The Project — built and launched · a chapter · 10–12 weeks · $4,000
One substantial piece of real work — theirs to show, explain and stand behind.
Your child picks a problem they actually care about, builds it with AI as the tool, and puts it in front of real people — with Ron reading the work every week. It doesn’t have to be code.
- Length
- 10–12 wks
- From them
- ~5 hrs/wk
- Price
- $4,000
A conversation first, never a checkout. Every family starts with the Compass; the Project is usually the second step.
The scope, plainly
What your child does
- Brings three problems they care about; chooses one.
- Does the work — about five hours a week for ten to twelve weeks.
- Keeps a decision log.
- Puts the thing in front of real people.
- Writes one honest page on what they learned.
What Ron does
- Scopes it with them so it can actually be finished.
- Three live sessions on the decisions that matter.
- Reads the work every week and says what is good and what is not.
- Helps them find the first real users.
- Tells them the truth when it is not working.
What is not included
- A guaranteed customer, client or launch — the aim is real users, and sometimes they don't come, which goes on the record honestly.
- A coding course.
- Work done for them.
- An internship or placement.
- Anything that has to be written by AI to exist.
The experience problem, solved from the other end
Employers ask for experience, and experience comes from employment.
The loop every fresh graduate meets: the first job wants experience, and the only place to get it is a first job. The Project is a start on the way out of it, years early — real work, for real people, that someone outside school can vouch for. Nobody has to give your child permission to start it.
What they keep is a record of work done for someone who could have said no, a person outside school who saw it work, and a first foothold in something real. It is also the strongest thing an application can carry, in a year when every essay is AI-polished. Some become the first job. A few become the business. Either way it stops being a hypothesis.
What it can lead to
Most of the value is in what they learn to do. Some of it is what they can point to.
The application
One real thing that real people used is what an admissions reader can still tell apart.
More ↓
In a year when every essay is AI-polished, one real thing that real people used — with the trail of decisions behind it — is what an admissions reader can still tell apart. A thing three people use beats a deck.
The first job
A way out of the experience loop, years early: real work someone outside school can vouch for.
More ↓
Employers ask for experience, and experience comes from employment. The Project is a start on the way out of that loop before it closes: real work, for real people, on the record.
Their own thing
The cheapest way to find out whether your child enjoys solving a problem for someone else.
More ↓
A small project with real users is the cheapest way to find out. Most stay a line on an application. A few become more.
The skill
Using AI well still requires choosing the problem, judging the output and owning the result.
More ↓
That is learned by doing something real — which is why this is a build, not a course.
An example, not a client
A sixteen-year-old builds an intake-and-scheduling tool for a family friend’s physiotherapy clinic.
We are choosing our first families now, so this is an illustration of the shape, written honestly; when real outcomes exist they will be published with their numbers.
If you’re the one who’d be doing this
You choose what to build. You ship it under your name. You keep it.
Nobody hands you a project from a list, and it doesn’t have to be code — a service, a piece of analysis, a tool, a thing you make. You bring three problems you actually care about; the direction is set with you, not for you; the thing you make survives long after the application does. You are on the calls, and you talk. If it isn’t working, you can say so and stop.
The Project · 10–12 weeks
$4,000
Paid once, for one chapter. Never up front for anything beyond it; stop after any chapter. Two or three interest-free instalments if you prefer.
Most families take it as the middle step
The Compass first → the Project over the spring and summer → the Application Sprint in the autumn.
About $6,000 all in, with the Compass credited.
All three chapters and prices →Start with a conversation.
Tell Ron what your child would want to build, or what's in front of them. He'll tell you honestly whether the Project is the right chapter — and if it isn't, which one is.
With under-18s: a parent is welcome in any session, nothing happens on a channel you don’t know about, and your child can stop at any point.