The workshop
Where I give the work away: one free build every quarter, the guides, and straight answers to the questions people send me.
Q4 2026 round · phase 1 of 5: send me your idea
Got a cool idea?
I’ll build it for free.
Once a quarter I pick one idea for something new, a product, a tool or an app that stands on its own, and build it properly, from the foundations up, in public. Then I hand it over. No catch, no subscription, no “free trial”.
How a round works
Five phases, the same every round. Everyone who enters hears back, and everyone on the shortlist gets a free call, picked or not.
- Phase 1 · now
Send me your idea
What it is, who it’s for, and why it should exist. A paragraph is plenty. Ideas stay open until I call time on the round.
- Phase 2
The shortlist, and a call each
I pick a handful. Each gets a free call where we take the idea apart, and you get my honest view of how to build it, whether you’re picked or not.
- Phase 3
One idea is picked
Announced in public. I pick the one where the build makes the biggest difference, and that I can do properly.
- Phase 4
I build it, in public
Foundations first: the data, the architecture, then everything you can see. Shared as it happens.
- Phase 5
It’s yours
The code, the documentation and a walkthrough. You own what I built for you, with no subscription.
What you get
- A working product, built properly, from the foundations up
- The code and the documentation, yours to keep
- A free call if you make the shortlist, picked or not
What I get
- Your project, and the build, to talk about freely: on this site, on social media and in my guides
- A case study, and a few honest words from you once it’s done
The builds so far
The first round is open
The first free build goes here when it’s done: the idea, the person who sent it, how it was built, and the thing running.
It could be yoursAn internal business problem, solved?
Let’s talk.
The free build is for new things. Fixing the systems inside a business is paid work, and it’s most of what I do. The first conversation costs nothing, and if I can talk about the work in public while we build it, you get 20% off.
20% off when the work can be public
Start a conversationEnter your idea
The best entries are something people would genuinely use, and a clear picture of who they are. It doesn’t have to be big; it has to be worth building.
- It has to be a standalone build: a new product, tool or app that works on its own. Not a fix for a business’s internal systems.
- Anyone can enter: a founder, a team inside a company, a charity, a club.
- Nothing illegal, nothing that needs regulated advice, and nothing that already exists off the shelf.
- One idea per person per round. Send it again and it replaces your first.
- Your idea stays yours. Entering means agreeing to the terms, which let me talk about your project in public, so don’t send anything you need kept secret.
The full free build terms say exactly what entering means.
Guides
Straight answers to the questions people actually ask, each with my own view on it.
How do you share a prototype or demo so people actually try it?
Send the working thing, not a video of it: one link that opens straight into the demo, with a short guided path through it and the context beside it. Then watch what they did, because that tells you more than anything they say.
How do you know your tests actually test anything?
Break the code on purpose and watch the test fail. A test or check you have never seen go red proves nothing, so the evidence is a deliberate defect it catches, rerun automatically before every push.
How do you use AI in financial services without a compliance problem?
Treat AI like any other system that touches customers or money: know what data it sees and where that goes, record honestly what it did and who acted on it, keep a named person accountable, and prove the controls by attacking them. Start where a wrong answer is cheap and visible.
Build or buy: when should a business own its own data platform?
Own the parts that hold what your business knows: the raw data, the definitions of your core records, their history and the checks on them. Rent the machinery underneath. Build the whole platform only when the data itself is your advantage and you can pay for its upkeep.
What does “data first” actually mean for a growing business?
It means deciding what your core records are, how each is identified, where the original is kept and how every figure traces back to it, before you build the screens and the AI on top. It is an order of work, and it starts small.
How do you run several AI coding agents on one machine without chaos?
Give each agent exclusive ownership of one directory, keep the shared files for yourself, send every question an agent has to one inbox, and keep the machine inside a budget. Then check what each agent reports before you believe it.
Why do most AI pilots never make it into production?
Because they are built for the demo rather than the business: a tidy sample of data, no written definition of a right answer, and nobody who owns them afterwards. Build the pilot as the first slice of the real system and it has somewhere to go.
Ask me something
The best guides start as someone’s real question. Send me yours, and if it’s useful to other people too, I’ll answer it here.
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