LevelUp AI Academy
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June 2026 cohort starts June 1· join by May 29

The year you stop being behind on AI.

A cohort for small-business operators — owners and team members alike. Learn to make AI do the work, not just talk about it. Become the people every business is about to need.

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$1,500 one-time 30-day action-based guarantee Lifetime in the community — no renewal, ever
— From the workshops this grew from
Text message from an operator: "It
"You just save me over $26,000 a year in 2 days!" Workshop operator · text message · April 2026
01 Why you feel behind

It's not that you haven't tried.

Most operators we meet are already curious. They've poked at the tools. What's missing isn't interest — it's a path from poking to doing, with someone who's already walked it.
— 01

You've watched the demos.

Newsletters, threads, a friend's screenshot. Every week a new tool, every week the same nagging feeling that you're a step behind.

— 02

You've opened ChatGPT — and closed the tab.

It worked for a paragraph, then it didn't. There's no obvious bridge between a clever reply and your actual Tuesday.

— 03

Meanwhile, the work is still on your plate.

Estimates, recaps, follow-ups, the spreadsheet that needs a second pass. The job didn't shrink while you were learning.

The gap isn't curiosity.
It's reps.

You're not the only one stuck here. Most operators we meet started exactly where you are.

02 What's inside

Thirty days to ship one. Lifetime to ship the rest.

Two halves, one enrollment. The cohort is the on-ramp — structured, taught live, thirty days from "I should figure AI out" to one real install running in your business. The community is where it keeps going — for as long as the academy exists.
30 days

The cohort

  1. Survey

    What's actually possible for operators like you — and where time is bleeding in your week. By the end of the survey, you know what install to ship first.

  2. Build

    You build it, live, with the cohort. Sales follow-up, vendor invoices, weekly recaps, hiring funnels — whatever you picked. The work happens on calls, not in a lesson.

  3. Ship

    Plug it in. Test it on the real work. Hand it to a teammate. By day 30 it's running and somebody besides you can use it.

You leave with a written install — your prompts, your workflow, your doc. Yours, transferable, ready to extend.
Lifetime

The community

  • Weekly working sessions — members shipping installs in front of each other, live, every week.
  • The back-archive of every cohort's builds, searchable. Vendor-invoice parsing, sales follow-up, hiring funnels — yours to copy from.
  • A members-only channel for stuck-points, vendor warnings, and what's working this month.
  • No renewal. No expiration. The room runs for as long as the academy does — and you're in it.
Come back when you're ready to ship install #2, #3, #N. The room keeps running whether you're active or quiet.
03 Who it's for

Built for operators, not enthusiasts.

The work is plain. The pace is steady. The bar is whether the thing you build in the cohort is still running a month later — and whether the people next to you can use it without calling you.

This is for you if —

  • You run something real — a shop, a service, a small team — and you're tired of being the bottleneck.
  • You're on the team and you want to be the person who quietly makes the operation work better.
  • You can spend a focused few hours a week for thirty days.
  • You'd rather ship one real thing than skim thirty.

Skip it if —

  • You want a vendor stack recommended to you. We build with what you already pay for.
  • You want a course you can binge in a weekend and check off. This is reps, on your business, with people doing the same.
  • You want to be sold on AI in the abstract. We don't pitch — we build.
04 Who's teaching

Taught by someone who's shipped this in a small business.

Cohorts are run live, every week, with office hours and a private channel for the in-between. You learn from the work, not a recorded course you'll mean to watch.
Tal Swicegood, founder of LevelUp AI Academy
Tal Swicegood
Founder, LevelUp AI Academy

I've spent my life building things — stateleg.com, a political-intelligence platform used by lobbyists and government-affairs teams; Town Square Podcast Studio; and a handful of community projects in Russellville, Arkansas. The workflows in this curriculum are the ones I actually use to run all of it.

Writes in plain language because the audience is operators, not engineers. Will tell you when the tool isn't the right answer — which is more often than the vendors will. Also hosts the AI in Action podcast — operators putting AI to work, in their own words.

05 What operators said

Real reviews from the workshops this grew from.

The cohort is new. The method isn't. These came from the in-person workshops earlier this year that the cohort is built on. Names are real; screenshots are unedited.
5-star Google review by Brock Girard about the LevelUp AI Academy workshop.
Brock Girard · Google review · 5★
5-star Google review by Cody Ackley: "Tal would be my go-to every single time."
Cody Ackley · Google review · 5★
5-star Google review by James Johnson about saving time on invoicing and estimates at Thunderman.
James Johnson · Google review · 5★
Text message from operator J: "I have done the math... this has saved me $30,000 just from that alone. Those are real hard numbers."
Operator J · text message · April 2026
Slack message from Marc Arango: "Amazing as always thanks for everything you do!"
Marc Arango · Slack · May 2026
06 By day thirty

What you walk away with.

We measure the cohort in things that left your plate, not lessons you watched. Below: what's actually different by day 30.
  1. — 01

    One install running. Plus the map of the next five.

    By day 30 you have a real workflow — sales follow-up, vendor invoices, weekly recaps, whatever you picked — running on its own, in your business. And the list of what's next, written from your own operations, not a course outline.

  2. — 02

    A room of operators still shipping. For life.

    The community runs after the cohort ends. New installs every week from people in the same boat. You come back for #2, #3, the one you didn't even know you needed.

  3. — 03

    The end of the “I should learn AI” sentence.

    Replaced with: “Here's what I run.” Quiet, specific, real. The thing your peers will be saying in two years, you'll be saying in thirty days.

07 Pricing

One price. One time. No add-ons.

One payment. Thirty days of structured work. Lifetime in the room. No tiers, no renewals, no upsells. If you outgrow the cohort, the community is still yours to come back to.
7 days until the June 2026 cohort closes Miss it and the next start is a month out

Enrollment

$1,500 one-time

Roughly one week of a part-time hire. The first install tends to pay it back.

Facebook comment from Jordan Hardgrave: "Worth every penny but honestly extremely under priced. $750 Tal? This should be $30,000."
Said at the $750 workshop tier. The cohort is now $1,500 — still 1/20 of what he thought it should cost.
30-day action-based guarantee. Show up, do your first install, and if it isn't worth it, full refund within 30 days. No phone call, no retention pitch.
Join the free live call →

What's included

  • 30 days of live cohort work with Tal
  • Lifetime access to the operator community
  • Recordings, transcripts, and follow-along docs
  • Templates, prompts, and reference builds
  • 1:1 onboarding call with Tal
  • Weekly community working sessions after the cohort
08 FAQ

Questions operators actually ask.

I'm not the owner — is this still for me?
Yes. Operators who don't own the business are explicitly welcome — GMs, ops leads, or the trusted person quietly championing AI internally. The work is the same; what changes is that you become the person the operation runs through. We suggest looping the owner in on the free call before you enroll.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. Nothing in the cohort requires code. If a build touches a spreadsheet formula or a no-code tool, we walk through it together in the live session.
What tools will I need to pay for?
We design every build around tools you likely already have — a calendar, an inbox, a notes app, one of the common LLMs (a ~$20/mo ChatGPT or Claude subscription). We don't sell a stack or take vendor referrals.
How much time per week?
Plan on three to five hours per week for thirty days — one live session, the rest is building in your own business. After the 30 days, the community runs at whatever pace you want. Some operators check in weekly; some come back every quarter to ship the next install.
What does "lifetime community" actually mean?
Once you've done the cohort, you're in the room for good. No renewal, no annual fee, no expiration. Weekly working sessions, members shipping new installs, a back-archive of every cohort's builds — yours to use, for as long as the academy exists.
What does the 30-day guarantee actually mean?
Show up for the cohort's live sessions, attempt your first install, and tell us in writing it didn't run in your business. We refund the full $1,500. No phone call, no retention pitch.
When does the next cohort start?
Cohorts begin the first Monday of each month. The current intake is the June 2026 cohort, starting June 1. Enrollment closes May 29.
Is this a course or a community?
Both. The cohort is the on-ramp — 30 days, structured, taught live. The community is where it keeps going — lifetime, member-driven, the place you come back to for the next install and the one after that.
What's the alternative if I don't do this?
Honestly: hire a part-time AI consultant ($150–250/hr for someone good — burning $1,500 in a single afternoon), grind your way through YouTube and Twitter threads on your own time, or wait another quarter while your peers ship. The cohort is the cheapest version of skipping all three. The expensive version is doing nothing.
June 2026 cohort · June 1 start · close May 29

Thirty days to ship one. Lifetime to ship the rest.

The free live call is an hour with Tal and the current cohort. Bring a workflow you're tired of doing. Leave with the first install sketched.

Join the free live call → See what's inside
$1,500 one-time · 30-day action-based guarantee · Lifetime community
7 days until June 2026 closes. Next intake: a month out.