Welcome to Clay 101! In this course, we're going to cover all the fundamentals you need to learn Clay and get started.

Before we dive into Clay itself, let's take a step back to answer the classic question we get from every new user:

What exactly does Clay do?

🤔 Understanding Clay's Capabilities

This is actually a tricky question to answer because Clay can do many different things. For example:

• Can Clay help enrich data more accurately and automatically? Yes.
• Can Clay help automate outbound more effectively? Yes.
• Can Clay help automate lead scoring and inbound qualification? ALSO Yes!

I could keep going on, but you get the point.

🎨 The "Blank Canvas Problem"

This is one of the biggest strengths of Clay: it's incredibly powerful and flexible. On the flipside, it is also what can be most intimidating about Clay to brand new users.

We've had people tell us in the past that trying to learn Clay without any guidance is like trying to learn a musical instrument without a teacher.

Sure, you can strum around and make some noise, but you may never get around to actually making good music, or in our case, powerful workflows.

We call this the "blank canvas problem." A blank canvas is powerful. It literally has infinite possibilities. But it's also intimidating. Ever struggled with writer's block before? It's the exact same thing.

This is a common challenge when working with any creative tool, including Clay.

🔄 The FETE Framework

To make that blank canvas a little less intimidating, we built a framework to break Clay down into four easy steps you'll use in every workflow.

We call this FETE, short for Find, Enrich, Transform, and Export.

Step 1: Find

Finding data is where everything begins. No matter what you're automating, you need someplace to start. This usually means finding companies and people by searching Clay's built-in data sources or by bringing in your own lists of data.

Step 2: Enrich

After you've found your initial dataset, the next step is to expand it with additional information. You'll use waterfalls, AI, web scraping integrations, and many other tools to enrich your data. Once you've collected all the necessary information, it's time for the next step.

Step 3: Transform

Once you have all the data you need, you're going to use native Clay functions, AI, and AI formulas to transform that data. You'll generate short snippets of AI copy, research summaries, or maybe just clean and format your data as needed.

Step 4: Export

Finally, you're going to export that data to an email sequencing tool, CRM, or any destination of your choice.

📋 FETE in Practice

To recap, that's find, enrich, transform, and export, or FETE for short.

For example, if you're building an outbound Clay table, you're going to need to:

1. Find a list of companies and people to reach out to
2. Enrich that list with basic contact information like emails, phone numbers, job titles, and more
3. Transform all your research into snippets of copy you'll use in emails to your prospects
4. Export your final data + copy into a CRM and an email sequencing tool to start outreach

But no matter what you're building in Clay, you're always going to be using most, if not all, of the steps of FETE.

🧩 The Jigsaw Framework

Now, knowing what steps to take is great, but you also need to know how to execute each step effectively. That's where our second framework comes in - the Jigsaw Framework.

Think about working with data in Clay like assembling a puzzle. You start with corner pieces, build out the edges, and then fill in the rest. This approach ensures you get the most accurate results in the most efficient way.

Corner Pieces: Essential Identifiers

These are the essential identifiers you need before enriching any data.

For companies, your corner pieces are always:

• The company domain
• The LinkedIn profile URL

For people, your corner pieces are:

• Their LinkedIn profile URL
• Their full name

Without these corner pieces, you'll struggle to enrich your data effectively, just like you'd struggle to complete a puzzle without the corners.

Building the Edges: Basic Data

Once you have your corner pieces in place, you can start building the edges. To build the edges, you enrich with basic firmographic data for companies and demographic details for people.

This includes things like:

• For companies: headcount, location, industry
• For people: job title, work experience, education

Filling in the Rest: Specialized Data

Finally, you can fill in the rest of your puzzle using more specialized data with Clay's 100+ data providers, AI web scraping, and integrations.

🔗 Bringing FETE and Jigsaw Together

These two frameworks work hand in hand. FETE tells you what steps to take, while Jigsaw helps you execute each step efficiently:

1. Find: Start by identifying your corner pieces
2. Enrich: Build out the edges of your puzzle
3. Transform: Fill in the remaining puzzle pieces and organize your data
4. Export: Share your completed puzzle

The FETE and Jigsaw frameworks serve as your roadmap through Clay's powerful capabilities. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities, you'll have a clear structure to follow:

• FETE gives you the process: what steps to take in what order
• Jigsaw gives you the strategy: how to approach data quality and completeness
• Together, they transform the blank canvas problem into a structured, achievable workflow

With these frameworks as your foundation, you'll be able to tackle any GTM challenge that comes your way, from simple lead enrichment to complex multi-step automation workflows.

📚 What's Coming Next

By the end of this course, we'll walk through each step of FETE in detail, showing you exactly how to build powerful workflows in Clay. Then, we'll walk you through a simple example, and in other courses, we'll gradually work our way up to more complex use cases.

In the next few lessons, we'll show you how to get started with Clay so you can start building your own plays. You'll see how FETE and Jigsaw work in real examples, making it easy to understand and use.

In our next lesson, we'll do a quick preview of just a few of the workflows in Clay, as a small introduction to what's possible.