Build Your AI Co-Founder

Build Your
AI Co-Founder

Install the brain, start your knowledge base,
and watch your AI co-founder come alive.

July 23, 2026 · Karlen Chang

Today's Plan

01

Welcome + Context

15 min — Why this matters.

02

Hands-On Setup

45 min — Install agent + brain.

03

Build the Brain

30 min — Lean Canvas + journey.

04

Wrap + What's Next

15 min — Test, homework, Telegram.

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Quick Check

Show of hands.

Who has used ChatGPT or Claude before?

Who has built something with AI?

Who is here for the first time with AI agents?

Just a quick temperature check. No wrong answers.

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Karlen Chang

Product strategy consultant. Built businesses.
Helped companies — from startups to multinationals — figure out how to win.

Strategy is making a set of choices about what you're going to do
and what you're not going to do to win.

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Q1 · Why should I care?

Everyone will use AI.
Which group are you in?

The Default

Generic AI

Everyone uses AI the same way. Your work starts to look like your competitors'. Replaceable.

Tonight's Path

Secret Sauce + AI

Your AI amplifies what makes you distinctive — your judgment, your voice, your way of working. Unfair advantage.

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Where are you?

Weak strategy? We strengthen it.

Strong strategy? We lock it in.

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Q2 · What is this?

Three problems
with AI.

Problem 01

Scattered
Knowledge

Your business notes are in one app, client notes in another, ideas in a third. No single place where your knowledge lives.

Problem 02

Ambiguous
Meaning

Every business has its own language. But the AI doesn't know your terms. It guesses — and it guesses wrong.

Problem 03

Lost
Decisions

You made a choice four months ago. Now someone asks and you can't remember what you decided, why, or how.

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Q3 · How do I do it?

Great tools.
Missing pieces.

The Agent

Hermes Agent

Your AI co-founder. A local agent that runs on your machine, reads your brain, and works with you.

The Brain

gbrain

Your business brain. The knowledge base your agent reads from. Open source — you own it. Nobody can turn it off.

Open source means nobody can take away your competitive advantage.

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Q4 · What's possible?

The brain has
three layers.

Each one solves one of the three problems we just talked about.

The agent — Hermes — sits on top of all three and gets smarter the more you put in.

01

Knowledge Base

Structured, queryable. One place. Searchable. Solves scattered knowledge.

02

Ontology

What your words actually mean. Consistent, reliable, accurate every time.

03

Company Brain

Derived, citable facts. Remembers what happened and why. What compounds.

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Everyone will have a personal AI agent.

Generic AI makes you replaceable.

Your AI amplifies your secret sauce
into an unfair advantage.

We're early — let's start.

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Live Demo

Here's what it looks
like when it's done.

→ Live demo on screen ←

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Tonight's Take

What you're
walking out
with tonight.

Some finish both canvases. Some only the install. Both are fine.

Wifi: [password]
Install: 30–40 min
Stuck? Raise your hand
Finish early? Start building your brain

Floor (everyone)

Technical setup — brain and agent installed and connected.

Bonus (most)

Lean Canvas — your business model in the brain.

Extra (some)

Customer Journey Map — your customer's experience mapped.

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Setup

What we're installing.

Step 01

Hermes Agent

Your AI co-founder. A local AI agent that runs on your machine.

Step 02

gbrain

Your business brain. The knowledge base your agent reads from.

Step 03

Connect

Link the agent to the brain. Verify it works with a test question.

Step by step, projected on screen. Raise your hand if you get stuck.

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Open this now

app.notion.com/p/Session-1-Installation-Guide-3a584613a95c819180c7f3947a2c43ad

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First Interaction

Try this now. Ask your agent:

"What do you know about
my business?"

Right now, it knows almost nothing. That's the point.
We fix that next.

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Structure

No misc folder.

If you don't know where something goes, you don't know what it is yet. Either decide what it is, or leave it out. The act of deciding is the work.

org/projects/people/concepts/decisions/sources/ideas/

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Tonight's Canvases

Two exercises.

Priority

Lean Canvas

What your business is, who you serve, what you offer, how you make money, what makes you different. Start here.

Bonus

Customer Journey Map

How your customers move through working with you. Where the friction is, where the value is. AI-assisted.

The band: some finish both, some finish one. Both are fine.

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Lean Canvas · 15 Minutes

Fill in your
Lean Canvas.

You have 15 minutes. Fill in as much as you can. If you don't know the answer, write what you think — or write TBD and move on.

Don't get stuck on any one section. Done is better than perfect tonight.

01

Problem

What are the top 3 problems your customers face?

02

Customer Segments

Who is your ideal customer? Be specific.

03

Unique Value Proposition

In one sentence, why should customers choose you?

04

Solution

For those problems, what do you deliver to solve them?

05

Channels

How do you reach your customers?

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If you finished the Lean Canvas

Ask your agent:

"Help me fill in my
customer journey map."

The agent will ask you questions. Answer them.
Write the answers in the template. The AI is your co-pilot.

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Stop Typing. Try This Now.

Ask your agent:

"What do you know about my business?"

"What's one thing I should think about?"

It's reading what you just wrote.
It's thinking about your business. This is the co-founder in action.

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Recap

Let's take stock.
What you built tonight.

IHermes Agent installed on your machine

IIgbrain set up and connected

IIIKnowledge base started — your business model is in the brain

IVFirst AI co-founder interaction

This is a first draft. A foundation everything else builds on.
The compounding starts here.

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The Series

Four workshops. Each builds on the last.

Workshop 1 · Tonight

Build the Brain

Install the agent. Start the knowledge base with Lean Canvas and customer journey.

Workshop 2

Wire the Business

Refine the canvas. Define what your terms mean. Deepen the knowledge base.

Workshop 3

Make It Think

Use the AI for strategy, decisions, and problem-solving. A co-founder that reasons with you.

The compounding only works if you do.

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Before Next Session

Homework.

01Finish your business model. Ask your agent: "Help me fill in my business model."

02Spend 15 minutes with your AI co-founder. Ask it about your business.

03Update your brain — add one thing you learned this week.

04Bring your laptop. Same setup, same tools.

Next week: Session 2 — Wire Your Business & Customer Journey.

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Join the
Telegram group.

Get help between sessions. Drop a message if you get stuck. I'm in there. Other participants are in there. You're not doing this alone.

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Thank you for
being here.

Fill out the 2-minute post-survey before you go. This workshop is free because your participation is the research. If this was valuable, bring someone next week.

See you next Thursday.

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