Simulation first

Your founder school after school.

An open, free, four-year entrepreneurship curriculum that families run in their own AI assistant. Paper, local files, and honest books. No backend, no accounts, no tuition.

See how a lesson works Get the starter kits

Graduate with US$1M in profit or get your tuition back. Tuition is US$0. A joke with a point: the maximum refund is US$0, and US$1M is an ambitious target, not a promise. Full explanation.

Year 1 · Week 1 · SIMULATION

CoachWelcome to Week 1: your curiosity map. Budget US$0, no external messages. Make your own list first — I will not write it for you.

Cloud (invented)Organizing my drawings, finding game pieces, agreeing when to meet.

CoachPick one you know from experience. What happened last time? And what result would show your idea does not help?

Cloud (invented)I spent 20 minutes hunting a drawing because I forgot the filename.

CoachThat is an observation. “All artists have this problem” would be a hypothesis. Rename five invented files and test it. Saved to your private folder.

Fictional exchange. No real students, customers, or sales.

160weeks, 6 hours each

960hours over four years

40detailed lessons in year 1

US$0tuition, maximum refund US$0

0database writes at rest

The 160-week journey

Forty active weeks a year, around school, rest, and everything else. Week numbers are learning order, not calendar dates — spread a week across two whenever life requires it.

Year 1
Discover and deliver

Weeks 1–40

Map problems, draft offers, build small prototypes, run supervised tests. Ends with a portfolio of 40 deliverables and a defense.
Year 2
Make it repeatable

Weeks 41–80

Narrow focus, write steps others can run, track complete costs. Ten four-week operating projects.
Year 3
Grow with judgment

Weeks 81–120

Test channels, retention, and delegation in small experiments with stop rules. Ten growth or operations experiments.
Year 4
Demonstrate and decide

Weeks 121–160

Reconcile the books, document the evidence, defend the decisions, then close or continue on purpose.

Every cell is one week. Color is the phase it belongs to.

What a lesson feels like

Year 1, Week 1: Your curiosity map. Six hours — three 90-minute blocks plus a 90-minute family review — and one honest deliverable.

Objective: Distinguish observation, opinion, and assumption. List ten everyday frustrations; draft two hypotheses.
Exercises: Map ten problems, invent five synthetic filenames, run one family interview — or labeled roleplay when permission is missing.
Deliverable: A map of ten problems and two hypotheses, kept in the private family folder. Never published.
Completion criterion: You tell observation from assumption without inventing customers. Missing evidence is written down, not filled in.

The family review

An adult listens and asks three questions from the assessment rubric:

What did you observe, and what are you assuming?
How could someone else verify your main claim?
What would you change with half the time or a zero-dollar budget?

A sale is never required. Simulation status stays visible.

What students actually produce

Shapes and rigor, not real businesses. Every sample below is synthetic and labeled SIMULATION.

Interview notes

Neutral questions, one observation, one unchecked hypothesis, and one result that disagrees — kept, not hidden.

SIMULATION — roleplay, no external contact.
Observed: “15 min sorting team lists on paper.”
Hypothesis (unchecked): a one-page bracket saves 10 min.
Counter-result kept: would not switch methods this month.

Prototype

The smallest useful artifact: a one-page bracket for eight invented teams, with instructions a family member can follow in 20 minutes.

8 invented teams · 5 synthetic names · paper only
No publication or payment required.

Pricing model

A price is a hypothesis with a stop rule, tested in small supervised steps — or in simulation.

Scope: one fictional club bracket, 2 hrs, paper only.
Stop rule: setup > 30 min twice → simplify first.
Remedy: redo the bracket or refund before dispute.

Financial records

A cash-basis ledger the included tool can check offline. Simulation rows never inflate real numbers.

id,date,category,amount,mode,evidence
1,2026-01-01,revenue,100,simulation,private-ref-sim-001
2,2026-01-02,opex,25,simulation,private-ref-sim-002

Final portfolio

Forty weekly deliverables, ten projects, a reconciled ledger, a procedure others can run, a pitch — and a written close-or-continue plan.

Graduation = portfolio + defense + demonstrated skills.
Possible with losses. Possible entirely in simulation.

The first five minutes

A family downloads one kit, drops the starter file into a new project, and says one sentence. Fictional walkthrough, SIMULATION throughout.

Download your platform's ZIP from the release kits and unzip it locally.
Create a new project in your AI assistant. Add the starter file plus setup guide first — the current lesson only when needed.
Say: Start OpenFounderSchool. Ask onboarding questions one at a time. Begin year 1, week 1 in simulation mode with a zero-dollar budget.
Answer one question at a time. End with one 20-minute action saved to your private folder.

First exchange · SIMULATION

FamilyStart OpenFounderSchool. Ask onboarding questions one at a time. Begin year 1, week 1 in simulation mode with a zero-dollar budget.

CoachGot it — simulation, US$0 budget, no external messages. First question: what alias should I use for the student?

FamilyCloud (invented alias for this demo)

CoachRecorded. Which age range: under 14, 14–15, 16–17, 18+? An adult confirms eligibility before we continue.

Family14–15. Six hours a week, no budget.

CoachToday: ten small things that were difficult this week. Your list first — then I help you sharpen it.

One platform is enough

The curriculum is identical everywhere; only file handling differs. An adult checks age requirements and terms before any provider is used.

Platform	Best for	Start with
Grok Bot	Families already using Grok; one manually loaded bot	Grok setup
Claude Project	Step-by-step project setup with starter upload	Claude setup
ChatGPT Work	ChatGPT users who prefer project sources or a local folder	ChatGPT setup
Pi	A lightweight local session prompt	Pi setup
Hermes	Running from the repository folder as working context	Hermes setup

Watch it run anywhere

The same Week 1 exchange, shaped by each platform's setup. Pick a tab — the messages play in sequence. Fictional SIMULATION throughout.

Grok · OpenFounderSchool Coach bot

FamilyI pasted COACH.md as the bot instructions and attached STARTER.md.

CoachLoaded. I can read 6 files, including Year 1 Week 1. Simulation mode, US$0 budget — confirmed?

FamilyConfirmed. Six hours a week, no external messages.

CoachThen we begin with ten everyday frustrations. Your list first — I will not write it for you.

One manually loaded bot. No native import, no connected accounts.

Free means free

MIT-licensed curriculum and code. Copy, modify, and redistribute, commercially if you like.
No backend, no accounts, no telemetry. At rest: 0 AI calls and 0 database writes.
No subscriptions required. Choose one AI platform or work on paper. Provider costs are theirs, not ours.
No accredited-school replacement. A portfolio and defense, not a diploma. Real sales are optional and supervised.

Ready? Read Start Here with a parent, pick one platform, and begin year 1, week 1.