I'm excited to announce the launch of Build First Academy, my new AI workshop and training business that teaches anyone how to build with AI. 

Build First offers corporate workshops for teams (up to 20 people) where we build real apps in 3 hours or less. This August also features AI Summer School, which is a week-long bootcamp for people who want to build real businesses with AI-powered tools in just five days.

You can learn more about all of these at https://buildfirst.ai/ or keep reading below.

AI fluency is becoming the new currency of work output and performance. But there's a big difference between being AI forward vs. being AI fluent.

This year, I've begun offering 15-20 person workshops for startups, nonprofits, educational institutions, and VCs with one goal in mind: Develop an organization-wide habit of AI fluency.

But learning how to use AI is a lot less like learning how to use a calculator and a lot more like learning a language. True organizational fluency requires a shared understanding and vocabulary.

That's why we start each workshop with design thinking principles that I co-developed with the team at Decoded Futures late last year.

Then we get straight to building. In every workshop, participants get hands on keyboards from the start, and everyone walks away with a real MVP or prototype to work with. (Yes! Even the non-engineers!)

I find these AI Power Hours to be an incredible way of getting an idea from expression to invention in just 60 minutes. If you're looking to build an organization-wide habit of AI fluency for your team or business this year, let's talk.

Becoming a true Power User of AI means crossing the threshold of using it for shallow utility (ie: article summarization, list-making, essay writing) and moving toward a mindset where you build custom and bespoke solutions to solve your problems.

No-code and low-code tools let non-engineers quickly build web and mobile apps. This creates an interesting bifurcation: Some people will keep using tools made for them, while others will start building their own. But how do you get started?

My next flavor of courses with Build First Academy invites emergent builders to try out the experience from ideation to prototype through short-burst, half-day intensives. Each session is designed around a specific goal:

• Build an internal tool

• Build a game

• Build a business

Over the course of 4 hours (with a break in the middle!), we'll cover how to use AI tools to plan, ideate, and rapidly deploy prototypes.

I'm excited to contribute to the growing movement of "home-cooked software" or "software for one." If there's something you're eager to build this summer, save your spot below. Classes are scheduled once we hit a cohort size of 10-15 participants.

AI Summer School is designed to help anyone jumpstart an AI-native business with a fully deployed prototype in just five days. It's the course I wish I had before I started MuseKat (and of course, it's the thing I've learned the hard way first.)

Since I spent the first six months of this year starting a business the slow way, I'm now eager to apply what I've learned and help others get off the ground at warp speed.

Earlier this summer, I tested a concept I call the Five Day Build. In just five days (and spending only 60 minutes a day) I went from idea to prototype: I wrote a sitcom pilot based on my life, then built a real-time script reader and microsite styled like a Netflix show to host it. (You can check it out at BadIdeasOnly.tv.)

The experience convinced me that anyone with a business idea can get from zero to prototype in under a week. It was fast, experimental, and energizing—a reminder of how little time it really takes to bring an idea to life.

If this sounds like you, I've love for you to join our cohort this August. We'll cap the group at 25 people and then each walk away with a project or idea that you can decide whether to keep building, or set on the shelf for now.

This weekend, I crossed the threshold of being a developer. On Thursday, I pitched an idea for an immersive school pilot program for a new idea I'd been dreaming up. On Friday, I got sign off from the school to launch the pilot, which was due to start that Monday.

Full disclosure: I did not have a working prototype for the app on Friday.

But I was about 80% confident that I could build it over the weekend. So I said yes, anyway.

In just 5 hours this weekend, I vibe coded a functioning mini-app. I had a few friends (and my own kids) test it out, I made a few tweaks, and then I deployed it. On Monday afternoon, I brought that app in front of a cohort of 12 early beta testing users, and we successfully tested it. In real time. In the room.

I got a ton of feedback, and I know exactly what I need to build next to make it even better for next week.

This experience of rapid prototyping + immediate real-time feedback is an incredible unlock for builders today. Whether you're a solo founder looking who has a hard time getting other people to see the world the way you do, or you're on the marketing team at a scale-up business and looking to better communicate user feedback with your product team, building first helps you get there faster.

That's the power of agency that AI has unlocked for me. It's completely transformed the way I work and interrogate the world around me. And I'm excited to help others do that too. The only question is this: