Before you approve the AI budget, spend one day finding out first-hand whether it's real. You'll have built something that works, with your own hands, by 6pm. More importantly, you'll know what that means for the decision on your desk.
It is for board members, owners, and managing partners who must approve AI they cannot personally judge. No prior use of AI is required.
Book Your DayIn person: Lausanne, Geneva, or your office. One day a week, four a month. Cette page existe en français →
If you can't personally judge what's feasible, you can't evaluate the vendor, staff the team, or lead the change. Feasibility judgment has quietly moved into the job description: yours, not just your CTO's. Like reading a balance sheet, it can be informed by others; it can't be delegated to them. And there is only one way to acquire it: first-hand.
Before you can ask what you would build today, you need to know what today allows.
We start with your world, not slides. You see it live, in front of you: what AI builds in an hour versus what your last IT quote said would take six months. Calibration begins with disbelief.
It is not a to-do app but a real tool for your firm, chosen together before the day. You describe it. You build it. I guide.
Then we push, deliberately, until it breaks. Where AI fails is more valuable to you than where it succeeds: this is the part no demo will ever show you.
We work out what today means for your roadmap, your vendors, and the shape of your team: which projects are now weekend-sized, which are still real engineering, and how to tell the difference.
You open it on your own phone before you leave: a private web address for thirty days, the folder yours, plus a framework for triaging every future proposal.
The day adapts to where you are, not the other way round. We decide your starting point together on a fifteen-minute call before the day.
It is the best starting point, not the worst. It starts with an hour talking to a model about your own business, then a build over your own documents. The wall you hit is what the vendor's slides were hiding.
This is the classic day: a real tool for your firm, built by you, running by the afternoon. Then we push it until it breaks.
Someone told you these models are dumb, and they were half right. Your day covers building with a coding agent, hitting the real wall, then the harness that makes the output trustworthy. You leave precisely right instead of vaguely wrong.
None of it adds to the judgment the day is for. An app in your browser, on your phone, teaches you exactly what an app in a store would.
In a group workshop, executives perform. Alone, they learn. This day is private by design: your real problems, your real data if you wish, an NDA if you want one, and every question you'd never ask in front of your CTO. And it is in your words, not mine: three new words an hour at most, and a one-page glossary before you arrive.
Who sign build-buy-hire decisions about AI every week, and want to sign the next one on first-hand judgment, not a vendor's word.
Who approve transformation budgets and want first-hand evidence of what the technology actually does, before the next vote.
Of firms where the product is expertise, and who need to know how much of it machines can now deliver.
It is one full day, one-to-one, in person, and it is fully credited against any advisory engagement started within 90 days: if we keep working together, the day was free.
You leave with a working tool, inside the scope we agreed, or you get your money back. If it stops working in the first thirty days, one call fixes it or I refund the day.
The 21-page workbook: the constitution, the gates map, the loop. It is $47 on its own, and yours before the day.
The one-page checklist I use in the room, and the twelve antibodies profiled.
To see what you did with the tool, what broke, and what it changed about the decision.
One offer. One price. One day a week, four a month. No procurement process required.
Choose a date, answer four questions, confirm with payment. Then we take fifteen minutes on a call to choose the problem and your starting point, in writing. Your day is locked in, and I arrive prepared.
Prefer to talk first? Book 15 minutes — free →
No. Never having typed into one of these is the best starting point, not the worst: it's where the day teaches the most. The starting point is decided on a fifteen-minute call before the day: when you last used one and for what, whether you've ever asked it for something it got wrong, and what decision is on your desk.
Then we cut it to the part that can, before the day, in writing. A tool that runs in your browser on your own data is a day. Publishing to an app store, connecting to company systems with credentials, or anything that needs IT approval is follow-on work, not the day, and none of it adds to the judgment the day is for.
You leave with a working tool, inside the scope we agreed, or you get your money back. If it stops working in the first thirty days, one call fixes it or I refund the day.
The day is in your words, not mine. There are three new words an hour at most, and a one-page glossary before you arrive. If a term isn't in it, I'm not allowed to use it.
Bring the export and the decision. There is nothing to install: we build on my machine, with my tools and my subscription, your hands on the keyboard. Your work laptop stays closed: no IT ticket, no proxy, no permissions. The tool is delivered at a private web address for thirty days, plus the folder. Your data is deleted from my machine at thirty days; an anonymized export is fine; NDA on request.
It is in person: Lausanne, Geneva, or your office. Watching your own hands build the thing is the product; a screen share dilutes it. Awake, by contrast, also works online.
Nothing you're obliged to. The tool is yours. If the day surfaces a real stall in your organization, the next step is Awake, and the CHF 3,500 is credited against any engagement started within 90 days.
It takes one day to replace second-hand opinions about AI with first-hand judgment, and the tool is a bonus.
Book Your DayCurious first? → Read: Dan Shapiro's 5 Levels of Vibe Coding.
Not sure you need the day? → Take the free 5-minute diagnostic.
Field notes on stalled AI transformation, executive judgment, and the specification economy — the weekly letter behind Book 2. About once a week. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.