PL
Pieter Levels
Solo · 7-figure products
Runs Photo AI, Nomad List and Remote OK from a laptop. Ships every day. His dashboards are public.
Ch. 1 · What is a Product Engineer
Open-source · Project-based · Built by Programmify
Learn to build with AI -
and ship real products.
OpenBuildLab is a free, open curriculum for the next generation of software builders and engineers. Learn by shipping - six real projects, one modern AI stack, zero paywalls.
No credit card. No paywall. 48 hands-on lessons · 6 projects you ship.
$5,000 builder credits pool
Verified certificate
$5K credits Certificate Open source
BW
LiveYour instructor
Ben Weiss - indie AI builder, ex-agency lead
Ships small, applied AI products in public. Course voice is inspired by high-agency builders like Peter Steinberger and Pieter Levels: no theory bloat, no vibe-coding - you'll build real things, on the real stack, with an AI co-pilot as your teammate, not your ghostwriter.
Applied over academicShip in a weekendOne-person startup mindset
10
Chapters
48
Lessons
6
Projects you ship
$5K
Builder credits pool
Curriculum
A curriculum for people who ship
Every chapter is hands-on. You read a little, then you build. By the end you have real projects - not screenshots of tutorials. Work through it in order. Each chapter builds on the last.
For builders and engineers
Stop watching tutorials. Start shipping software.
OpenBuildLab is built around a single idea: the fastest way to become a serious builder is to ship serious things. You'll work with the same tools professional engineers use - agents, editors, databases, deploys - from lesson one.
- ✓Prompting like an engineerSpecs, context, recovery, and clean agent handoffs - not vibes.
- ✓The modern AI stackCodex, Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini, OpenCode - used the way pros actually use them.
- ✓Backends you can reason aboutPostgres, RLS, auth, edge functions, queues - the parts real products depend on.
- ✓Web, mobile, CLIs, agentsShip web apps, Expo mobile apps, npm packages, bots and autonomous agents.
Everything you need. Nothing locked.
No premium tier. No upsell. The whole curriculum is open.
Project-based curriculum
10 chapters, ~40 lessons, 6 real projects you push to GitHub.
AI tutor in every lesson
Ask questions in context. Get explanations tuned to where you are.
Interactive practice
Every lesson tests you with real interactions, not multiple-choice trivia.
Public builder profile
Streaks, badges, shipped projects - a portfolio that grows as you learn.
Progress you can trust
Track what you've learned, what you've shipped, and what's next.
Verified certificate
Finish the curriculum and get a share-ready Programmify credential.
Builders you'll learn from
Real people. Real products. Real playbooks.
Every chapter is anchored to builders who actually shipped - from Buenos Aires to Lagos to Ho Chi Minh City. You don't study them from a distance; you copy the moves that worked.
ML
Marc Lou
ShipFast · $1M+ solo
Failed at 20+ startups before ShipFast. Now his boilerplate outearns most VC-backed startups. His lesson: launch is not a moment, it's a habit.
Ch. 9 · Growth Loops & Distribution
TD
Tony Dinh
Vietnam · TypingMind, DevUtils
Builds tools he wants to use. TypingMind is 'ChatGPT the way I wish it worked.' The whole company is one person, in public, from Vietnam.
Ch. 6 · Working With Agents
AK
Arvid Kahl
Sold FeedbackPanda solo · author
Built FeedbackPanda by living inside the community he served, not by cold outreach. He calls it being an 'embedded entrepreneur' - find the pain from the inside.
Ch. 1 · Picking what to build
JY
Jon Yongfook
Bannerbear · API-first solo
Built Bannerbear as APIs for people who don't want to design. His superpower: a blog post a week for years, ranking for every 'automate X' keyword.
Ch. 9 · SEO for builders
DC
Damon Chen
PDF.ai · solo AI wrapper
Picked the most universal document format in the world and asked one question: 'what if I could just talk to it?' Five-figure MRR from a two-sentence idea.
Ch. 7 · RAG in practice
ND
Nick Dobos
BoredHumans · portfolio of AI bets
Treats each tool as a lottery ticket. Ships 100 small AI utilities; a handful catch fire; the rest are cheap experiments.
Ch. 10 · Founder Capstone
PO
Prosper Otemuyiwa
Lagos · Forloop Africa · DevRel
Built one of Africa's largest developer communities from Lagos, then took his DX craft global. Community IS distribution.
Ch. 9 · Building in public
RC
Rafael Camargo
Brazil · indie shipper
His rule: 'if it takes more than a weekend to prototype, the idea is wrong.' Ship the smallest version, then decide.
Ch. 1 · Ship something in a weekend
EY
Evan You
Creator of Vue & Vite
Started Vue as a side project at Google. Built Vite because his own tools felt slow. His obsession is developer experience.
Ch. 3 · Design Taste for Builders
GR
Guillermo Rauch
Argentina → Vercel & Next.js
Self-taught JS from Buenos Aires. By his 20s, shipping infra the whole web runs on. His belief: the DX is the product.
Ch. 5 · Shipping
FM
Farza Majeed
Founder · buildspace → heyclicky
Sold Dragon Ball Z games on eBay at 13, hit $100K/yr by his teens. Later ran buildspace's Nights & Weekends and put tens of thousands of builders in the same room with a deadline. Now building heyclicky.
Ch. 1 · High agency, from day one
Also woven into lessons: Sahil Lavingia, Simon Willison, Justin Welsh, Kieran Klaassen, John Rush, Yohei Nakajima, Tibo Louis-Lucas, and more.
Join the room
Real builders. Real streaks. Real momentum.
See who is shipping right now on OpenBuildLab, their streaks, and what they just completed. Put your name on the board.
The reward
Ship it all. Share $5,000 in credits.
The first 200 builders who complete every chapter and ship every project split a $5,000 credits pool - plus a Programmify certificate, your repos on the public leaderboard, and a portfolio that speaks for itself.
Frequently asked
Ready to build something real?
Open the curriculum and ship your first project this week.
Start building - it's free