For teens

Make something real. Then sell it.

You pick a problem, build something for it, put it in front of strangers, and ask for money. Twelve weeks, five to eight hours a week. The AI cofounder coaches you through it. It never does the work for you.

What you'll have

What you'll have in 12 weeks

A live product with your name on it

Not a slide deck. Something real, at a public URL, that a stranger can actually open and use.

A stranger who paid you

Someone who is not your parent, your friend, or your teacher, handing over real money for what you made.

A Scoreboard of Firsts

First Idea, First Build, First User, First Dollar, and however far past that you get.

A weekly update habit

A short, written account of what you shipped, every week, whether it went well or not.

The Firsts

Every stage ends at a First

First Idea, First Build, First User, First Dollar, First $1K, First $10K. Track how far you get.

1

First Idea

A one-liner and ten named people who have the problem.
2

First Build

A working version someone else can use, at a public URL.
3

First User

A stranger used it and told you what happened.
4

First Dollar

A real payment from someone you do not know.
5

First $1K

$1,000 in gross profit, with the books kept.
6

First $10K

$10,000 in gross profit, running in under 10 hours a week.

The rules

You talk to real strangers. Not your friends, not your family.
You ask for real money. Free does not count as a sale.
You do the work. The AI cofounder coaches; it does not write your product, your posts, or your sales messages for you.
Your parent is on the account. Payments and domains need someone 18 or older, so a parent or guardian holds those accounts.

Before you apply

Bring your parent

A parent or guardian applies with you. They hold the account, sign the enrollment agreement, and pay the tuition. You do the building, the outreach, and the selling.

Show this page to a parent →

Questions teens ask

How much time does this take each week?

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.

What if my teen doesn't have a business idea yet?

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.

Does this teach coding?

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.

Can my teen do this alongside a regular school schedule?

Yes. The Path is built for 5-8 hours a week over 12 weeks, matched to a semester, and the program never asks a teen to skip school.

How is this different from a business class?

A business class teaches concepts. Make First requires your teen to actually do the thing: talk to ten real strangers, ship a live product, and get a stranger to pay them, with an AI cofounder coaching instead of doing it for them.