The Dean Lynn Academy

Put AI to work in the business you already run.

Nineteen tracks. 96 steps. Every one of them ends with a check you run yourself.

For people who already run something and are willing to copy and paste. No theory first.

Start step one freeFind where to start

Step 1 of Getting started with AI, 45 minutes. No account, no card.

What every step gives you

This is step one of Getting started with AI, taken apart and labelled. The same parts, in the same order, run through every step.

Getting started with AI

Pick the job before you pick the tool

Step 1 of 6 · 45 minutes

Open this step, free

  1. What you leave with

    The first line names what exists when you finish. Not what you will have learned.

    By the end of this step

    You finish this step with one job written on one line: the input, the output, the owner, and the minutes it costs every week.

  2. The step in plain English

    Three or four short points for anyone new to the words, before the step proper starts.

  3. The words it leans on

    Each one explained in plain words. Closed until you open it.

    Words used in this step Agent · Input · Output · Frequency · Chatbot
    Agent
    An AI model set up to do one job on its own, from written instructions, instead of waiting for you to type each request.
    Input
    The thing the job starts from. A spreadsheet, an inbox, a folder of invoices. It has to exist somewhere you can point at.
    Output
    What the job produces and where it lands. A list, a row, a draft, sitting somewhere a person already looks.
    Frequency
    How often the job runs, as a real interval. Every Monday at nine, not whenever it feels right.
    Chatbot
    The chat window you type into, such as Claude or ChatGPT. Good for testing an idea. Not where a job should live.

  4. The wrong way beside the right way

    The mistake the step exists to stop, drawn next to what replaces it. A few steps draw how the thing works instead.

    Starting from the tool

    • Open the newest app because the demo looked clever
    • Schedule something inside the hour
    • It wakes, reads, reports that nothing changed
    • No output moved and nothing got decided

    Starting from the job

    • Name one dull weekly job nobody enjoys
    • Write down input, output, owner and minutes
    • Time it once by hand for a before number
    • Pick the tool last, to fit the line
    Starting from the tool gets you something that runs. Starting from the job gets you something you can check.

  5. A worked example

    One invented case, filled in the way you will fill in yours.

    Worked example

    A four-person lettings agency

    The Monday rent check, done by whoever gets in first, usually late.

    Job:       Match this week's bank export against the tenancy list
           and put a list of missing rents in the shared Rents folder
Owner:     Priya
Runs:      Every Monday at 9am
Costs now: 15 minutes per week
Evidence:  The match alone, timed by hand on one Monday

    What to notice

    The whole Monday routine took forty-five minutes. That is over the twenty-minute cut, so it was two jobs. The match goes first. The chasing stays with Priya until the match has earned some trust.

  6. The check you run yourself

    Every step ends here. You run it on your own work, and you tick the box when it passes. Nobody grades it but you.

    Done means

    You can open the source named in your job line and then open the destination named in it, in under a minute each, without asking anyone where they are. The line also names one owner, one interval and one minutes figure. If any of those five is missing or woolly, the line is not finished.

    On the step itself, this is a box you tick.

Find your starting point

Nineteen tracks in four groups. Each ring fills as you tick its steps, with or without an account.

Start

Never had AI do a real job for you. Begin with the first card.

4 tracks · 21 steps · 14 hours 25 minutes

Build

Something that runs without you, and proof that it works.

7 tracks · 35 steps · 28 hours 17 minutes

Sell

It works. Now it has to look right, be found and get paid.

4 tracks · 20 steps · 16 hours 15 minutes

Run

More than one thing to keep going, and the numbers to keep it honest.

4 tracks · 20 steps · 21 hours 50 minutes

Choosing a track cold is the hard part.

Six questions on one page, and none of them is required. They set the order of the tracks and change nothing else. A member gets every track in that order, one step to start on, and, for the lines the answers moved, the answer that moved them. Nothing is kept unless you are signed in.

Answer the six

How it works, and what it costs

  1. Step one is open

    Step one of every track is open to everyone, in full. No account, no card.

  2. Tick as you go

    Tick a step signed out and the tick is kept in this browser until you close it. Sign in straight after and it comes with you.

  3. The rest is included in Membership

    Every step after the first is included in Membership. It is the one membership, the same one that opens the Vault library.

Included in Membership

£79a month

Every step after the first is included in Membership.

Cancel any month. 30-day refund.

No VAT added. One membership for the Academy and the Vault.

See Membership

Who this is for, and who it is not

What this is not

  • Not teaching about AI. Nothing here explains what a large language model is, because that has never once been the reason somebody failed to ship.
  • Not a reading experience. Every step has a Do it now section, and the check at the bottom is run on your own work.
  • Not graded by me. Each step ends with a check you run on your own work, and you decide when it has passed.

Who it is for

  • You already run something. A business, a side project, one app or eleven. You have watched an AI demo impress you for an afternoon and then do nothing useful for a month.
  • You are willing to copy and paste. That sounds like a low bar. It is the whole filter.

Who it is not for

  • Anyone who wants to understand it before touching it. The steps assume the opposite order.
  • Anyone who needs a clean result first time. Some steps end with you finding something of yours is broken, and that is the intended outcome.
  • Anyone who will skip the check at the bottom. A step you cannot verify is a step you have not finished.

Straight answers

What people want settled before they start.

Step one costs nothing.
No account, no card, no email address. Open it and do it.
The membership is £79 a month.
The figure is read from the same record checkout charges against. Nobody types it into the page.
Cancel any month. 30-day refund.
Leave and your ticks stay yours. Step one of every track stays open, as it is for everybody.
You sign in before you pay.
So the membership lands on the right account. Then checkout is Stripe’s own page, and your card never touches this site.
The terms are written down.
What is sold, how you pay and how you cancel, on one page.Read the terms
No testimonials, no member count, no reviews.
Step one of every track is open, in full, so you can judge the work itself before you pay for it.
Every step says how long it takes.
77 of the 96 steps take an hour or less.
Two people talking beside a brick wall at a networking event, name badges on

Founders Meet, London

Behind the Academy

Dean Lynn

I put AI into businesses that already run — an operator before I am an adviser.

Stamford, Lincolnshire. Co-founder of Play Fund Win.

Start with step one

Pick the job before you pick the tool, from Getting started with AI. 45 minutes, open to everyone.

Start step one free

The rest can wait until this one passes its check.