Journey · Non-technical founder · 5 full days · Level 1 to Level 3
What you get out of the week
On Monday you arrive with an idea. On Friday you know whether it's worth building. You'll have a first version that three real people have tried, what they did with it, what it would cost to run, and a decision: go, change or stop. In between you use AI where it saves you time, and check it every time it answers.
The idea stays the same all week. Each day asks a bit more of it:
- Level 1: you can explain it and you've seen what already exists.
- Level 2: a real user can try a first version without you explaining it.
- Level 3: you can decide, with numbers, whether it deserves more of your time and money.
Who this is for
You have an idea for a product or service, and you don't write code. You have used a chatbot. You have never opened a terminal, and this week you won't need to.
You bring one idea, and three people who have the problem it solves. They agree to a 20-minute call on Tuesday and a 25-minute video test on Thursday. They should be people who might pay, not friends being kind.
The method behind every day
Monday to Thursday, each day is one trip round the four quadrants from T01-L01 · From Idea to Working Result: The Four-Quadrant Method. The quadrants form a grid of four boxes: two about the problem, two about the solution. Friday is for the decision.
| The problem | The solution | |
|---|---|---|
| Define | Structure it | Choose tools |
| Explore and test | Understand it | Build it |
- Structure it: say in one sentence who has the problem, what they do about it today, and how you'll know your idea helps.
- Understand it: find out what already exists and what your users really do. When that changes the problem, go back to Structure it. This back-and-forth is where most founders save months.
- Choose tools: start with the simplest option and only move up when it fails. First, something that already exists. Then a small change to it, then a template, a form or a spreadsheet. Last, a built app with AI in one part only.
- Build it: make the smallest version a user can try, test it, and fix what breaks.
How Monday to Thursday run
| Time | Quadrant | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 09:00–10:30 | Structure it | A 20-minute demo, then you write today's problem sentence. |
| 10:45–12:15 | Understand it | You look at what already exists: competitors, workarounds, what your users told you. |
| 13:15–15:15 | Choose tools | You try options and pick the simplest one that works. Then you start building. |
| 15:30–17:00 | Build it | You finish today's result. Your partner tries it, and you write the exit check. |
Breaks: 15 minutes mid-morning, an hour for lunch and 15 minutes mid-afternoon. There's no homework. All reading happens in the room: the trainer points you to the parts of each book you need that day.
You work in pairs, each on your own idea. Your partner plays your customer and checks your work, and you do the same for them. The course runs with up to 12 people per trainer.
The five-line exit check closes every day, Friday included. It's the only paperwork:
- Problem: today's final Structure it sentence.
- What exploring changed: what you learned in Understand it, and how it changed the problem.
- Choice: the tool or method you picked, and why it's the simplest that works.
- Result: what you built, and whether it worked when someone tried it.
- Next step: the one thing you'd change on the next trip round.
The week at a glance
| Day | Question of the day | Level | You leave with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | What exactly is the problem, and for whom? | 1 | A problem sentence, a test you'd accept, your data sorted by colour |
| Tuesday | What already exists, and what do users really do? | 1 | A checked list of competitors and three call notes |
| Wednesday | What is the smallest version someone could try? | 1 → 2 | A first version and a monthly cost estimate |
| Thursday | What happens when real users try it? | 2 | Three test sessions, measured against Monday's test |
| Friday | Go, change or stop? | 3 | A one-page decision and a plan for the next 30 days |
Monday: the problem, and for whom
Most ideas fail because they solve a problem nobody has badly enough. Today you pin the problem down before you think about the product.
| Quadrant | What you do | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Structure it | Write one sentence: who has the problem, what it costs them today, and what would count as better. Add the test you'd accept on Thursday and what each result means, for example: "three of three users finish without help: go; two: change; fewer: stop". | T17-L02 · Frame a Problem Your Team Agrees On |
| Understand it | Sort what you know by colour (see below). Meet the four facts about AI assistants (see below). Rewrite your sentence. | T12-L01 · Decide What You May Paste Into AI at Work |
| Choose tools | Go from the simplest option upwards. What could you test with no product at all: a form, a spreadsheet, a message? | T01-L01 · From Idea to Working Result: The Four-Quadrant Method |
| Build it | Write the questions for Tuesday's calls with an assistant's help. Ask about what users do today, not whether they like your idea. Check that no question gives the answer away. | T02-L01 · Get Answers You Can Use from a Chatbot |
The three colours:
- Green: already public, like a competitor's website or published prices. Any tool.
- Yellow: internal but not sensitive, like your notes with no names in them. Only tools on a business plan whose terms say they don't train on your data.
- Red: your users' names and details, your own prices and contracts, and anything confidential. No online AI tool.
The four facts about AI assistants:
- It writes what sounds right.
- It starts every chat from zero.
- It sounds just as sure when it's wrong.
- What you type goes to the provider.
What goes wrong today: the assistant tells you your idea is great. It will tell everyone that. The only opinions that count this week come from your three users.
Tools: a chat assistant, for example ChatGPT or Claude.
Tuesday: what already exists, and what users really do
Someone has probably tried your idea, or your users have a workaround they're used to. Today you find out both.
| Quadrant | What you do | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Structure it | List what you need to find out: who else solves this, what it costs, and what users do today. | T17-L03 · Explore What Already Exists Before You Build |
| Understand it | Search with an AI research tool, then open every company and price it names. Does it exist, and does it do what the summary claims? Then make your three calls, 20 minutes each. | T17-L03 · Explore What Already Exists Before You Build |
| Choose tools | Decide where your notes go. Remove names first; your call notes become yellow. | T12-L01 · Decide What You May Paste Into AI at Work |
| Build it | Put your call notes and the competitors' pages into one notebook tool on a business plan (a tool that answers only from what you upload), and ask it what the calls have in common. Mark each claim as supported, unsupported or not found in your notes. | T04-L01 · Ask Your Own Documents and Check Every Citation |
What goes wrong today: the research tool names a competitor that closed last year, or a price it made up. You only catch it because you opened the page.
Tools: Perplexity to map the market, and a notebook tool on a business plan for your notes, for example Gemini notebooks with a work account.
Wednesday: the smallest version someone could try
Today you build the first version: the smallest thing a user could try on Thursday without you explaining it.
| Quadrant | What you do | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Structure it | Describe the first version by its screens, what users enter, what they get back, and what it leaves out. | T01-L03 · Build the Smallest Thing Your Colleagues Can Run Without You |
| Understand it | Check which existing tools could already be your first version. Estimate what each would cost per month with 10 and with 100 users. | T16-L02 · Choose Tools Your Team Can Use, and Afford |
| Choose tools | Try two options on the same small task, and keep the one that works with the least effort. | T16-L01 · Pick the Right Tool for One Task by Trying It |
| Build it | Build it one change at a time, checking after each change that it still works. Use made-up data only. | See the list below |
Pick one build:
- A form or a spreadsheet, if that is the smallest thing users can try. It counts.
- A small app several people can log in to, built from a description: T06-L02 · Build a Small Shared Tool From a Prompt, and Test It With a Colleague, with Base44.
- A single page that runs in the browser, with nothing to host, for example a calculator or a checklist: T06-L01 · Build a Small Browser Tool You Will Actually Use, with opencode Desktop, an app where you describe what you want and it writes the page.
What goes wrong today: the first version grows. Every feature feels necessary, and by 15:00 nothing works. Cut back to the one thing Monday's test measures.
Thursday: real users try it
Today your three users try the first version while you watch, and you measure it against the test you wrote on Monday. This is a short user test, not a full pilot: from T17-L04 · Run a Pilot with Real Users and Real Data you borrow only its one-page plan.
| Quadrant | What you do | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Structure it | Write the plan for the three sessions: the task you give them, what counts as success, and when you'd stop a session. | T17-L04 · Run a Pilot with Real Users and Real Data |
| Understand it | Run the three sessions by video call, 25 minutes each with a short gap. Users share their screen. Give the task, then stay quiet and write down where they get stuck. | T17-L04 · Run a Pilot with Real Users and Real Data |
| Choose tools | Check what the first version produced for each user, the way a careful customer would. Anything an AI wrote gets checked before a user sees it. | T01-L02 · Check AI Output Before Your Team Relies on It |
| Build it | Fix the one thing that stopped most users, and test it again with your partner. Users enter made-up data only; if anything real slipped into your notes, clean it out. | T12-L02 · Clean the Copy, Label the Result, Spot the Trap |
What goes wrong today: users do something you never planned, and skip the feature you're proudest of. That's the most valuable thing you'll learn all week.
Friday: go, change or stop
Today you decide, with the numbers from Thursday in front of you, not with your hopes.
| Time | What happens | Read |
|---|---|---|
| 09:00–10:30 | Score your idea on four things: how much users need it, the effort to build it properly, the risk, and who would keep it running. | T17-L05 · Decide Which Problems Deserve Building |
| 10:45–12:15 | Write the one-page decision: Monday's test, Thursday's results, the monthly cost, and go, change or stop, with your reasons. | T17-L04 · Run a Pilot with Real Users and Real Data |
| 13:15–15:15 | Show your decision, 8 minutes each: run the first version live, read your decision, answer two questions. | — |
| 15:30–17:00 | Plan the next 30 days. For go: what building it properly would take. For change: what you'd test next. For stop: what you learned. Then write your fifth exit check, on the whole week. | T06-L03 · Turn Your Team App Into One Colleagues Can Depend On |
"Stop" is a good result. It costs you a week instead of a year.
How you pass
There are no points. You pass when all five of these are true:
- It runs. You show your first version live on Friday.
- Three real users tried it, and you wrote down what they did.
- You decided against a test you set before the test. Monday's test, Thursday's results, and go, change or stop.
- You know what it would cost per month, with 10 and 100 users.
- No red data went into an online AI tool, and your five exit checks are complete.
What you take home: your first version, your notes from six conversations, a monthly cost estimate, a one-page decision and a plan for the next 30 days.
Before Monday
- Line up three people who have the problem, and book the times: a 20-minute call on Tuesday late morning and a 25-minute video test on Thursday late morning.
- Accounts: a chat assistant. The course provides trial accounts for the build tools.
- A laptop you may install software on: a Mac or a recent Windows PC.
- Nothing to read in advance.
What this week leaves out
- Raising money and pitch decks.
- Company law and contracts.
- Building the full product.
- Hiring developers.
Further reading and tools
All the books in this journey are listed below the course, in the order you meet them.
Rule to remember: talk to users before you build, build the smallest thing they can try, and let what they do decide.