Most workshops hand you a curriculum. I write you a plan - made for you, before you walk in.
Designers Who Build runs AI training in small private cohorts. Five people. One working product each, shipped to a live URL in two days. Public cohorts for individual designers and PMs - or private corporate cohorts for design orgs and product teams. The part that makes it work isn't the two days. It's the week before them.
A syllabus assumes you're all the same person
Same starting point, same goal, same pace. Designers never are.
One has never opened a terminal. One was a developer years ago and just needs to catch up to the modern stack. One lives in Figma and wants to finally ship the thing she keeps prototyping. Put all three through the same curriculum and you lose two of them - one's bored by slide four, one's drowning by lunch.
So I stopped using a curriculum. I write a plan per person instead.
How a private cohort actually runs
Your idea
a line or two
you1:1, before the day
where you (or your team) are with AI
weI write your plan
three options + a pick
meThe two days
sit next to each person
youLive URL
yours to keep
youThree of those five steps happen before the workshop starts. That's the whole trick. By the time we're in a room together, I already know what you're building and how I'd build it with you.
The call isn't checking whether you can code
It's checking one thing: where you - or your team - are with AI. Not "do you know X" - where are you, and what do you need to build.
Some people have never written a prompt that did real work. Some have shipped little things and want to go bigger. Some can already think in systems and just need the tools to catch up to their head. Some come in for a team - a design org that needs to ship faster, a head of design with a custom requirement, a founder who needs to clone themselves into a tool. None of that is good or bad. It's just the starting line, and I need to see it before I can draw the route.
Then the other half: what do you want to build, and who is it for? Plain words. A line or two.
And then I go away and think.
The plan is three ways to build your idea
By the time you arrive, you have your plan. Not a reading list - three ways to build the exact thing you described, and the one I'd pick.
Here's what that looked like for one designer. She wanted her own site - hadn't shipped her portfolio in six years. The engine across all three options is the same: a folder of your work, turned into a live site. Three shapes for that engine.
Why three and not one? Because the same engine can take three shapes - and the choice should be yours, not mine. I tell you which one I'd pick and why. Then I say the quiet part out loud:
Three things a plan does that a syllabus doesn't
- It meets you at your level. The plan is pitched to where the call put you, so you stretch without drowning.
- It removes day-one paralysis. Nobody loses the first morning to "so... what should I build?" You walk in and start.
- It makes the win concrete. "Ship a working product" is a promise. "Ship this, in these phases, by sundown" is a plan you can actually hit.
Another plan, different person
No names.
A staff designer who'd been a developer in another life and wanted back in - fluent with AI, comfortable with context, designing and building again. Her three options were all the same move, plain words in, working software out: a reflection tracker, a spec-to-screen tool, a design review prep tool. Recommended: the spec-to-screen tool - the one she'd use weekly.
Different person. Different engine. Same two days.
What you walk out with
A real, working product - live on a URL, and yours. The skills to build the next one without me.
A certificate.
We believe in building. Your proof is a product, not a piece of paper.
Why five
Five is small on purpose. Five is the number where I can write five real plans, sit next to each person while they build, and still know by the end of the day what each one got stuck on. Scale that to fifty and the plan becomes a handout. The whole thing only works because it's small enough to stay personal.
The plan is the product before the product
By the time you ship, you've already had the most valuable thing twice - once as a plan written for you, once as a thing you built yourself.
The two days get the credit. The plan does the work.
Want one? Tell me what you'd build.
Common questions
Who is the AI training for?
Working designers, PMs, heads of design, and founders - and small teams from design orgs or product teams. Anyone who wants to actually ship AI-powered work, not just learn about it.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. Plain English in, working software out. The AI workflow is built around designers and product folks who think in systems, not syntax.
How long is the workshop?
It depends on what you're building. Typical: two days in the room. Corporate or team builds often run longer; focused intensives can fit in one. The constant is a week of prep where I write your custom plan - so three of the five steps always happen before the workshop starts.
What will I build?
A real product. Shipped to a live URL. Yours to keep and use Monday. Not a demo, not a portfolio piece - a working tool you'll actually use.
Can you run this for my team or company?
Yes. Private corporate AI training cohorts for design orgs, product teams, and founder-led teams. Up to 5 people, same custom-plan approach as the public cohort - tailored to your team's specific products and constraints. Tell me about your team.
How many people are in each cohort?
Five. Small on purpose, so each person gets a real plan and 1:1 time during the build days.