In one semester, your teen goes from an idea to a business that has made its first sale to a stranger. Six stages, real pass/fail gates, and an AI cofounder that coaches instead of doing the work for them.
The Firsts
First Idea, First Build, First User, First Dollar, First $1K, First $10K. The guarantee and the Maker Portfolio are both phrased in Firsts.
First Idea
A one-liner and ten named people who have the problem.
First Build
A working version someone else can use, at a public URL.
First User
A stranger used it and told you what happened.
First Dollar
A real payment from someone you do not know.
First $1K
$1,000 in gross profit, with the books kept.
First $10K
$10,000 in gross profit, running in under 10 hours a week.
The Path
No stage counts until your teen produces real evidence: a URL, a stranger's name, a payment.
Weeks 1-2
Find a problem worth building for.
Gate: Write your one-liner
First Idea
Weeks 3-4
Build the smallest version that works.
Gate: Ship to a public URL
First Build
Weeks 5-6
Put it in front of strangers.
Gate: First user retro
First User
Weeks 7-8
Turn it into an offer.
Gate: Ask for the money
First Dollar
Weeks 9-10
Do more of what worked.
Gate: Repeat the loop
First $1K
Weeks 11-12
Hand the repeat work to AI.
Gate: Run it in ten hours
First $10K
Make First Studio
Every capability below carries its real status. The founding cohort works directly with the founder while Studio is built around them.
Six stages with pass/fail gates and gate evidence submission.
Stage-aware coaching that asks, checks, and unblocks. It never writes the product or the posts for you.
The Firsts, weekly P&L, and hours log in one place.
A parent sees the Path, the Scoreboard, and what was shipped this week.
A public page of earned Firsts, the live product, and weekly updates. Real work for college applications.
Hand repeat work to agents on the Fractary Platform (Faber, Codex; Apache-2.0).
For parents
AI already writes the code, drafts the copy, and answers the questions. Your teen learns to direct it toward a real result instead of using it for homework.
A business class teaches concepts. Make First requires your teen to talk to ten real strangers, ship a live product, and get someone who is not family to pay them.
Every gate produces evidence: a live URL, a paying customer, a P&L. That becomes a public Maker Portfolio, real work instead of another line on a resume.
The guarantee
If the business your teen builds in the program has not earned back the tuition in gross profit within 12 months of enrollment, we refund the tuition in full.
This page is a summary. The enrollment agreement governs.
Read the full guarantee →Make First Academy
Each stage of the Path has its own module. Lessons are landing module by module; here is what is ready so far.
60 min
Learn why building something real for strangers, with AI, beats writing a plan no one asked for.
60 min
Map the six gates and Firsts of your 12-week semester, and block the calendar time to hit them.
90 min
Set up the accounts you need and learn to use Claude as a thinking partner, not an answer machine.
Founding cohort pricing
$2,500 one-time, 12 months
Founder
Founder, Make First and The Fractary
Built by Josh McWilliam, who runs a one-person AI venture studio and built Make First so his own kids could do the same thing at their age.
joshmcwilliam.com →Five to eight hours a week for twelve weeks, timed to fit inside a normal school semester. The last stage of the Path is built around getting the business running in under 10 hours a week so it stays sustainable after that.
That's normal, and it's what the Spark stage is for. The first lessons walk them through finding problems they've actually felt, narrowing to one, and talking to ten real people before they build anything.
No. Make First teaches building with AI tools, not software engineering. Teens use AI builders and an AI cofounder to ship a working product without writing code from scratch.
Your teen does. Make First is a program, not a stakeholder or a partner in the business, and takes no equity or revenue share.
Today, weekly group office hours with the founder and a Scoreboard your teen updates by hand. A dedicated parent view of the Path and Scoreboard is in the works, and the founding cohort helps shape it.
No. It is a twelve-week program that runs alongside school, not instead of it. It does not offer academic credit, grades, or a diploma.
Apply for the founding cohort, or send us a question first. A parent or guardian is the account holder either way.