You’ve got agents running. You don’t have a system around them.
Format
Live workshop
With Tim Barker and
Mark Littlewood
PRICE
$2,000
Per Participant
Schedule
Weekly · 4pm UK
Wednesdays, four weeks
Starts
30 September
Doors close at 12 seats
Claude’s doing useful things for you already, drafting, summarising, handling tasks you used to do yourself. But you don’t have visibility into what it’s deciding, no rules it’s required to follow, no way to hand context from one session to the next without starting over. If something goes wrong, there’s no record of what was authorised.
Want to discuss fit before registering? Email mark@businessofsoftware.org
How we solve it
You arrive already holding a working operating system. Bootstrap is prework, not something we build together in the room. Over four weeks, you turn it into something that runs real missions, not a set of documents that sit unused.
SESSION 01
Trust the defaults
Week one confirms what you built and how the system behaves by default: nothing acts without your approval, nothing goes out under your name without a human checking first.
SESSIOn 02
Find the Mission worth running
Week two turns your bootstrap and a workshop pass into the thing worth acting on in your business, and closes by specifying the agent that mission needs.
SESSIOn 03
Run it, start a second one
Week three is running it, and starting a second one.
SESSION 04
Review rhythm for two misssions
Week four is the review rhythm that keeps two missions running at once without you losing track.
You don’t leave with a stack of documents to file away. You leave with two missions already doing something for your business, and the operating system underneath them: a CLAUDE.md that reflects how you actually run the company, and a specified agent or two doing real work inside it.
COHORT SCHEDULE 1
| Session | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sep 30 | 4pm UK |
| 2 | Oct 7 | 4pm UK |
| 3 | Oct 14 | 4pm UK |
| 4 | Oct 21 | 4pm UK |
COHORT SCHEDULE 2
| Session | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oct 28 | 11am UK |
| 2 | Nov 4 | 11am UK |
| 3 | Nov 11 | 11am UK |
| 4 | Nov 18 | 11am UK |
What you get
Four two-hour sessions, one a week, plus a dedicated cohort WhatsApp channel from before session one through 90 days after the programme ends.
You leave with two running missions actively helping you run your business, not a checklist of artifacts. Along the way: a CLAUDE.md that reflects how your business actually works, a specified agent with a clear decision boundary, and a review rhythm you keep using after the cohort ends.
This is for founders and CEOs already using AI tools without a governing system around them. You need Bootstrap complete before session one; if you haven’t run it yet, do that first.
What you’ll need
The setup is straightforward.
Who’s in the room
Two facilitators, eleven peers, no audience.
Tim Barker
CEO and Co-Founder, Attain IP
Tim Barker has founded five startups and seen the startup journey from every angle. He sold his first company to Salesforce, spent five years in the formative age of cloud computing, taken companies public, and scaled them to several hundred people. Tim is a keen advocate for transparency, eating humble pie, and owning your mistakes. He is also a lifetime learner, which is part of why he felt compelled to ask: “What happens if you’re AI-native from day zero?”
Mark Littlewood
Founder, Business of Software
Mark has run Business of Software for 19 years, two annual conferences, more than 400 practitioner talks, and a community of founders building software companies that last. He has spent that time working out what actually separates the businesses that make it from those that don’t. This workshop is built on the same principle as every BoS event: helping entrepreneurs build better businesses alongside other smart people.
Registration open now
Build Your AI Company Operating System
Pre-requisite: Bootstrap complete before Week 1
$2,000 per participant
The BoS No Quibble Guarantee: if you attend and feel you didn’t get value, we will refund your fee. No questions asked. Questions about fit? Email Mark.Common questions
What’s included in the workshop fee?
Four two-hour sessions, one per week from 30 September, 4pm UK.
What tools do I need before I start?
Claude Desktop, a Claude Pro or Team plan (required for Cowork mode), and to already be using Claude in some capacity in your business. Pre-requisite: Bootstrap complete before Week 1.
How is this different from an AI tools course?
This is not a tools course. It won’t teach you prompting basics or help you choose between platforms. It is about building the operating system underneath your tools, the documented rules, values, decision boundaries, and memory that allow anything you delegate to actually run without you holding it together. There are no paid speaker slots, no frameworks being sold, no sponsor content. The cohort is capped at 12 because peer quality and challenge are part of what you’re paying for, not a marketing tactic.