AI Training for Business Owners - Half a day, live on Zoom, and you leave with an AI partner that knows your business
FOR SMALL TO MEDIUM BUSINESSES, BUSINESS OWNERS, FOUNDERS, AND CEOS
I'm the bridge between you, your business, and the world of technical AI. Almost every course on this subject is written for people who already write software. This one is written for the person who owns the business. Half a day on Zoom, and the system we build together runs on your own machine afterwards.
Live session Next dates booked out New dates soonNext dates
Half a day on Zoom, 9am to 1pm Melbourne time, two seats per session, $2,000 per person.
The part that never gets explained to owners
Most people's experience of AI is a chat window. A question goes in, an answer comes back, and the window has forgotten the business by tomorrow. That is the toy version.
The agents sitting behind those chat windows work differently. An agent runs on a real computer with its hands on the keyboard. It opens files, edits them, runs things, and builds while you watch.
That matters because a business is made of code and documents. The website, the emails, the ads, the booking form, the invoices, the spreadsheet where the numbers live. An agent that writes code can build and change every one of those.
The explaining has all been pitched at programmers, which is how this stayed out of reach of the people who own the businesses. This page is written for the owner.
So the half day is spent building yours: your business in the files, your first tool running, your screen shared the whole way.
By the end of the half day, your AI partner is a contact in your phone.
It has its own machine, its own email address, and its own thread in your Messages, all set up in the session. Six things get handed over:
A Mac that stays switched on. It keeps working after you close your laptop for the night.
A real identity in its own name, so the machine, the messages, and the files belong to your AI partner.
Mail arrives addressed to it, it reads what comes in, and it replies.
Text it the way you text anyone else in your phone, and it messages you back when something needs a decision from you.
It gets the accounts you choose to hand over, one at a time, and you can take any of them back the same afternoon.
AirDrop it a contract, or email it the spreadsheet, and it picks the work up from there.
You can reach it from anywhere. Message it from an iPad in a hotel room and the machine at home does the work.
The machine itself is small and silent. A Mac mini sits on a shelf or behind the TV and works around the clock. When you want to see what it is doing, screen share from your laptop or iPad and watch it work.
The AI brain can be swapped out instantly.
When a smarter model is released the swap takes a moment and your partner is sharper from the next question on. Same identity, same email address, same memory of every client and every decision, and nothing gets re-taught. The knowledge sits in files you own, so every brain that follows inherits all of it.
What AI training for a business owner should actually cover
A lot of AI training for business owners is a tour of prompts and apps: how to word a request, which tool to try this month. That knowledge ages fast. The four hours here go into five things, and this is the reasoning behind each one.
The black window, opened properly, once
Everything an agent does for a business happens outside the browser, in a window most owners have never opened. Opening it for the first time with someone on the call is a twenty minute job, and after that it stops being a barrier. The same stretch covers logging in to that machine from somewhere else, which is what lets you reach the system from a phone months later.
An operating system for the business, written down once
A prompt is one request. An operating system is the standing instructions the agent reads before every request: how the business makes money, who the clients are, what good work looks like here, what you never do. Written down once, that context sits in front of the agent for every job that follows, so the answers come back already shaped by how this particular business works.
A memory the business can lean on
Chat tools start every conversation from nothing. This covers a plain file structure where every client, project, and decision gets written down as it happens, and the agent reads the relevant part before answering. Ask what was agreed with a client two years ago and the detail comes back, because the detail was filed.
An identity, so work happens while you are away
An agent with an email address of its own, an account on the machine, and permission to act can pick a job up overnight and message you when a decision is needed. Setting that up is mostly deciding what it gets and what it does not, which is an owner's call to make. The same stretch builds a menu that opens the whole system with one keypress, and that small build is what decides whether the system gets used on an ordinary Tuesday.
Your own numbers, drafts, and pages, run through the system on the day
The last stretch is your own spreadsheet read back to you, your own awkward email drafted, and a page or a dashboard built while you describe what you want. That is where the habit forms, so that is where the four hours end.
That list is the syllabus because it is what runs this practice. One person, no staff, and the client work, the ads, the numbers, the emails, and the pages on this website all go through the same system.
The training itself
Four hours on Zoom, two seats in the session, and everything above gets built on your own machine while we go.
- Half a day, live
- Four hours on Zoom, 9am to 1pm Melbourne time, with your screen shared the whole way.
- Two seats
- Two people in the session, so both get time on screen and both leave with something working.
- $2,000 a seat
- Paid by card on this page. A private one-on-one session is $3,000, at a time you choose.
- The starting line
- We begin by opening Terminal, the black window, for the first time. Nobody is expected to arrive knowing any of this.
- The machine it lives on
- The system stays on your machine and keeps working while you are away, so it needs one that can stay on around the clock. A Mac mini does that job and is cheap for it.
- What you take home
- Plain files in folders you own, plus your first tool running, plus the way of working that keeps the system useful.
The same half day, written up module by module for people who already know the tool by name, is the Claude Code course.
One-on-one, scheduled around your timezone
The same half day as a cohort seat, and the same result: your own agent operating system running on your machine, with your first tool built during the session. Four hours on Zoom, just you and me, at a time that works where you are.
Send two or three times that suit you when you book and I will confirm one of them within 24 hours.
- $3,000 AUD
- One person, one session, paid by card on this page.
- Half a day
- Four hours on Zoom with your screen shared the whole way.
- Your timezone
- You propose the times, I confirm one within 24 hours.
Who is teaching
I am Daniel. Enterprise tech background, Hewlett-Packard and then Siemens in London on the BBC account, followed by fifteen years running my own businesses across photography, education, marketing, and web. These days I am an ads and growth specialist at Northbase, and I run an AI advisory practice on my own.
Everything in that practice runs on the system taught in this session. That system is the reason one person can carry client work, ads, tracking, internal tools, and writing without staff. I teach what is running in production this week, and the session changes as the system does.
Where the teaching comes from
I have also run DJB Photography School in Melbourne since 2011. Students arrive having never taken the camera off auto, and three hours later they are shooting in full manual. Different subject, same job: someone with no technical background, a technical craft, and one session to get from nothing to working on their own.
Daniel is a master teacher. Though he has developed a successful format for his course, he really makes an effort to change his tact for the motivations of his students.
Amber, 7 April 2026
Daniel has the amazing gift and ability to make technical information easy to understand. He is completely in tune with your level of experience, and explains things very well and at the pace that suits you.
Jennifer, 5 September 2025
Both are Google reviews of the photography course. This session runs the same way, with Terminal in place of the camera.
Questions people ask before booking
Do I need to be technical?
No. The session is built for owners who have never opened Terminal. We start by opening the black window for the first time and finish with an agent installed and running on your machine. Nobody is expected to arrive knowing anything.
What if I have never used AI at all?
That is a fine place to start and the session is written for it. Asking for what you want in plain English is the whole skill, and everything technical is shown to you on the day. The question underneath is usually how to use AI in my business, and that is what the four hours answer, using your clients, your numbers, and your work.
Is this like a university short course?
A university short course teaches the subject over several weeks and issues a certificate. This is four hours with your hands on the keyboard and your own business going into the system while I watch your screen. A signed completion note is available on request for L&D records. It suits owners who want to learn AI for business by ending the morning with something running.
Is the training in person or online?
Online, live on Zoom, with your screen shared the whole way. That is what makes it work: the system has to end up on your machine, so you build it on your machine while I watch. Every date on this page shows the start time in your own timezone underneath the Melbourne time, and the private session runs at a time you choose.
How is this different from the free AI training the big companies run?
Google, Microsoft, and the chambers of commerce all run free AI training for small business, and it is worth doing. Those courses teach the tools, the same way, to everybody. This half day is a build with your clients and your numbers inside it, two people in the session, and me watching your screen. That is what the $2,000 pays for.
What do I need on the day?
A laptop, the Zoom link, and four hours where nobody needs you. A Mac is the smoothest path and what the session is built around. Claude Code also runs on Windows through WSL, so mention Windows when you book and we sort your setup at the start of the session. The system then lives on that machine and keeps working while you are away, so it needs to be one that can stay on around the clock. A Mac mini is ideal for that and cheap for the job.
How much does AI training for business owners cost?
$2,000 AUD a seat for a scheduled session: half a day live, two seats, 9am to 1pm Melbourne time on Zoom. A private one-on-one session at a time that suits your timezone is $3,000 AUD. Both are paid by card on this page.
Where does my business information live?
In plain text files in folders on your own machine, which you can read, edit, back up, or delete. When you ask the agent to do something, the relevant parts of those files go to Anthropic to answer the request, the same way any AI tool works. Nothing gets published anywhere, and you decide how much of the business goes into the system.
What if I cannot make the date?
Your seat easily moves to a new session, or a private booking to a new time. Just reply to your confirmation email and I will sort the new date.
Some owners would rather have the system built for them than learn to build one. The advisory engagements are for that.
Half a day, two seats, and your own system running at the end.
See the dates →The Conduit
My emails. The bridge between what's happening in AI and the business you actually run. When something matters for business owners, I explain it in plain English and send it over. No schedule, so it turns up when there's something worth saying.
Daniel Bilsborough runs this half-day AI training for business owners out of Melbourne, Australia. He is an AI advisor and an ads and growth specialist at Northbase, with an enterprise tech background at Hewlett-Packard and Siemens and fifteen years running his own businesses. The agent operating system built in the session is the same one running his advisory practice.