The Academy
Learn to build your own software, professionally
For founders who are done outsourcing the thing their business runs on. You bring a real problem in your own company. You leave having built the software that solves it — and knowing how to keep building.
First cohort forming now — small on purpose.
“I code my business” is the whole idea
Every business now runs on software, and most owners rent theirs — from a vendor, an agency, or a tool that almost fits. That is fine until the day you need it to change. Then you are waiting on someone else’s roadmap and paying for the privilege.
The alternative is not learning to code as a hobby. It is learning to build the way a professional team builds, at the scale one determined owner can actually sustain — with agents doing the volume and you holding the judgment.
What you learn
Four things that compound
Taught against your own project, in this order, because each one makes the next one safe.
Build the thing your business actually needs
Start from a real bottleneck in your own company, not a to-do app. You leave with software that runs, that you own, and that you can keep changing.
Work through agents, not keystrokes
Modern software gets built by directing agents against a well-specified goal. You learn to write the spec, set the guardrails, and review the output — the leverage most people never pick up.
Ship like a professional team
Branches, review, tests, CI, deploys, rollbacks. The habits that separate software you can trust in production from a prototype that breaks when you look away.
Make it safe to touch
Auth, payments, secrets, and data you cannot afford to lose. How to handle the parts where mistakes are expensive, and how to know when to bring in help.
This is for you if
- You run a business and keep hitting the same wall: the tool you need does not exist, and quotes to build it start at five figures.
- You have shipped something with AI already, and you can feel where it gets fragile — you just do not know the name of what you are missing.
- You are tired of being the person who cannot change their own product.
It is not for you if
- You want a job at a tech company. This is about building for your business, not passing interviews.
- You want it done for you. That is real work I do — it is just not this.
- You want to watch videos. Every module ends with something running.
Get on the list
The first cohort is small, and I write to everyone on this list personally before it opens. Tell me what you are trying to build and I will tell you honestly whether the academy is the right way to get there.
Join the academy list
Format, price, and start date go to this list first. No spam, and you can leave any time.
You do not have to wait to start
The builder tools I use every day are free and public. Take them, use them on something real, and you will be ahead on day one.
Questions
Do I need to know how to code already?
No, but you do need to be willing to. This is not a no-code course — you will be reading and writing real code, directing agents to write more of it, and understanding what came back. If you have never opened a terminal, you will be slower for the first stretch and you will still get there.
How is this different from a bootcamp?
A bootcamp prepares you to be hired as a developer. This prepares you to build and run the software your own business depends on — which is a different set of skills, weighted toward shipping, agent workflows, and knowing what you can safely own versus what you should hand off.
What will I actually have at the end?
Software you built, deployed and running against your real business, plus the working habits to keep extending it. Not a certificate.
What does it cost, and when does it start?
The first cohort is being scoped now and I am keeping it small on purpose. Join the list and I will write to you directly with the format, the price, and the start date before it opens to anyone else.
Join the list →Who is teaching it?
Matthew Kerns — eight-plus years building software professionally, and the person who built the tools on this site: an inventory and restock system used by Amazon sellers, a brand-positioning coach, an agency operations platform, and this site itself. Same practices, taught directly.
Join the Inner Circle
Connect with other business owners using AI to grow. Share wins, get feedback, and access exclusive content.
Join on SkoolWould rather have it built for you? That is what the consulting work is for.