On Friday, October 2 at 11:00am–2:00pm ET, Wyndo and I are officially kicking off our year-long Agentic Academy mastermind with a 3-hour bootcamp on ChatGPT Sites.
The mastermind has one job: to keep you at the practical frontier of AI, where new tools have just become useful enough to change how you work and earn. Put differently, we find and then help you capitalize on the highest leverage AI opportunities so you can:
Become more efficient
Get smarter
Make more money
Have a large, positive impact
Every month, we will:
Go deep on one AI breakthrough and what it means for your work.
Walk you through how to set it up and customize it.
Help you strategize how to “productize” it in your career and business.
In this email, I’ll tell you about the mastermind in detail so you can determine whether you’re a good fit or not. I’ll also provide you with information on the bootcamp, if you want to sign up just for that.
What Most People Miss About ChatGPT Sites
If you think ChatGPT Sites is just about building a website, you’re missing the magnitude of what’s happening right now.
In the last two articles in this series, I showed you what Sites has made possible for me:
8 apps in 4 weeks, including Think With MODELS, a database of 600+ thinking moves, and Bestseller Playbook, which maps the patterns behind the most enduring New York Times bestsellers of all time. Hiring out the branding and programming for apps like these would have cost well over $100,000.
A research machine that runs while I sleep. See Then Build searches X every night for new AI demos worth learning from, keeps the best ones, and has them waiting for me each morning. I built it in about 15 hours without writing code, and now I check it more than 10 times a day.
Sites is one of the four biggest AI game-changers for high-level knowledge workers, coaches, consultants, thought leaders, and experts since 2022.
Here’s how to contextualize the shift that Sites has introduced:
Shift #1 - ChatGPT (usability): AI could answer any question in an easy-to-use chat interface. OpenAI’s GPT-3 models had been available to developers through its API since 2020, but the easy-to-use chat interface is what made AI explode.
Shift #2 - Claude Sonnet 3.5 (model quality): AI models got good enough to provide real value with little effort. Previous versions of AI required a lot of effort to create mediocre results, which often made interactions frustrating and less practical than not using AI.
Shift #3 - Claude Code (agentic harness): AI gained the ability to read, change, and create files on your own computer, allowing you to build a customized workspace where AI works as a collaborator instead of just a conversation partner.
Shift #4 - ChatGPT Sites (usability and distribution): What you’ve built with AI (your data, your IP, your skills and agents) becomes something other people can see, use, and pay for.
At a fundamental level, ChatGPT Sites is two breakthroughs in one:
Anyone Can Build. It’s an all-in-one solution connected to your ChatGPT memory and credits that allows non-coders and non-designers to do world-class coding and design. It is the most usable vibe-coding platform for non-technical people. What separates Sites from vibe coding tools like Lovable, Bolt, Replit, and Cursor is that it almost completely hides the technical complexity of launching a fully working website or app. You build through a simple conversation, whereas the others still assume some understanding of code, databases, and integrations. Said differently, Sites is the ChatGPT moment for vibe coding.
User Interface. It allows you to turn your data and AI skills/agents into real value that other people can interact with. Before ChatGPT Sites, agentic AI automated and augmented the workflow you did in private. Then, you manually shared the output somewhere. But with ChatGPT Sites, people can interact with and pay for your skills and agents without having to learn AI. This dramatically increases the market for your AI-powered services.
Sites marks a shift that’s easy to overlook and costly to miss: the tools you create with AI can now become something other people use and pay for.
Given how important this is, we’re going deep on it in our very first bootcamp…
We Will Walk You Through Building Your First ChatGPT Site
During our time together, you’ll build alongside us and learn how to:
Choose a Site to build that could transform your career or business.
Make your Site look beautiful, even if you’re not a designer.
Set up the behind-the-scenes parts (like a database and user sign-ins), even if you’re not a coder.
Put your Site on your own address, like yourname.com.
Monetize your Site (we’ll cover 5 ways).
You’ll walk away with a real working Site that will provide you with real value, not just notes on how to build one.
Plus: A Skill That Does Much of the Building for You
On top of learning how to build a Site, you’ll also get an AI skill that does much of the design work for you. You start with a website you already admire, and the skill takes it from there:
Start from any website you find inspiring. Give it a link to a site you love and use that as your starting point, so you never face a blank page.
See exactly how it’s put together. The skill breaks the site into its parts: the layout, the sections, the fonts, the colors, the spacing, and the small details that make it feel polished.
Know what it takes to build it. You get a plain-English breakdown of every piece needed to recreate that look in your own Site. You don’t need to know design terms to follow it.
Make it yours. Tell the skill about your brand, your offer, and your audience. It helps you bring in your own words, colors, and content, so your Site keeps the structure you liked and looks like you.
Let it do the building. Once you’ve shaped the plan, the skill builds the Site for you. Your time goes into the decisions only you can make: what to say, who it’s for, and what you want visitors to do.
Look professional without being a designer. You borrow the design sense of sites you already trust, so your first version looks finished.
Use it again for your next build. When you want a new Site, landing page, or lead magnet, run the skill with a new reference.
This Sites bootcamp is just the first of 12 mastermind sessions we’ll hold over the next year, and for each one, we’ll be creating tools like this skill to make it even easier for you to build high-value systems and products for your business.
Why Keeping Up With AI Feels Impossible
AI is evolving faster and faster. Every few months it gets more powerful, and every few months it gets more complex. Riding that wave is overwhelming:
The sheer quantity. New models, features, tools, and demos show up every day.
Separating signal from noise. A handful of these updates will change how you work. Most won’t. From the outside, they look the same.
The constant feeling of falling behind. No matter how much you keep up, it feels like someone else has already figured out the thing you haven’t tried yet.
Content made for coders. Most AI information is written by and for technical people. If you’re not one of them, you’re left to translate it yourself.
We Cut Through the Noise For You
Our rule is more signal than noise: more practical value, less information you simply consume. Staying at the frontier of AI is our full-time job. Here’s what that looks like behind the scenes:
We explore the news.
We find what’s worth testing.
We keep what works.
We keep refining it until it gets a result.
We share only what gets you that result.
Most of that process is waste: dead ends, overhyped tools, and experiments that go nowhere. The waste is necessary, but you don’t have to be the one who goes through it.
We’re your translation layer. We take breakthroughs that are usually explained for technical people and translate them into practical results for your work and business.
In short, you get the result without the dead ends.
What It’s Worth To You
We put roughly 120 hours into each month’s breakthrough so you don’t have to. On top of the time, we save you the frustration of setting up tools that don’t work as promised, and we give you a head start with choosing the highest-leverage projects for your business.
But the bigger return is what you can do with it. Each new breakthrough can give you up to 10x the leverage, which shows up as:
Better work, and more of it. Higher quality and more output.
More clients. Attract more clients, and have the capacity to handle them.
Higher prices. When you offer more, you can charge more.
More sales per client. Give clients more ways to buy from you, more often.
New products. Launch new offers, or expand the ones you already have.
Less time. Get the same work done in a fraction of the time.
What Happens If You Fall Behind
Falling behind with AI doesn’t happen all at once. It happens a month at a time.
Each breakthrough builds on the last. Skip a few, and the next one gets harder to understand, harder to set up, and harder to put to work. Meanwhile, the people you compete with for clients and attention are shipping tools, offers, and content that used to take a team.
Every month you wait, the gap gets wider and more expensive to close.
Don’t Do It Alone
Staying at the frontier is a long game, and long games are where most people stall. They hit a technical snag, lose momentum, and quietly stop.
It’s even harder when you’re doing it by yourself. Chances are, most of the people around you aren’t excited about AI. Many are skeptical, and some are openly against it. That makes it hard to share how your world is changing, let alone find someone to build with.
The mastermind gives you a group of non-technical builders on the same path. When you get stuck, you get unstuck fast. When you build something, you have people to show it to. And along the way, you’ll meet potential collaborators for whatever you build next.
From Foundation to ROI
If you’ve been through the Agentic Academy cohort (or you’ve been building with tools like Claude Code or Codex on your own), you already have the foundation: the context and understanding to work with AI agents.
The mastermind is about the return on that foundation. Each month, we help you choose the right build, set it up so it keeps working for you, and turn it into something people use and pay for.
Over a year, that adds up to 12 new systems you’ve built.
What You Get Inside the Year-Long Mastermind
#1. A Monthly 3-Hour Mastermind Session ($6,000 value)
Each month, we’ll go deep on one topic at the frontier of AI that has just become practical and valuable for coaches, consultants, thought leaders, and high-level knowledge workers, and walk you through putting it to work.
Your first session is the October 2 Sites bootcamp. Each month’s topic will be announced before each session, so you’ll have time to prepare for the next build.
Every session is recorded, and you’ll get the full set of resources: transcript, chat, links, chapter guides, summary, and tutorials.
#2. A Monthly Show & Tell Session With Live Coaching
A live 90-minute call where you share what you’ve built that month.
Get live feedback and coaching from us, so your next version is better.
See how other members applied the same breakthrough to their own work, and borrow the ideas that fit yours.
Part inspiration, part accountability, part relationship building.
#3. Ongoing Community (unlimited Q&A)
Ask as many AI questions as you like in our WhatsApp community, and get an answer from us within 48 hours.
Share your builds, wins, and lessons learned with the community and learn from others.
#4. A Monthly Asset (skill, template)
At every session, we’ll share a comprehensive skill, plugin, agent, or template tied to that month’s topic, one that will save you at least 10 hours and a lot of painful trial and error.
Each one is something we’ve identified as high-leverage and tested thoroughly.
#5. 6 One-on-One Calls: First 20 Members Only ($2,000 value)
2 with me, 2 with Wyndo, and 2 with Bonnie Johnston.
30 minutes each, for help with your own builds, your strategy, or anything else you want help with.
These calls are also an opportunity for us to have a personal relationship so our class and community interactions can be more aligned and fruitful.
Available only to the first 20 people who join.
Who This Mastermind And Bootcamp Are For
The mastermind and the Sites bootcamp are designed for:
Active AI users who aren’t technical. You don’t need to be a designer. You don’t need to be a coder.
People who want to be on the practical frontier: those who care about leveraging the latest AI models and features to productize and monetize their skills, and who want to stay ahead of 95% of others.
You’ll get the most out of it if some of these sound like you:
You’ve started letting AI work directly on the files on your computer, with tools like Claude Code and Codex.
You’ve built something you rely on: a skill, a custom GPT, a project, or a prompt library.
You keep seeing AI demos and thinking “I could use that,” but you’re not sure how to build your own version.
You learn best by building, not by watching.
You want new income from what you already know: a paid tool, a members-only resource, a lead magnet people actually use.
Who It’s Not For
You’re brand new to AI. We assume you already use ChatGPT, Claude, or a similar tool regularly.
You want a roundup of AI news. We go deep on one breakthrough a month instead.
You’d rather watch than build. The value comes from putting each month’s breakthrough to work.
Sign Up For The Mastermind And Get 58% Off
Starts
Friday, October 2, with the Sites bootcamp, 11:00am–2:00pm ET, live on Zoom.
Length
12 months.
Price
$2,500, or 6 monthly payments of $500.
What It Includes
12 monthly 3-hour mastermind sessions, starting with the October 2 Sites bootcamp, each recorded with full resources.
12 monthly 90-minute Show & Tells.
Our WhatsApp community, with answers from us within 48 hours.
A new skill, plugin, agent, or template every month.
Six 30-minute one-on-one calls with me, Wyndo, and Bonnie (first 20 members only).
The 58% Off Deal
A single bootcamp is $500. And, it allows you to dip your toes in before diving in.
Our primary goal, though, is to build a growing mastermind with long-term people playing long-term games. Therefore, the full mastermind is heavily discounted.
If you were to individually buy all 12 bootcamps, you would pay $6,000. If you sign up for the mastermind, you get them all for $2,500.
If you start with the bootcamp and upgrade after October 2, the full year costs $2,750 ($500 now, plus $2,250 to upgrade). Joining the mastermind now saves you $250.
Not only that, joining the full mastermind gets you lots of other goodies:
Show & Tells
Community
One-on-one calls
The first 20 people who join get 6 one-on-one calls with us. Once those spots are gone, the mastermind still includes everything else, but the calls won’t be available.
Not Ready for a Full Year?
If you want to sample the mastermind or you’re just curious how you can build with ChatGPT Sites, you can join the October 2 bootcamp by itself.
(If you decide to join the mastermind after the October 2 bootcamp, you can upgrade for $2,250, for a total of $2,750.)
Date
Friday, October 2, 11:00am–2:00pm ET
Price
$500
What It Includes
The live 3-hour bootcamp, where you’ll build a Site alongside us.
/site-builder, an AI skill that turns a website you admire into a plan for your own Site, then builds it for you.
The recording and full resources (transcript, chat, links, chapter guides, summary, and tutorials), so you won’t miss anything if you can’t attend live.
Prerequisites
Building a Site takes a lot of ChatGPT usage. ChatGPT’s Plus plan ($20/month) includes Sites, but its limits run out quickly when you’re building, so you’ll need ChatGPT Pro at least (from $100/month).
Praise For The Agentic Academy
The Agentic Academy launched its first 10-week cohort in June, and it was resoundingly successful. Here’s what some of our participants had to say about their experience:
Faythe B., Therapist-Coach and Personal Mastery Consultant
Michael P., Founder of Modacity
Janet R., Host of the Now What? Podcast and Newsletter
Our next cohort will be January 18. Until then, our focus will be this mastermind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if I can’t attend a session live?
Every session is recorded, and you’ll get the full set of resources: transcript, chat, links, chapter guides, summary, and tutorials.
Which ChatGPT plan do I need?
For the Sites bootcamp, you’ll need ChatGPT Pro (from $100/month). The Plus plan includes Sites, but its usage limits run out quickly when you’re building. Future sessions may use different tools, and we’ll tell you ahead of time what each one requires.
Do I need to know how to code or design?
No. The mastermind is built for active AI users who aren’t technical.
What will you cover after October?
We choose each month’s topic based on which AI breakthrough has just become most practical and valuable, so we don’t lock in the year in advance. We’ll announce each topic ahead of the session.
How is this different from the 10-week Agentic Academy cohort?
The cohort teaches the fundamentals of working with AI agents. The mastermind keeps you current after that, going deep on one new breakthrough each month.
I bought the bootcamp. Can I upgrade later?
Yes. After the October 2 bootcamp, you can upgrade to the full mastermind for $2,250. With the $500 you paid for the bootcamp, that’s $2,750 for the full year (compared with $2,500 if you join the mastermind now).
How do the one-on-one calls work?
The first 20 people who join the mastermind get six 30-minute calls: 2 with me, 2 with Wyndo, and 2 with Bonnie. Use them for help with your own builds, your strategy, or anything else.
Where does the community live?
In our WhatsApp group. Ask as many AI questions as you like, and you’ll get an answer from us within 48 hours.
Is there a refund policy?
Yes. If the mastermind isn’t right for you, email us at support@thoughtleader.school within 14 days of the first session and we’ll refund you in full. If you’re on the payment plan, we’ll refund what you’ve paid and cancel the remaining payments. The Sites bootcamp is fully refundable until it begins on October 2.
There are two ways for you to start.
If you want to stay at the practical frontier of AI all year, with a group of non-technical builders beside you, join the mastermind. Your first session is the October 2 Sites bootcamp.
If you’d rather start with Sites and decide later, join the bootcamp on its own. If you upgrade after October 2, it’s $2,250 more to get the full year.
Either way, we’ll see you on October 2.
Michael
P.S. The 6 one-on-one calls go to the first 20 people who join. Once those spots are filled, they’re gone.
The claim is that Sites is the ChatGPT moment for vibe coding because it hides technical complexity from non coders but the prerequisites tell a different story you need ChatGPT Pro at $100/month before the bootcamp even starts because Plus limits run out quickly. Anyone can build keeps running into a pricing wall that most of the anyone can't clear.
Hi Michael, I am super blown away by what you et al are doing. How can I tell if I'm one of the first 20? If I'm not, can I pay extra for the 6 one-on-one sessions? Thank you! Gene