My Son's School Project Turned Into a Business

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Last week I was sitting across from Baratunde Thurston at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn.

If you don't know him, you should. He's a bestselling author, former director of digital at The Onion, Emmy-nominated producer, and host of a podcast called Life with Machines about how humans can actually live well alongside AI.

The guy has been thinking about this stuff for decades.

We were on stage together for a live conversation called The Human Edge: Winning in the AI-Powered Future of Work. And I'll be honest, I was a little nervous.

Not about the crowd. About the topic.

Here I am, talking to a legit AI expert about AI. I'm not a computer scientist. I'm not an engineer. I'm a dad of four who learned to build apps by watching YouTube videos and talking into my phone.

But here's the thing I realized sitting in that chair. AI is still new enough that intellectual curiosity counts more than credentials. You don't have to be a technologist. You just have to be willing to try things.

And that's exactly what Baratunde's framework confirmed for me.

The Three A's

Baratunde broke down how to think about AI into three categories. Accelerate. Augment. Accommodate.

Simple enough. But what made it click for me was realizing I'd already been doing all three without having the language for it.

Let me show you what I mean.

Accelerate

Over the holidays, my son told us (at the last minute, naturally) that he had a school project due before break ended.

Instead of the usual scramble of poster board and markers, I decided to build him a project planner app. No coding experience. I used a tool called Lovable, watched some YouTube tutorials, and used voice-to-text instead of typing to move faster.

Then I gamified it. Every step he completed showed his progress. Animations popped up when he hit milestones. He was actually excited to work on a school project. (If you're a parent, you know how rare that is.)

The whole thing took about an hour.

That's what Accelerate looks like. You skip the old bottleneck. You don't learn to code for six months first. You just build.

Augment

Now, I had the idea. But I'm not a designer. I'm not a UX expert. I needed help making the app actually good.

So I asked AI for best practices based on highly rated apps in similar categories. It gave me recommendations on layout, user flow, and how to make the experience intuitive for kids and parents.

Then I did something that changed the direction of the whole project. I went to Grok and said, "Here's what I think I know about my audience. Can you scan real conversations on X and tell me if I'm right?"

It built me an empathy map from actual tweets. Real people, real frustrations, real language.

Turns out, I had my audience mostly right, but the empathy map showed me where to find them, how to talk to them, and what they actually cared about most. That changed my go-to-market approach before I even launched.

That's Augment. You bring the idea and the instinct. AI refines it with data and design thinking you don't have on your own.

Accommodate

This one matters the most to me personally.

That school project app turned into a company. My family and I built it together. It's called Build With Them, and it teaches parents how to create apps with their kids using AI. No tech background required.

But here's what I keep hearing from parents who go through it. They come in thinking, "I could never do this." And within an hour, they've built something real.

Some of them look at what they made and realize they could build tools for their business too. A lead tracker. A client intake form. A booking system. Things that would have cost thousands to hire out a few years ago.

That's Accommodate. You open the door for people who never saw themselves on the tech side of the table. And once they walk through, a lot of them aren't going back.

The Moment That Stuck With Me

During the conversation, Baratunde stopped, looked at the audience, and said something along the lines of, "What Terry is doing with his family is a perfect example. People can learn this fast, build real things, and it doesn't just change their daily life. It can change the direction of their entire family or business."

The room shifted. I could see people leaning in, like they just realized this wasn't theoretical. This was something they could actually do.

That moment stuck with me because it's the same reaction I had when my son and I finished that first app. It went from "let's survive this school project" to "wait, we could do this all the time."

What About You?

You don't need to interview an AI expert to start. You don't need a computer science degree. You don't even need to type.

You need an hour. A problem worth solving. And the willingness to try something new.

If you're a parent, Build With Them will walk you through building your first app with your kids. Step by step. No experience necessary.

And if you're a professional or business owner who wants to build tools for your own work, we're adding modules for that too. Lead managers, client tools, internal systems. Built by you, for your business, in about an hour.

​Check it out at buildwiththem.com​

You already have the ideas. AI just helps you build them faster than you thought possible.

Keep Building,

Terry

Real Quick: The Build With Them course will walk you through everything step by step. But if you'd rather build with me live, I've got you. In 90 minutes, we'll create your lead capture tool, an email nurturing sequence, and ten social media posts that actually get people to engage with your content. Join me live here.​