris: "It's always about paperwork in the end. There's no shortcuts, right?" (43:36-44:07)
Chris on asking Breeze in the moment: "if I don't ask Breeze in that moment, it's gonna be four days." (51:00-51:06)
Not on this episode: the sealed Top 3 and the rails beside it were not read, and the prepped questions for Nico were not asked as written.
Resources from this episode
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