Pathfinder Foundry

How to Turn AI Prototypes into Validated Products

OpenAI

Amazon

Apple

Microsoft

Marc Krejci

Fractional CPO at Pathfinder Foundry

How to spot the exact interview moments that tell you what to build and what to cut.

The Eyebrow Metric

How to run a one-shot build, test with 5–10 real users, then iterate using AI tools.

The Prototype-Test Loop

How to turn early adopters into signed partners investors look for before funding.

Design Partnership Agreements

You will leave with 2 prototypes for your product that you can use to get user feedback and stakeholder buy-in. 

Principal PM at Yelp

Yelp

Gopuff

Google

eSpark

Codeverse

Priya Mathew Badger

Principal PM for Yelp's AI Assistant, Lenny's Community Top 25 contributor 

Cohort 1

AI prototyping is the #1 skill for the AI era. Yet most PMs haven't mastered it enough to impact their day job.If you’re a PM at an established company, you get the friction:You want to use AI, but you spend too many cycles prompting, don't get prototypes that look like your actual product, and aren't sure how to bridge the gap for stakeholders.You need a fast way to build within real-world constraints.As a Principal PM at Yelp, I created repeatable AI prototyping processes to improve my product ideas and drive faster buy-in.When I shared my workflow on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/ai-product-management-and-prototyping-at-yelp">How I AI podcast</a>, Claire Vo said:<blockquote>"Priya has given us a new way to think about product management with AI... it breaks away from the old, rigid linear process."I’ve since trained hundreds of PMs to do the same. It's something you can learn in a few weeks with enough effort and support.</blockquote>What Makes This Different:<ul><li>Built for Practitioners: Learn the exact workflows I use to build AI at scale</li><li>High-Touch: Capped at 30 peers for personalized coaching </li><li>No coding: Just bring your product intuition</li><li>Weekly Build labs: Get live homework help</li></ul>Move beyond ad hoc experimentation to having a structured process you can apply across real product problems.

Build functional prototypes to accelerate product discovery for your product 

Build a repeatable system for prototyping to save time and avoid frustration

Prototype AI-powered features so you can shape great AI product experiences

Practice communication tactics that drive buy-in and get quality feedback

Learn the process changes to integrate into your product development process

This is a hands-on course where you will build actual prototypes iterating on your existing product

Have an existing user problem or opportunity in mind

This course will give you hands-on practice and expert guidance but you'll need to put the work in to build and troubleshoot

Curious and motivated to learn

This course requires NO technical knowledge but does involve using multiple AI tools

Basic familiarity with AI prompting

Individual Contributor PMs looking to master how to build functional prototypes and learn to use them to get faster feedback and alignment

Product leaders (GPM/Director/VPs) interested in leveraging AI prototyping for vision and team upskilling

Job Seeking PMs looking to join companies with modern AI-first product processes

Discover opportunities with AI → validate with interactive prototypes → design AI features → automate workflows → ship functional software

Product Design Leader

Payoneer

Anna Arteeva

Product Design Leader and AI educator

Product Leader

Julia Bastian

Product Lead - Innovation & GenAI, ex VP of Product at Alasco

Senior Solution Architect, MBA

Vlad Daskalov

MBA, Agentic AI advocate, Senior Solution Architect

In an AI-accelerated product world PMs are expected to explore, ideate and validate ideas quickly, collaborate effectively with designer and developers whose roles are changing too.You'll learn from three experts with different backgrounds: Product, Design, and Engineering. This ensures you get deep insights into design and engineering topics while learning to navigate the change and bring your cross-functional partners along.<h3>What is covered:</h3><ul><li>AI for modern discovery and synthesis</li><li>Building apps and prototypes with prompt-to-code tools</li><li>Frontend basics</li><li>Essentials of app architecture: Backend, Frontend, Data, APIs</li><li>Working with existing assets: brand styles, design systems, open source code</li><li>Automation and integration with product workflow (Make, n8n, webhooks).</li><li>AI-powered functionality with integrated LLM, image and voice models</li><li>System prompts engineering basics for AI features</li><li>Analytics and idea validation so you can back up your prototypes with evidence.</li></ul>Then will talk about real hard topics<ul><li>cross-functional team collaboration</li><li>code hand over</li><li>work inside an existing codebase.</li></ul>❤️ Lovable Pro is included! Principles learnt are transferable to other tools

Learn the new PM stack: vibe-coding, automation, AI features, and code handover

AI-powered discovery and opportunity framing

Vibe-coding fundamentals and AI ecosystem

Frontend foundations and system architecture

Design systems and brand-consistent UI

Architecture, data, and automation

AI features, validation, and handover

You can clearly define problems, users, and desired outcomes

Product fundamentals

Familiarity with digital products and curiosity about how they work will help you get more out of the course.

No previous coding experience required

You should be comfortable with how digital products are planned, built, and shipped, and have working knowledge of the modern tech landscape

Understanding the tech company ecosystem

Product Managers, Owners, Researchers, Growth who want to become full-stack builders, validate ideas with confidence and iterate faster.

Non-developers across the organisation – sales, marketing, ops, GTM, finance, or HR – who want to build their own tools and experiments

Leaders in tech companies who want to make their teams more effective through AI coding, shape AI strategy, and sharpen workflows.

This is a hands-on transformation blueprint. In just 4 weeks, you'll go from "hoping it works" to "knowing it will work"

Chief Product Manager and Co-Founder

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Market Axess

Goldman Sachs

Software AG

Anil Jaising

Anil Jaising helps product leaders thrive by unpacking innovation 

Principal Product Consultant

TiVo

Persistent Systems

Bernie Maloney

From breakdowns, through breakthroughs, to $1B and beyond

Cohort Based Course

You've watched engineering spend months building something that flopped at launch. You've sat in prioritization meetings arguing about which bet to make, with nothing but opinions and gut feel.There's a better way.This course gives you a systematic method to validate product ideas before you ask engineering for a single sprint. Using AI-powered prototyping, structured experimentation, and real market testing, you'll learn to separate winning ideas from expensive mistakes in weeks or days rather than quarters.By the end of this 4-week course, you'll have validated (or invalidated) a real product concept using techniques you can repeat on every initiative you touch.<h2>THE PROBLEM THIS COURSE SOLVES</h2>Product leaders face a credibility gap:• Competitors ship faster because they've figured out how to test before they build• Your roadmap is built on assumptions, but stakeholders expect certainty• Engineering capacity is scarce, and you can't afford to waste sprints on unvalidated ideas• AI tools exist that could accelerate validation, but you're not using them systematicallyMost PM courses teach you frameworks for thinking. This one teaches you a system for proving.

The systematic approach to validating product bets before engineering commits. 


Map and Prioritize Your Riskiest Assumptions

Prototype Without Engineering Using AI and Vibe Coding

Design Experiments That Generate Evidence, Not Opinions

Create Offers That Convert Interest to Commitment

Folks who are early career, or are meaningfully involved in content creation should not enroll

This course is NOT FOR everyone

It is almost certainly the most advanced product validation course, suited for PMs, Design, Eng, Data, etc 

This IS NOT a beginner level course

It IS NOT for folks who like to outsource their thinking to others and just follow directions or Anyone looking for theoretical frameworks 

It is FOR YOU if you like think for yourself and WANT to WIN

Product Focused Startup founders and Corporate Product Managers frustrated by the gap between their products's potential and current result

Product Directors accountable for portfolio-level outcomes, need to de-risk multiple bets and adopt validation as a standard practice

Product Managers Building new products or major pivots to prove product-market fit signals before scaling investment in high risk assumption

Learn how to build, launch, and sell real products so you can move from designer to confident product builder.

Build products you're proud to launch

LinkedIn

GitHub

Nima Tahami

Product Designer (15 years), Instructor (18K+ students), Solo-building @Mokline

Most designers are great at creating polished screens. What holds them back is turning designs into real products that people actually use and pay for.<blockquote>If you have ideas stuck in your head or half built in Figma, the problem is not talent. It is not knowing what to build, how much to build, and how to get real people to care.</blockquote>This course solves that problem.In just 3 weeks, you will build a working MVP, launch a clear, conversion focused landing page, and put your product in front of real users with a real price. You will learn how to move fast, use modern tools including AI to plan and execute, and focus only on what drives momentum.The bar for designers is changing. It is no longer enough to design screens. Designers who can ship, launch, and sell products have a real advantage.This is not a coding bootcamp or a branding course.It is a hands-on launch sprint where you practice making real product decisions, shipping imperfect work, and learning from real-world signals.If you are ready to stop waiting and start shipping, this course is for you.

Build and launch a real product as a designer in just 3 weeks

Build and launch a real MVP with a clear path to your first sale

Choose the right product idea with confidence

Think and act like a product builder, not just a designer

Create a landing page that clearly sells your product

Put your product in front of real users and ask for money

Experienced designers who want to turn product ideas into a real MVP and prove they can ship and sell beyond client or team work.

Designers curious about entrepreneurship who want a low-risk, practical way to launch a first product without quitting their job.

Product-minded creatives who work close to products but want end-to-end ownership and leverage beyond hourly or salaried work.