10-week live cohort - Founders only
Put AI to Work. Take Your Business Back.
Build an AI-native operating system for your business in 10 weeks. Reclaim your time, ship real workflows, and lead from leverage instead of hustle.
12 seats. Application only. Cohort 1 starts TBD.
7 figures
Bootstrapped SaaS revenue - zero venture money
8 years
In the operator's chair, not on a stage
3 businesses
Running this exact system live, in public
12 seats
In Cohort 1 - applications read by Craig
This isn't theory from someone who left the arena.
Most AI coaching comes from people who stopped operating years ago. Every system in this cohort, I'm running right now - in three businesses, in public, with the numbers on the screen. You don't learn the playbook secondhand. You watch it get written.
Castos
My seven-figure podcast hosting SaaS. I'm rebuilding it AI-native in real time - workflows, agents, headcount calls - and showing the P&L impact as it lands.
FounderLevel
A media business climbing from 17K to 100K+ subscribers on AI-augmented production. You see the content engine and the growth curve, not a highlight reel.
This cohort
The program itself - built, priced, and sharpened in public. You watch the whole thing get made, cohort by cohort, decision by decision.
You don't have an AI problem. You have a system problem.
You've used ChatGPT. You've saved a few prompts somewhere. You've watched the videos at 2x. And your business runs almost exactly the way it did a year ago - because tabs and tricks were never going to add up to a system. Here's what the gap actually feels like:
- 0160-hour weeks held together by hustle, not by leverage.
- 02Marketing happens in the cracks - late, rushed, or not at all.
- 03A dozen ChatGPT tabs open and not one workflow that runs without you.
- 04Competitors shipping faster on AI while your business stays manual.
- 05Your calendar belongs to the business. It stopped being yours a while ago.
- 06And underneath it all: the quiet sense that bootstrapped founders are about to get left behind.
"None of that gets fixed by a better tool. It gets fixed by an operating system - and building yours is the entire job of these 10 weeks."
Craig Hewitt
Founder, Castos & FounderLevel
Teaching from the operator's chair - running Castos and FounderLevel every week, in public.
8 years building. Seven-figure revenue. Zero theory.
I'm Craig Hewitt. For 8 years I've bootstrapped Castos into a seven-figure podcast hosting SaaS. No venture money. No big team to hide behind. Just the work.
For most of those years I was the bottleneck - stuck in the business instead of on it. AI changed that, but not the way the hype promised. It wasn't one magic tool. It was a system: a stack of AI workflows and agents, layered onto the business on purpose, that handed me back real hours every single week.
So I turned that system into a program - taught from the operator's chair, not a stage. I run it on Castos and FounderLevel every week, and I show cohort members exactly what I shipped, what it cost, and what it moved.
That's the difference. I'm still in the arena. You'll build your AI Operating System while I build mine - same week, same problems, numbers on the table.
Four shifts. Operator to AI-native CEO.
This isn't a tour of AI tools. It moves you across the four shifts that separate a founder buried in execution from one running a business with real leverage.
Role
Doer->Leader
You stop being the engine of the business. You start designing it.
Stack
Manual->AI-augmented
Every recurring task gets a workflow or an agent - not another hour of your week.
System
Reactive->Rhythmic
The business runs on a cadence, not on whatever caught fire this morning.
Scale
Plateau->Growth
A clear path to 2x revenue - without stacking on the usual five layers of hires.
Founders who stopped being the bottleneck.
I was the bottleneck on every proposal, every brief, every QBR. Six months in, AI handles first-draft proposals - we win 41% now vs 22% - plus client reporting and meeting prep. I let two contractors go and revenue is up 38%. I haven't worked a Saturday since March.
Our content engine used to take 14 days from idea to live. It's 36 hours now. Email revenue is up 67% YoY because we finally test as fast as we ideate. Best part: I hired my first Head of Ops in October - because for the first time in five years I actually had time to recruit one.
What 10 weeks actually changes
Not a feeling of progress. A measurable before and after - in your hours, your systems, and your numbers.
Where you are now
- 60-hour weeks running on hustle
- Marketing done badly, in spare moments
- ChatGPT tabs everywhere, no system
- Competitors pulling ahead with AI
- The business owns your calendar
- Quietly worried you're falling behind
Where Week 10 leaves you
- An AI Operating System documented and running
- 5-10 AI workflows handling the work that drowned you
- A growth channel producing pipeline on its own
- A 90-day path to 2x revenue without hiring
- 10+ hours a week back, every week
- Ahead of the AI curve - and able to prove it
What you walk out with
Your AI Operating System
A documented OS for your specific business - which functions are AI-augmented, which are AI-led, which stay human, and a framework for what to AI-ify next.
5-10 AI workflows deployed
Real, running, measurable. Support, content, sales follow-up, ops, financial dashboards - you pick based on where you bleed the most time.
One AI-leveraged growth channel
Content, outbound, retention, or product-led - one channel live and measurably producing pipeline by Week 10.
A 90-day roadmap
A concrete plan to operate at 2x revenue without hiring - claw back 20+ hours a week, or stand up a new AI revenue stream.
The alumni network
Membership in the AI-Native Founders network - ongoing peer support and the onramp to the Boardroom tier.
How the 10 weeks work
Three milestones. Each one kills a specific obstacle. Each is built from projects you ship inside your own business - not lessons you sit through.
The goal
10 Hours Back
Run a more productive, more profitable business by applying AI the real way - systems and agents, not another round of random experiments.
Milestone 01
Hidden Hours Found
See exactly where your time leaks - and which work is the best candidate for AI.
Time Leak Audit
Map where your hours actually go, especially the work outside your zone of genius.
AI Opportunity Map
A ranked list of real AI opportunities - not a feed of trendy tools.
First AI Win
Improve one high-value workflow with AI. An early, tangible result you can feel.
Milestone 02
Agents That Work
Move from random AI experiments to agents that produce reliable outcomes.
Agent Design Sprint
Design your first useful agent around a real workflow - inputs, triggers, what good output looks like.
Phased Rollout Plan
A safe path to test, learn, and expand - not zero-to-full-automation overnight.
Agent V1 Build
Ship version one of a working AI agent. A real system, not a folder of notes.
Milestone 03
AI-Native Team
Make AI part of how the business operates - beyond just you.
Team Show & Tell
A rhythm where wins get shared, so AI feels practical instead of threatening.
Bottom-Up Playbooks
Your team finds AI opportunities in their own roles and documents what works.
Always-On AI
The habit of always asking "how can this be faster, better, easier with AI?"
The real reasons founders stall - and why you won't here
"There are too many AI tools. I don't know where to start."
That's exactly what Weeks 1-3 fix. We don't chase tools. We audit your time, rank the opportunities, and ship one win before touching anything fancy. You start with a map, not a feed.
"I don't trust AI to do real work without breaking something."
Good instinct. That's why every agent gets a design sprint and a phased rollout - test small, watch what happens, expand from there. You build the guardrails before you build the scale.
"My team won't actually adopt this."
Adoption dies when it's pushed top-down. Milestone 3 is built bottom-up - show-and-tell rhythms and role-level playbooks so the team shapes how AI gets used. That's the version that sticks.
"I don't have time to add a 10-week program."
The program buys time - it doesn't spend it. By design you ship a First AI Win in the first three weeks. If it isn't paying for its own hours, it isn't working, and we catch that early.
"My business is too different for this to apply."
The AI Operating System is portable - agency, brick-and-mortar, SaaS, productized service, ecommerce, info business. This isn't a vertical playbook. We build the OS around your bottlenecks, whatever they are.
Who Cohort 1 is for
A small room of serious operators - built deliberately, not filled for the sake of it.
This is for you if
- You're a bootstrapped founder running a real business at $100K-$2M+ ARR.
- Your business type doesn't matter - agency, brick-and-mortar, SaaS, ecommerce, productized service, info.
- You do your own marketing, or you want to.
- You're working 50-70+ hour weeks and stuck in execution.
- You're AI-curious but you have tabs, not a system.
- You believe AI will change how businesses operate - and you don't plan to be late.
This is not for you if
- You're pre-revenue or still thinking about starting a business.
- You're $5M+ ARR with a full exec team - you need a Fractional Head of AI, not group coaching.
- You want done-for-you implementation. This is build-it-yourself, with coaching.
- You want AI tactics with no connection to running a real business.
Cohort 1 pricing
Cohort 1 is a beta, and the price says so. It goes up every cohort, in public. This is the lowest this program will ever cost - and it never costs this little again.
Cohort
The full 10-week program.
$2,000
one-time - Cohort 1 beta
- 10 weeks of live group coaching
- All three milestones and nine build projects
- Weekly working sessions + office hours
- Private cohort community
- Session recordings for one year
- AI-Native Founders alumni network
Cohort + VIP
The program, plus direct access to me.
$4,500
one-time - Cohort 1 beta
- Everything in Cohort
- 3 private 1:1 strategy sessions with Craig
- Priority hot-seat every week
- Direct async line for the full 10 weeks
- First-year access to the Boardroom tier when it launches
An honest promise instead of a hype one: a leveraged business is a 12-month transformation, not a 10-week one. What you get in 10 weeks is the operating system and the path - built, running, and proven on your own business. You have to deploy to graduate. The 5-10 workflows are the proof.
The math, in their own words.
I replaced my entire Tier-1 support seat with an AI agent that's better than the human was. CSAT went from 78 to 89. Resolution time dropped from 14 hours to 22 minutes. That one swap saved me $112K in year one and I sleep better because tickets never queue overnight.
I took my first three-week vacation in seven years. Sales calls kept booking themselves through an AI SDR I built in week 4 of the cohort. Revenue grew 18% the month I was gone. The cohort didn't teach me about AI - it taught me that I was the constraint.
Everything else you're wondering
What's the time commitment?+
Plan on 3-5 hours a week - live sessions plus build time. The build time replaces work you already do, badly, by hand. By Week 3 it should be net-positive on your hours.
Is this live or self-paced?+
Live. It's group coaching, not a course. Weekly working sessions, office hours, hot-seats, and a cohort building alongside you. Sessions are recorded if you miss one.
Does my business type matter?+
No. The AI Operating System is portable. Cohort 1 is open to agencies, brick-and-mortar, SaaS, ecommerce, productized service, and info businesses. The OS gets built around your bottlenecks.
Do I need to be technical?+
No. You need to run a real business and be willing to build. We design agents and workflows around how your business actually works - no code required to get a working V1.
What if I fall behind?+
Sessions are recorded, office hours catch you up, and the cohort holds the rhythm. The projects are sequenced so each one is small and shippable.
What do I actually walk away with?+
A documented AI Operating System, 5-10 deployed workflows, one AI-leveraged growth channel running, and a 90-day roadmap. Real and countable - deployment is a graduation requirement, not a hope.
Build the AI-native version of your business
Cohort 1 is 12 founders. It's an application because I want operators who'll deploy, not spectators. Tell me about your business and I'll be in touch.
I read every application myself.