They say you need a business plan.
What you actually need is a first move, velocity, and the right environment.
Three courses to go from an idea that's been sitting in your notes app to a business that actually pays you — without quitting your job to find out if it works.
Join the waitlist2 minutes — send us your applicationThe idea isn't the problem. The sequence is.
You're in limbo, because you're unsure of yourself. Everything you've learnt at work has not prepared you for this day — the day you actually claim ownership. We know it's scary, and we want to help you make the first leap.
- You've had the idea for two years. It's still a note on your phone.
- You bought the domain. Nothing lives on it.
- You keep researching, because researching feels like progress and starting feels like exposure.
- You're excellent at your job. You have never once had to sell yourself to a stranger.
- You've told two people about it. Neither of them was a customer.
- You're waiting to feel ready — and quietly aware that day isn't scheduled.
None of that is a discipline problem. You've been trying to do step four before step one — building the perfect thing before anyone has told you they'd pay for it.
I've built two businesses while employed, in a city that is not cheap to be wrong in. What follows is the order I'd do it in if I were starting again on a Monday.
The First Time Founders Table
Three courses — like a three-course meal. Each one ends with something real in your hands. You don't move to the next course until the last one has paid off.
The Build Day
Idea in. A working prototype out. In one day.
One day · In personThe First 10
Validate it, then finish with a live site and a booking link.
Two days + 6 weeksThe Founders Circle
The mentorship you stay in, so month two doesn't quietly become month never.
Monthly · OngoingThe Build Day
You walk in with an idea and a laptop. You walk out with a working prototype of your website and an offer written in one sentence — and the block that's kept it a note in your phone for two years, gone. Same day.
- By 11amThe block, named and clearedBefore you build anything, we find the exact fear or story that's kept this stuck — and clear it. Most people don't know it's there until it's gone.
- By 1pmThe one sentenceWho it's for, what changes, why you. Said in a line a stranger can repeat back.
- By 3pmThe offer and the priceWhat they get, what it costs, what you promise. Written down, not "roughly" — tested by people in the room.
- By 6pmA working prototypeA real, structured version of your website — not a mockup. The shell that Course Two turns into something people can actually pay into.
Also not for you if you want to spend the day debating the logo. We're building, not decorating.
Currently waitlisted.
The First 10
Two days to go from "I think people would pay for this" to a booking link that's actually collecting calls. You leave with the system that gets you in front of your first 10 real prospects — and a site wired to prove it's working.
- Day 1 · AMValidate the ideaWho to call, what to ask, the list of ten. Not a survey — the exact conversations that tell you whether this sells.
- Day 1 · PMLaunch the outreachYou start the conversations live, in the room, with someone watching your back for the moment you flinch before you hit send.
- Day 2 · AMThe booking linkThe prototype from Course One goes live, wired to an actual scheduler and payment link — the site can take a booking, not just look like it could.
- Day 2 · PMThe lead flowThe weekly rhythm installed: where leads come from, what they read, what they book, what happens after they say no.
Not for you if you already have a system that gets you in front of leads. You're past this — look at the Chef's Table instead.
Currently waitlisted.
The Chef's Table
You've got the leads. This is where you learn to close them — and install the systems that make closing repeatable, not a fluke.
Not this, if
- You haven't run The First 10 yet — there's nothing to close
- You're looking for scripts to memorise, not a system to run
- You want to stay small forever. This is built for people scaling past themselves
This, if
- You've got leads booked and you're not closing enough of them
- You're ready to take direction and actually implement it
- You want the calls, the pricing, and the follow-up to run without you reinventing it each time
- Weeks 1–2Close what you've gotThe leads from The First 10 are still warm. We close them first — a real cash win, not a case study.
- Weeks 3–4Install the systemPricing, objections, follow-up, the pattern behind the "no" — built once, run every time, not reinvented per call.
- Weeks 5–6Hand off to the CircleYou leave with a closing system that runs without you white-knuckling it, and a seat at the table where it keeps compounding.
Currently waitlisted.
Your business plan works only if you make the first move — and gain velocity with the right people.
The Founders Circle
The first 10 clients are the easy part. Month seven is where it goes quiet — and quiet is where most first-time founders go back to a job they'd already outgrown. This is the mentorship that makes sure you don't.
We know what it means to be a first-time founder — we've been there. It's lonely not knowing where to start, or feeling like no one around you understands. Going from the corporate world to an entrepreneur takes a real mindset change, not just a plan.
The unfair advantage no one talks about: elite first-time entrepreneurs don't just outwork the competition. They've reprogrammed how they think, decide, and perform under pressure.
We're keeping this intentionally small — a group of people who'll run with you and keep you accountable. This isn't for everyone.
Not this, if
- You haven't run The First 10 yet — there's nothing to close
- You're looking for scripts to memorise, not a system to run
- You want to stay small forever. This is built for people scaling past themselves
- You want a Slack channel to lurk in. Attendance is the product
This, if
- You want a community that runs with you and keeps you accountable
- You want peers six months ahead of you, not a decade
- You want radical discretion — what's said here stays here
- Rhythm2 sessions + 2 AMAs a monthCameras on, work done live. Two working sessions and two Ask Me Anything drops a month — for whatever's actually on fire that week.
- Underneath itDirect subconscious reprogrammingSessions built around what's actually in front of you — the deal, the partnership, the hire, the thing at home that's bleeding into the business. Identity, fear, self-sabotage, emotional regulation. Not a framework you apply later — work done on the pattern itself, in the room.
- CompoundingEach session builds on the lastThis isn't a reset every month. What gets cleared stays cleared. The change is permanent, so month twelve is working on a different problem than month one — not the same one, again.
- RepeatableReal systems, not just strategyPricing, delivery you can hand off, the systems and agents that do the admin — built with you, in the room, so you leave with velocity, not a to-do list. Think Black Belt Academy, built for first-time founders.
- PeersPeople six months ahead, not ten yearsI didn't have this. I built two businesses with nobody around me who had done it. That's the room we're building — to inspire and be inspired.
Currently waitlisted.
The Process
A structured onboarding into the room — designed to create permanent internal shifts, not temporary motivation.
Enrollment & Fit Call
A short call with Nina and Sufen to confirm the room's the right next step — where you are, what you're working on, what you want out of it. No application, no waiting to hear back.
Deep Diagnostic
Before your first session, Sufen runs a comprehensive intake to map the subconscious patterns driving your current behaviors, decisions, and emotional responses. This isn't surface-level goal setting. This is identifying the root architecture.
Monthly Group Sessions
Cameras on, work done live with the room — Nina on the business, Sufen on the pattern underneath it. Your diagnostic shapes what gets worked on for you specifically, even inside a group session.
Integration & Compounding
Between sessions, you'll notice shifts in how you think, react, and make decisions. Nina and Sufen provide integration support to help you anchor new patterns into your daily operating rhythm — so the changes stick and compound.
Two facilitators. Both have done it.
Not a speaker and an assistant. Two people running the floor, so nobody spends the day stuck and quiet at the back.
Nina Devouge
Twenty years placing people into rooms they didn't think they'd get into — then building two businesses of her own while still employed, in Singapore, with a family and a full calendar. She teaches the sequence she actually used, not the one that sounds good on stage.
- [REPLACE — canon stat, e.g. 4,000 placements across APAC]
- [REPLACE — canon stat, e.g. 5,000+ hiring managers trained]
- Founder, The Talent Lever · Creator of the SoughtAfter™ method
Sufen Paphassarang
Works with high-performers on the layer strategy can't reach — the subconscious patterns that actually drive decisions under pressure. If you can imagine the business, she works on making you the person who builds it: identity, fear, self-sabotage, the wiring underneath the hesitation.
- Direct subconscious reprogramming, applied to first-time founders
- Works the real material — deals, partnerships, team dynamics, personal life — with radical discretion
- Co-founder, First Time Founder
Start where you actually are.
Not where you'd like to be by Christmas.
| Where you are now | What you leave with | Time | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Build Day | An idea, a domain, and no evidence you're serious | A working prototype and a written offer | One day |
| The First 10 | It exists. Nobody's paid you for it. | Validation, your first 10 prospects, a live site + booking link | Two days + 6 weeks |
| The Founders Circle | You're earning — inconsistently, and it all runs through you | A monthly rhythm, repeatable income, peers | Ongoing |
Already through The First 10? The Chef's Table is the by-application step in between.
People who stopped preparing.
[REPLACE — a quote about the day it went live]
[REPLACE — a quote about the first paying client]
[REPLACE — a quote about still being at it six months on]
Real people, shared with permission. Nothing here I couldn't defend at a dinner party.
Leave the Build Day without a working prototype and I refund you.
Not "if you're not satisfied". Satisfaction is a feeling and I can't audit it. This one is binary: the prototype either exists at 6pm or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you didn't get what I sold you, and you get your money back — no form, no call.
Before you book
I have a full-time job. Is that a problem?
It's the assumption. Every one of these is built for someone who is still employed and intends to stay that way until the numbers say otherwise. Don't quit to build options — build options so that quitting becomes a choice rather than a bet.
I'm not technical. Can I really have a working website by 6pm?
Yes. You'll build it in the room, on tools that don't require code, with me walking the floor. People who can't name their own idea at 9am have a working prototype by 6pm. It goes live and takes payment in The First 10 — that's the whole design of the sequence.
Do I have to do them in order?
No, but the order exists for a reason. If you already have paying clients, skip the Build Day. If you haven't sold anything, the Founders Circle won't help you — you'd be solving month seven's problem in month zero.
What if my idea turns out to be bad?
Then you'll find out in week one of The First 10 for the price of ten conversations, instead of in year two for the price of a year. Killing the wrong idea early is one of the outcomes I'm selling, not a failure of the programme.
Is this just AI-and-automation content?
The systems are in there — the lead flow, the agents that handle the admin, the tools that mean you're not doing everything twice. But they're plumbing, not the point. The point is a business somebody pays for.
Can I talk to you before I decide?
Yes. Book a call and I'll tell you honestly which course is yours — including "none of them yet", which I say more often than you'd expect.
The idea has waited long enough.
Two minutes to send your application. Then one day, or two, and it exists.
Join the waitlist