Zero to Launch sessions

Two days before the hackathon. Distribution is the half most builders never automate and paid is the half most builders get wrong by spending first and measuring later. We cover both, in that order, with the automation built live, and finish on the arithmetic that governs them.

Workuity Biltmore — 2390 E Camelback Rd, Suite 130, Phoenix, AZ 85016. Workuity is the venue sponsor for every meetup in this series. Event links go live closer to the date; these point at the Ship AI calendars.

Venue sponsor: Workuity. Format: the host builds live on screen. Bring a laptop and work along, or just watch — nobody is put on the spot.

Why this session

Content that depends on you remembering to post stops the first busy week. Paid spend without a CAC ceiling is how a working launch still loses money on every customer. Both failures are avoidable and both are cheap to fix before the money is committed rather than after.

What we cover

1. 01

   Automating the content pipeline

   Built on screen: agents that draft from a content map, hold a voice, and queue posts on a schedule. Where the human stays in the loop, and where the loop is theatre.

2. 02

   Social distribution without a social media manager

   One piece of work, repurposed across channels automatically. Cadence that survives a busy month, because the one that doesn't is the one you'll abandon.

3. 03

   Performance marketing basics

   Account structure, creative angles versus creative variations, targeting narrow before broad, and the daily loop for deciding to raise, hold or cut.

4. 04

   The CAC ceiling

   LTV, churn and payback, inverted into the maximum you can pay per customer, worked through with real numbers. This is what makes a channel viable or not — and what weekend spend has to clear.

5. 05

   Pricing, quickly

   The model has to match how customers get value. Better set deliberately now than anxiously on Saturday.

6. 06

   Weekend logistics

   Venue, timings, what to bring, what happens when. Then it's on.

Afterward

Nothing is required. It compounds if you run the same work on your own product. The suggested output:

06-growth/ — afterward, if you want it: your content automation setup, your paid plan, and the CAC ceiling it has to clear.

Everything is open source. The template repo and its skill files are published — take them and run it yourself. Missed the session? It's archived in Discord.

The session kit

Slides, a follow-along guide and skill files. Free to download, room or no room.

Install this session's skills

curl -fsSLO https://www.shipai.club/skills/zero-to-launch-06-growth-engineering.zip
unzip -o zero-to-launch-06-growth-engineering.zip -d .

What's in the bundle

• /social-automationSKILL.md

  Build a pipeline that drafts and queues social posts from the content map. Use when posting depends on remembering to.

• /social-postSKILL.md

  Turn one thing you actually shipped into platform-native post drafts for X and LinkedIn, in your own voice. Use when there's a real artifact and no post yet.

• /content-repurposeSKILL.md

  Cut one published article into an X thread, a LinkedIn post and a newsletter blurb that each read as native. Use once something is actually published.

• /ship-announcementSKILL.md

  Write the announcement for the thing you shipped — the post, the proof, and the plan for the first hour. Use the day it goes live.

• /paid-basicsSKILL.md

  Plan a performance-marketing push — structure, angles, targeting, daily loop — against a CAC ceiling. Use once paid has cleared the gate.

• /paid-testSKILL.md

  Decide whether paid is worth trying yet and size the smallest honest test. Use before opening an ad account.

• /unit-economicsSKILL.md

  Model CAC, LTV, churn and payback, and derive the most you can pay for a customer. Use before any paid spend.

• /pricing-modelSKILL.md

  Pick or change a pricing model and check it against how customers actually get value. Use when price and value have drifted apart.

• /launch-checklistSKILL.md

  Verify everything that breaks a launch — site, metadata, analytics, links — by testing it. Use on launch day and hackathon weekend.

Every program skill is on the skills page.