Build your company's second brain.
How much of your company still runs from your head? Two days to pull it out, shape it with peers, and turn it into operating principles your team and your AI tools can actually use.
September 10–11, 2026 · London · 12 seats · £790 + VAT
Early Bird price until 10 August: £550 + VAT
Your team and AI are only as aligned as the principles behind them.
Not a workbook. A foundation your team and your AI tools both run on.
This isn't a new idea. It's what Y Combinator is funding right now.
Many of the fastest-growing companies run on written operating principles that humans and AI both read from. They call it different things. Company OS. Working principles. The source of truth. The company's second brain.
Y Combinator now lists the "company brain" in its Requests for Startups. The argument: the blocker to AI actually helping is no longer the models. It's that your company's know-how is scattered across people's heads, old email threads, and half-remembered decisions. In Tom Blomfield's words: "I think every company in the world is going to need one."
We agree. But you don't need to wait for a startup to build you the software. The brain is your judgment, written down. You can build the first version in two days, with peers, on your real business.
This is not a prompt-engineering workshop.
AI can draft the words. Only you can decide what your company actually believes. The hard part isn't the prompt. It's the judgment. What you stand for. What you refuse. How you decide. What "good" means here and not somewhere else.
Two days of creative work on your real business, with AI as a fast collaborator and experienced peers as your sharpest feedback loop. You leave with principles that feel like yours. Because they are.
Six principle sets. Three per day. All about your business.
Value proposition & differentiation.
What you uniquely do. What you choose not to do. The north star that makes every other decision easier. Positioning, pricing, target audience, the lines you draw.
Brand & tone of voice.
How your company sounds. Your signature words and the ones you'd never say. How you talk about what you sell, in your voice, not a generic one.
Product or service principles.
What your offer feels like to the people who use it. What 'good' means in the experience you deliver. The non-negotiables of how you show up for a customer.
Collaboration & building principles.
How your team produces the work. Your standards, your rhythms, how you define quality, what you ship and how you ship it.
Decision-making principles.
How calls get made. Trade-offs you bias toward. Connecting daily choices to the north star and the next business goal. Tools like ICE that turn judgment into shared practice.
AI-use principles + daily setup.
How your company instructs AI. Which of the principles above get fed into which tools. Leaving Day 2 with your principles actually loaded into the AI your team already uses.
80% building. 20% input. No slides. A lot of iteration.
Both days from 10:00 to 17:00. Each block runs roughly like this:
Aive Uus frames the principle set: what it is, why it matters, real demo
Each company drafts their version with AI, guided by Aive
Each company presents; peers and Aive give sharp feedback
Refine and iterate before moving on
The rhythm of the two days.
Principles keep evolving across the two days. Iteration is the method. You leave knowing how to keep iterating after the event. The follow-through is the key.
The output standard.
Every principle you write in these two days has to pass four tests:
- Usable by humans. Anyone on your team can read it and act on it.
- Reusable by AI. Your tools can load it and apply it consistently.
- Owned by someone. A name attached, not a committee.
- Updateable. Built to evolve as the business does.
If a principle fails any of these tests, we rewrite it before it leaves the room.
The first cohort ran in June. A month later, it's still running.
"I've learned more today than in the past five years."
"I finally saw the big picture: how we move to 2.0 and how the workflow runs through the whole team."
"You should charge much more for this."
We did.
One month later
"Everything we built is still in use. The biggest change is that my goals now live in AI, and I build my work plans there. Priorities, lessons learned, all of it. The most valuable thing was the shift in understanding: AI is not just a tool for every individual. It's the central core of the company, where the know-how and the processes are built up."
— Birgit, June cohort
Twelve seats. No direct competitors. People who can actually help each other.
12 leaders in the cohort. Bring up to 3 people from your leadership team, as that's often when the work travels furthest back into the company. No two companies in direct competition. Everyone at a stage where they can give each other situational feedback that's actually useful.
The short application is how we make that real. We ask a few questions about your company.
Most leaders try to do this work alone with ChatGPT or Claude, or pay £15k to a consultant, or postpone it indefinitely. Two days, a small group of peers, and an experienced facilitator is the format that actually finishes it.
For business leaders who already run something.
This is for you if…
- ●You run a software or service company (10–150 people), or a product or service line inside a bigger one
- ●You own the outcome, not just the team. The principles your company runs on are partly yours to set
- ●You've felt the gap between what's in your head and what your team produces
- ●You want AI to actually help, not generate generic noise
- ●You want to work on your own business with sharp peers, not listen to lectures
- ●You're ready to make decisions, not collect frameworks
This isn't for you if…
- ●You're looking for an introduction to AI or prompt engineering
- ●You want a certificate or a course format
- ●You prefer watching slides to doing the work
- ●You're not ready to share your real company with a small group
A June participant put it best a month later: "10 out of 10, but only if the person is ready to change how work gets done. For AI tricks and better prompts, YouTube is free."
Facilitated by Aive Uus
I am the founder of KoThinker and a former CEO of a quickly growing tech company. I've been building operating principles for real businesses for years, long before AI made the practice urgent. This workshop is built on the same follow-through methodology I use every day in my own work.
You can read more of my thinking on Substack. I write about follow-through, building companies that scale without breaking, and leading through real shifts.
The practical part.
When
September 10–11, 2026. Both days 10:00–17:00.
Where
London (exact venue shared with confirmed participants).
Size
Maximum 12 seats, maximum 3 people per company.
Price
£790 + VAT per person for the two days. Early Bird price until 10 August: £550 + VAT.
Follow-up
A short online check-in 1–2 weeks after the event. Then, about a month later, a personal mentoring session with Aive: up to 2 hours, online, for you and your team. This is where we fine-tune what you built, work through what got stuck, and help the principles travel from your head into the team's daily work.
A few questions you might have
Two days. Your real company. Principles that last.
Twelve seats in the September cohort in London. If the timing is right for you, apply now. If it isn't, join the list for the next one.
AI-Ready Operating Principles · September 10–11, 2026 · London · Apply