Every week on HN there's a valid thread about vibe coding producing unmaintainable garbage, or someone who built something with Claude over a weekend and can't explain how it works or fix it when it breaks. The gap I keep seeing is that people can't define their problem, don't scope their work, and rarely have exit conditions to test against such that they avoid these. This set of steps is arguably the most important thing you can do if you want something (software or otherwise) that lasts.

Direction runs monthly cohort-based courses where small groups go from idea to shipped MVP in four weeks. Cohorts are 30-40 people max, and instructors (mostly myself with some help from my friends) are people who have built and shipped real things, and we teach how to use AI as an assistive tool not your whole personality. Every project has a defined exit condition before anyone asks their tools to produce anything.

Every student presents what they built on demo day. Graduates join a permanent builders collective that grows with every cohort in a Discord group.

Ultimately we teach people: How to define what they are actually creating, what "done" looks like, how to maintain what they created and ultimately how to know when they have succeeded or failed.

Here's the syllabus:

Week 1: Problem decomposition and exit conditions. Creators have to write down exactly what they are going to present at the end of the course, how they think they will get there and what they plan to do with it after the course ends. Week 2: Prototype. First working version. Doesn't have to be pretty it just has to exist and meet the self defined exit condition. Week 3: MVP Testing and iteration. This is where the exit condition either holds or exposes what was wrong in week 1. Week 4: Demo day. You show however far you got to the cohort, and your plans for the future and get their feedback.

$99/week pay as you go, no long term lock in or special platform junk.

Students pick their project or I have 13 defined project types, each with a written exit condition on the site. Creators own everything they build outright, I don't have any platform dependency, no subscription, no equity taken. The only costs are the weekly fee and your time.

Cohort 0 starts May 4th. Full curriculum and exit conditions at givedirection.com.

Happy to talk through ideas and questions and happy to have anyone who wants to be an instructor let me know.

View the Vision, Mission and Roadmap here:

https://www.givedirection.com/vision.html

HN discount code for 50% off is COHORT-0