Hi, I'm Mark — I've never written a line of code

Build your own stack.

Isolated systems aren't just inefficient — they're expensive, because someone always ends up paid to be the bridge between them.

Four months ago my business ran across four different companies' systems that never quite talked to each other. So I built my own. It hasn't been easy — it's been messy, real mistakes included — but the benefits have massively outweighed the effort. I'm building this in public: what works, what breaks, what it actually costs.

Reserve a seat → See what you'd build

Built in public. This site runs on the exact stack the course teaches.

The whole idea, in one picture

Scattered across apps, laptops and inboxes — or gathered into one stack you own.

Scattered · everywhere

✂︎

2 hrs/wk

Accounting

Booking / Inventory

Spreadsheets

Files & folders

Email

Customer list / CRM

Newsletter

Automations

Every one of those lines is a person doing the connecting — copying a number, re-typing a booking, chasing an invoice. Cut any one and nothing else even notices.

→

Owned · one system

Claude Codeyour orchestrator

Your databaseone place, one owner

Booking / Inventory

CRM

Newsletter

Automations

Files & folders

Spreadsheets

Accounting

One connected system. Claude Code and your database sit at the centre, every function feeds straight in, and you're the only one who holds the key.

Why it can’t just be copied

Two kinds of ingredients.

Every stack is built from parts you can see — and a layer you can’t. The visible parts you could rent from anyone. The invisible glue is the whole reason to own it.

Visible— the parts you can point at

Your domain

your address on the internet

Your server

one computer that’s yours (VPS)

Your database

one place all the data lives

Your files

spreadsheets, folders, records

Your screens

the site & dashboards you use

Solid. Tangible. You could buy every one of these in an afternoon — and on their own, they’d just sit there.

the surface — all a customer, or a SaaS vendor, ever sees

Invisible— the glue that makes them one system

Claude

An operator that lives on your stack and knows your business. You just ask — it does the wiring.

talk to it in plain English

SyncPull the files, folders and spreadsheets off your laptop into one database — and keep them current.

MigrateReshape and move information as the business changes shape.

ReportTurn raw data into the exact answer you asked for.

RememberCarries the context of your business — your rules, your history, your way of working.

AutomateOnce it works, it just runs. No one minding it.

ConnectJoins every visible part above into one system that actually talks to itself — no person needed as the bridge.

The visible parts make it real.
The invisible parts make it yours.

$160,000per year, eliminated

Every seam between two separate systems used to need a person to staff it — checking one system agrees with another, re-keying what one won’t tell the other. Sales, stock, accounts, suppliers, customer comms — whatever your seams are. On one stack there’s no seam left to staff. That’s not a discount on software: it’s a job that stops needing to exist. Real number, not a projection.

Then you install your Blueprint

A business that runs itself — and only calls you when it should.

Owning the stack is the start. The payoff is what you run on it: the everyday functions of your business — finance, HR, marketing, bookings, enquiries — each doing their job on their own, and one inbox that shows you only the decisions that actually need you. Money, exceptions, the unusual. Everything else just runs.

Internal · back office

Finance HR / People Marketing Operations

Customer-facing · external

Bookings Enquiries Sales Support

Every function runs itself on rules you set once, in plain language. If one hits something you haven’t made a rule for, it doesn’t guess — it stops and asks.

Your inbox · only what needs you

Refund request — order #198

stopped · all refunds need a human

Trade discount — 12%, The Grove

stopped · over your 10% rule

…and nothing else reached you today.

See it in action, applied somewhere totally different: AdventureWorks is a New Zealand outdoor education & recreation provider — so to prove this generalises, the walkthrough below runs it on Two Rivers Wine Co., a fictional wine importer with none of our systems but the same seams to close. Walk through the live example →

What you'll actually build

Not theory. A working stack you own by the end.

Over the cohort you stand up each layer yourself — with Claude Code doing the heavy lifting and you making the calls. No prior coding.

LAYER 01

Your own server

A VPS you rent for the price of a couple of coffees a month — your office in the cloud, keys in your hand.

LAYER 02

Domain & the plumbing

DNS, HTTPS, the boring bits that make it real — demystified, done once, understood for good.

LAYER 03

Claude Code as your builder

The AI that writes, fixes and runs the software — working right on your server, in plain English.

LAYER 04

Automations with n8n

The repetitive jobs — invoices, follow-ups, reports — running themselves, on your stack, not a subscription.

LAYER 05

Your database & backups

Your customer data in one place you control — and a backup habit so "own it" never means "lose it".

LAYER 06

The Seven Plays

The handful of moves that replace most of what you pay SaaS for — the judgement, not just the buttons.

Let's be honest

No hype. Just practical solutions to run your business better and look after your staff and customers better.

✓

Real build logs — including the things that broke and what they cost.

✓

You keep your data, onshore, under your own login.

✓

Skills that stay yours — not a tool you rent until the price goes up.

✗

No "AI will make you rich" hype. This is plumbing — and plumbing is powerful.

✗

No guru funnel. One honest course, priced like one.

✗

No lock-in. If you leave, you take the whole stack with you.

Who it's for

Small operators who are done being tenants.

The $20k/yr SaaS bill

You add up the subscriptions one day and realise you're renting your whole business.

You're paying to be the bridge

Sales, stock, accounts, suppliers — if they're separate systems, someone's job is reconciling them. That's the cost this removes.

Capable, not a coder

You run things, you're not afraid of a bit of setup, but you've never wanted to "learn to code".

Values ownership

Your data, your keys, your call — you'd rather hold the thing than rent access to it.

The whole point: sovereignty

Three ways to own your stack.

However you get there, it ends the same way — full authority over the systems that run your business. You hold the keys, you host it, you own it outright. We don't rent it back to you and we don't lock you in. That's the whole point.

TIER 01

Learn it

The Blueprint Workshop ($97–149), then the 8-week Foundation course ($397 / $99 founding cohort). We teach you; you build your own stack and finish owning every part of it.

TIER 02

Buy the parts

The systems we've already built — a business-intelligence centre, marketing & communications, booking & scheduling — handed over as frameworks you install on your own stack. A clean sale: you host it, you own it, no subscription.

TIER 03

Have it built

Short on time, or not inclined to spend hours building with the AI? We build your whole stack and hand you the keys — $15k–25k depending on scope. You still own it outright: we build it, then we step back.

Inside Tier 1 — the guided path

Start with a live win. Build the whole stack after.

No 8-week ask on day one — a short, paid live session first, so you leave with something real built before you decide on the rest.

STEP 01

The Blueprint Workshop

Live, ~90 minutes, $97–149. You leave with a real first system started on your own server — not a prompt pack.

STEP 02

The Foundation course

8 weeks, own the whole stack — server, domain, Claude Code, automations, database. $397 ($99 founding cohort).

STEP 03

Install your Blueprint

Turn the finished stack into positions with an escalation inbox — a business that runs itself and only calls you when it should.

Reserve your seat — The Blueprint Workshop

Get first pick of the live workshop.

Join the list and you'll get the free Self-Running Business Starter Kit to download straight away — the 20-minute exercise to map your business and find the decisions that actually need you. You also get first pick of the live 90-minute workshop ($97–149), the build logs as they happen, and the founding cohort price for the full course. The questions below help shape it around what you run — all optional.

Email // required

First name // optional

What do you run? // optional

Biggest system headache right now? // optional

If it were right for you, what feels fair to pay? // optional

// you'll get one email to confirm — that's the double opt-in

Here's your free Starter Kit

Grab the Self-Running Business Starter Kit below — the 20-minute exercise to map your business as positions and find the short list of decisions that actually need you.

Download the Starter Kit (PDF) →

We've also sent one email to confirm it's really you — click the link inside and you're on the list for the workshop date. (If it's not there in a minute, have a quick look in spam.)

Who's behind it

I'm Mark. I've never written a line of code — but four months ago my business ran across four different companies' systems that never quite talked to each other: bookings in one place, records in another, invoicing somewhere else again. That's not a me problem. Systems run businesses, and people run systems — but those systems are almost always built in isolation, so someone always ends up standing in the gap, stitching them together by hand.

So I built my own. One connected stack, where every part talks to every other part because I built it that way on purpose. No more juggling subscriptions that were never designed to work together, no more paying someone just to be the glue between them. I'm building this course in public, on that same stack — showing exactly how.

Mark Mandeno — building in public