Eight founders.
Four weeks.
One working AI
system each.

A small, high-commitment cohort run by a Forward Deployed Engineer. You bring one specific, AI-shaped problem from your business. By the end of four weeks, it runs reliably inside your operations.

8
founders
4
weeks
8
solutions

What Ship Week actually is

Not learning about AI.
Shipping it.

Most AI programs teach you about AI. Ship Week is different. The hard part of applied AI isn't learning, it's shipping.

You arrive with one problem: one specific workflow, bottleneck, or manual process that should be automated and isn't. You scope it in week one, build it Claude-assisted alongside me in week two, and integrate it so your team owns it after I'm gone.

By the end, you have one real thing running in production. Not a prototype that gets demo'd once. A system your team uses on Monday.

The structure

What happens
each week.

00

Pre-work

You submit a one-page problem brief after acceptance. I review it, pressure-test it, and either approve it or give you notes to sharpen it before we start. This is not optional.

01

Scope and architecture

One 90-minute group session on FDE thinking: how to scope an AI feature so it ships in four weeks instead of becoming a six-month project. Then a 1:1 to lock scope for your specific problem.

02

Building

Two group sessions with real screen-sharing and Claude-assisted development. Participants build in parallel. Async Slack support between sessions.

03

Integration and hardening

Moving from working on your laptop to running reliably for your team: evals, guardrails, error handling, deployment, handoff documentation. This is where most amateur AI projects fail.

04

Ship and show

Demo day. Each participant presents what they shipped. Fully online, with an optional in-person demo day in Berlin for those who want to fly in.

Fit

Who this is for.
Who it is not.

This is for you if

  • +You're a founder, CEO, COO, or head of operations at an EU or UK company between 10 and 200 people.
  • +You have budget authority and own a specific problem you can describe in three sentences.
  • +You're a SaaS founder with years of support tickets hiding product signals you never have time to surface.
  • +You run operations at a growing SMB where one workflow eats 15 or more hours of senior time each week.
  • +You're a B2B founder whose team spends more time on manual triage than on the work that moves the business.

This is not for you if

  • -You want to learn about AI in the abstract, or your problem is actually three problems bundled together.
  • -You're looking for a framework, maturity model, or strategic roadmap.
  • -You're exploring whether AI might be useful at your company someday.
  • -You don't have the authority to commit to shipping something and integrating it into operations.

The cost

Simple pricing.
No surprises.

€500

You don't pay me. Instead, you donate directly to Bake for Ukraine: a non-profit that shares traditional Ukrainian bread recipes and funds local bakeries to secure the food supply during the war. The money goes directly from you to them and never touches me.

Minimum donation: €500, or €1,000 if your company revenue is over €1M. Forward your donation receipt to confirm your seat. Non-refundable if you drop out.

+All group sessions and workshop recordings
+Weekly 1:1 scope and review sessions
+Async Slack support throughout the cohort
+A working AI system deployed into your operations

The attendance policy

What Ship Week
requires of you.

Group sessions run to schedule. One participant who stops showing up drains the group. Protecting everyone's experience matters more than protecting anyone's ego about commitment.

01Attend all group sessions. Give 24 hours notice if you need to miss one.
02Two unannounced absences result in removal from the cohort. The donation is non-refundable.
03Come to sessions prepared: complete any pre-session work before the session starts.
04Session recordings are for cohort participants only. Do not share them outside the group.
05You commit to shipping: your system goes into production by demo day, or we discuss in week four why it did not.
Oleksiy Kalenskyy, Forward Deployed Engineer

About me

Oleg Kalenskyy

Independent Forward Deployed Engineer

My background is large-scale industrial and data-driven programs across Europe, the kind where the wrong architectural decision costs millions. I've seen what fails. Most of what I do now is applying those lessons at a smaller scale, faster, for companies without the budget or time for a traditional enterprise engagement.

I'm not a platform, not an agency, not a reseller. I ship working systems into specific businesses alongside their teams, one engagement at a time.

Ship Week exists because I kept seeing the same gap: smart operators who understood their problem but couldn't bridge from a demo to a deployed system. Four weeks is enough time to close that gap for one problem, done right.

Bake for Ukraine is the charity I've supported for years. I chose the donation model because it keeps the container honest and routes real money to work I actually care about.

FAQ

Questions
people ask.

Anything not answered here: email okalenskyy@gmail.com.

Is this recorded?

Group sessions are recorded for participants. But the cohort isn't structured around recordings, it's structured around live participation and async building between sessions. If you plan to consume Ship Week primarily via recordings, please don't apply.

What if I don't have a technical background?

You don't need one. You need an operator's understanding of your own business and enough comfort with modern tools to work alongside me during sessions. The limiting factor is clarity on the problem, not coding skill.

What if my problem turns out to be too big for four weeks?

That's what week one is for. The whole art of FDE work is deciding what not to build. If your real problem is six months of work, we find the meaningful piece that fits in four.

Is there a next cohort if I miss this one?

Probably, but not on a fixed schedule. Ship Week runs when I have capacity. If this cohort doesn't work for timing, say so in your application and I'll hold you on the short list for the next one.

Can my team join together?

One person per company for this cohort. Ship Week is designed around individual founders and operators bringing one problem. I may run a team version in the future.

Can I pay you directly instead of donating?

No. The charity model is the model. It isn't a workaround for people who don't want to donate. If it isn't right for you, this cohort isn't right for you.

What happens after Ship Week?

Some participants continue working with me on larger follow-on engagements. Others take what they learned back to their teams and run with it. I'm not selling anything inside the cohort and I won't chase you after it ends.

Ready to
ship?

Five fields. Four minutes. I reply to every application within five business days, accepted or not.