How It Runs What You Learn Firesides How You Win The Stakes Dates & Cities

Founders Weekend · Ages 9–16

Learn To Make Money
Before You Can Drive A Car.

One weekend. A room full of other kids building. Real mentors who've done it. You come in with an idea and leave with a real business — and a clear plan to make your first $10,000 in 90 days.

Find Your City ↓

[ FREE ][ 30 SPOTS / CITY ][ SOLO OR TEAMS OF 3 ]

How It Runs

Friday Dinner
To Sunday Awards.#

Three days, about sixteen hours of real building, wrapped around workshops, mentors, meals, and firesides. No overnights — hard wrap times are published in advance so families can plan.

Find your idea

Friday

5:00 PM

Doors, dinner, meet the room

Food from the start and a room full of other kids who came to build. Find your people before the work starts.

6:00

Kickoff + idea workshop

Pick something you actually know or care about, figure out your angle on it, and put it on the wall.

8:00

Building starts

Tools go live and mentors start floating. Nobody leaves tonight without sending their first few messages to real people.

10:00

Hard wrap

No overnights — go home, sleep on it, come back hungry.

Build & get out there

Saturday

9:00 AM

Workshops that actually help

How to build the smallest thing that works, and how to get 20 strangers to look at it — then straight back to building.

All day

Long build blocks

Mentors floating table to table, the leaderboard climbing on the wall, real customers piling up.

1:00 PM

Lunch with a guest founder

Someone who built a real business young. They eat with you and answer anything.

6:30

Dinner + Joe Liemandt fireside

The story Joe almost never tells, then open Q&A with the whole team.

Ship & win

Sunday

9:00 AM

Final sprint + film your story

Get your last conversations in and record the 3-minute video of what you built — the one you take home.

5:00 PM

Showcase

Every team at their own station with what they made. Mentors and judges walk the floor and hear you out.

6:30

Finals on stage

The top five teams pitch live, three minutes each, in front of everyone.

7:00

Awards + after-party

The winner gets announced, the First Dollar bell rings one more time, and everyone celebrates over pizza.

This is your weekend, not a family field trip. Parents get their own Friday-night fireside and are welcome at Saturday dinner — but the rest of the time it's you and a room full of other builders.

What You'll Learn

Skills They Don't
Teach You In School.#

By Sunday you'll have actually done all of this — not read about it, not watched a video. Real reps, on your own business, with founders right next to you.

IDEAS

Spot A Real Business

How to tell a money-making idea from a hobby — find a problem people will actually pay to fix, in a niche you already know.

BUILD

Vibe-Code Your MVP

Use AI to build a working landing page, app, or product in an afternoon — no computer-science degree required.

SELL

Get Strangers To Say Yes

How to walk up to someone you've never met, pitch in ten seconds, and get a real yes, no, or dollar. The skill that beats everything else.

MONEY

Charge For It

Pricing, payment links, and the mindset shift of asking a real human for real money — and not flinching.

AUDIENCE

Make People Care

Tell your story on camera and online so people actually pay attention — the same playbook behind the videos on this page.

GRIT

Handle The No

Most people quit at the first rejection. You'll get told no all weekend, keep going, and learn why every no gets you closer.

The Firesides

Two Stories You Won't
Hear Anywhere Else.#

While the kids build, the founders behind Alpha make the case in person — plainly, and off the usual script.

Friday Night · For Parents

MacKenzie Price

Before a single line of code is written, the Alpha co-founder tells the story that started all of it — the afternoon her second-grader came home and said school was boring, the principal who told her changing it would be like steering the Titanic, and her decision to stop asking and build something new. What she got wrong, what took years to get right, and what it takes to bet your own kids on an idea before anyone else believes in it.

Saturday Night · Everyone

Joe Liemandt

He left Stanford, funded his first company on fifty maxed-out credit cards, built the first company to sell a billion dollars of artificial intelligence, and landed on the cover of Forbes at twenty-seven — then spent most of his life out of public view. He almost never does this. On Saturday night he tells the founder's story he rarely tells, and answers the only question that matters: why bet everything on a different way of learning.

How You Win

Four Things
Get Graded.#

Sunday night, every team stands at their own station with what they built and who they talked to. Mentors and outside founders walk the floor and score you on four things — and no, a pretty slideshow isn't one of them.

Four parts, all the same size — no extra credit for fancy fonts.

01Your Angle

Did you find a real, unexpected take on your niche — or something generic anyone could say?

02You Shipped

Did you get a real thing in front of real people, not just talk about it?

03You Hustled

How many real strangers did you actually get in front of? 20 was the target.

04You're Honest

Did you own what flopped and show what you learned? Fakers finish last.

Revenue is a tiebreaker, not a requirement. And First Dollar Club members get celebrated on the spot and again at awards — regardless of where they place.

The Stakes

One Team Wins Big.
Nobody Leaves Empty-Handed.#

You came to build something real — so you leave with something real, whether you win or not.

The winning team

Mentorship on Your Business

The winning team gets a private working session with one of the mentors who was in the room, ensuring they know the next best steps for their business and how to keep their entrepreneurship education going.

Every participant

01A real business you actually started — not a mock-up
02Your 3-minute video, ready to post anywhere you want
03A clear plan to make your first $10,000 in 90 days
0490 days of free tool credits so you can keep building
05First Dollar Club status — earn a stranger's dollar, ring the bell

Summer 2026

Six Cities.
Thirty Spots Each.#

Free for accepted participants, but spots are limited — applying takes two minutes: name, email, and one honest paragraph on why you (or your kid) should be in the room. Venues are shared with accepted families.

July 17–19, 2026 · Fri 5:00 PM – Sun 7:30 PM