Learn how to successfully build and ship your first software product in four to six months

Let's be straight: you're here because you have an idea for a product.

You're eager to get it built, but you're having trouble seeing how all of the pieces fit together.

You’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks—maybe even a few months or years. Your head is filled with ideas for cool features. Good stuff, too. Things that no one has ever thought of!

You can see the finished product in your head. You’ve sketched it out and mocked it up a hundred times over. You’ve even made an honest attempt at getting it built!

Still, nothing ever comes of it. You sit down to work but when you finish, it doesn't feel like any progress is being made.

Why "learning to code" is only a small piece of the puzzle.

The courses and tutorials on “how to code” are kind of helpful, but something's missing...they don’t explain how to bring the code together into a functioning product. It's like wanting to build a house, understanding how to use a hammer and nails, but not knowing how to draft the blueprints.

You've likely struggled with stuff like:

• 😣 Getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work you need to do.
• 😵 Getting your feature ideas to actually work.
• 😈 Knowing what code and tools to trust versus which to avoid.
• 🤔 Not knowing which features to build first and which to save for later.
• 🤓 Figuring out how to write and organize your code so that it works well.
• 😰 Losing progress because of ineffective use (or outright omission) of version control tools like Git.
• 😭 Troubleshooting bugs that kill your momentum.

You’ve probably killed multiple Saturday afternoons at the coffee shop, frustrated, trying to figure out how all of these other people do it.

“It must be because they have experienced people helping them.”

You're right. And that's exactly what you need! Someone who knows what they're doing, someone you can trust, somebody who has already done it. A co-founder of sorts who has their hands in your product and can actually help you get something shipped. But co-founders are hard to come by and mean you have to give up a percentage of your company…

This feels impossible. Like you may as well give up, call it quits, kill your dreams, stick with the day job, and just suck it up—everybody can’t do what they want to do in life, right?

Well, maybe.

It’d be great if you could “learn to code in thirty days” and be a millionaire in sixty but you know that’s not realistic. That “Get Ripped in Seven Days” video on YouTube didn’t pay off and despite your optimism you’re pretty sure the “Become a Developer in Two Weeks” one will leave you hanging, too.

You know you can be great at this, but you need some help getting your stuff together. To work with someone who can level with you and set some realistic expectations. Someone who’s not afraid to tell you the truth. Someone who actually wants to help you succeed instead of take your cash and move on to the next sucker.

That's where we come in.

Together is a 1-on-1 mentorship service from Clever Beagle, designed for people who want to learn how to build a product while having the safety and security of having an experienced advisor by their side.

We went from zero to finished product in a few months. I definitely recommend getting on the program with Clever Beagle.

With our help, you won't have to sit and dream about your product idea: you can actually turn it into a reality. Here's a rough outline of what four to six months working with your mentor will look like:

• 1 Month
• Ideation, Planning, and Process

  We’ll teach you how to triage ideas for your product, set priorities, and map out a plan for the features we'll build together.

• Set Up Your Tooling

  We’ll set up your text editor, version control, and teach you an efficient and tidy process for managing your code.

• Deploy a Landing Page

  Learn how to set up and deploy a landing page for your product so you can start collecting emails during development.

• 2-4 Months
• Accounts, Auth, and Payments

  Learn how to set up the foundation of your customer's accounts and authorization so that users are smoothly—and securely—routed through your product.

• Onboarding

  Design and build the first steps customers take after signing up for your product to increase retention and engagement.

• Core Feature Development

  Learn a step-by-step process for feature development and work with your mentor to implement your product's core features.

• Marketing Sessions

  One session per month focused on marketing your product and defining a strategy to attract new customers.

• < 1 Month
• Learning to Iterate

  We'll discuss why shipping your MVP isn't the end. Learn how to think about iteration and improving your product.

• Launch Prep

  We'll focus on testing, last-minute tweaks, and discuss how to leverage the mailing list you built during development.

• Launch Day

  We'll work with you to deploy, promote, and troubleshoot any issues with your launch.

After your MVP is launched, you can continue to work with us to further iterate on your product's features, iron out your strategy, and get help with things like marketing. We're in it for the long haul. Not only do we want to see you ship your idea, we want to help to see it grow and give you a solid footing long into the future.

To help you get there, here's what we're asking:

So, listen. We know that Together is insanely valuable. And delivering that much value requires a TON of focus and energy.

In order to deliver the best possible experience for you, Together is only available on a limited basis, four times per year. We also limit ourselves to five customers per mentor, per cycle, so space is at an absolute premium.

With Clever Beagle, no matter what I made progress during mentor meetings each week, and I had more motivation to see what I could accomplish on my own. If you’re serious about building a product, Clever Beagle will dramatically increase your chances of getting it done.

If you're interested in working with a mentor, we ask that you submit an application. If we think you're a good fit for the program, we'll schedule up a 30 minute interview to talk through your idea, learn more about you, and get a feel for which mentor you'd work best with.

If you're accepted, we'll follow up on your interview with a link to pay your first month and book your first appointment with the mentor we feel can help you best with your product.

Fair warning: to keep things fair, we open up applications one month at a time, approximately two months before the start of a new mentorship cycle. This ensures everyone who is interested has a fair shot at working with us throughout the year and can plan accordingly.

Here's our current schedule (subject to change depending on our current cycle) for the 2018-2019 season:

To unlock access to the application and get you up to speed with how we think about products, we've put together a free, seven-day email course called Embark: An Introduction to Building Your First Product.

The course will help you to understand:

• Why it's so important to follow through on your ideas.
• Why software is inherently complex and always takes longer to create than you think.
• How to set priorities based on what your customers need, not what you want.
• Why execution trumps ideas every time.
• How to avoid the "technology trap" and getting caught up in the specifics of your code.
• Why you absolutely must be the best person to build your product (and if you're not, why shouldn't build it).

Do I need to complete the course in order to apply? Yep!

We only want to work with folks who are 100% serious about building their product with us. Once you complete the course, you'll unlock access to your application (we'll pre-fill it with answers you give during the course).