Online course · 16 weeks · ages 12–14
Your child, 12–14, uses a dozen apps every day.
In 16 weeks they build their own.
They find a real problem, talk to real users, build a working product, and defend it in front of a jury. No coding required.
- Online, two sessions a week
- Groups of up to 16, all the same age
- Not for them after the first session? Full refund
The question every parent asks
“Is there any point, if AI writes code better than people?”
Right now it is the question I hear most from parents. It is also the right one.
When the machine writes the code, the value moves to whoever decides what to build. Which problem to take. Who for. What to cut after the first test. A machine doesn’t decide. It executes.
That is what we teach. AI is a tool on the course: in week eight your child describes their product in words, and the machine builds it. The first version never matches what they pictured. The reason is always the description. Nowhere else does a teenager get feedback this honest on fuzzy thinking.
The problem
They already make things. They just stop halfway
School explains but never lets them apply it. Coding courses teach syntax but never answer “why does this matter to me”. A child finishes the third module and still cannot see where it leads.
Meanwhile they are already making things: half-built games, interfaces sketched in the notes app, an idea for the app they and their friends are missing. They ask an AI and get better answers than any course gives them.
They just never finish. No deadline, no one beside them, nobody at the end who looks at it and says what worked.
What this course is
Not about starting a business at twelve. About how the things they use got made
Over 16 weeks a child goes the whole way: from “this annoys me” to a product that strangers use.
They learn to set a task and carry it to a result, break a process into parts, and say what they mean precisely enough to get what they intended. Not “future skills” in the abstract. Specific things, visible at the defence.
Every session adds one piece to a single project. By week sixteen they have a working product, a page on the internet, and three minutes in which they can explain to adults why they built it that way.
How it goes
Four stages, one project
Marked in yellow: week 8, the first working version · week 13, five strangers use it · week 16, the defence.
1–4
Foundations
What a digital product is and how one gets made. Running your own project. Teamwork, with teams forming in week three and holding to the end. Finding problems, and the hardest distinction in the course: a problem is not a solution.
5–8
Finding out, then building
Target audience: the word “everyone” is banned. Each student interviews three real people themselves and brings back quotes, not conclusions. Competitors, and what they chose to leave out. Then the first working version: described in words, built by the machine.
9–12
From version to product
The second pass. One week is enough to make something. It takes another to make it usable. How a product makes money. A live page on the internet. And metrics: deciding in advance what counts as working.
13–16
Meeting reality
Five strangers use the product while the student stays quiet and watches. Ethics and responsibility, including why AI invents things and agrees with you. Rehearsal with a mentor. The defence in front of a jury, and a diploma.
Session by session
The full programme
All 16 sessions
| # | Session |
|---|---|
| 01 | What is a digital product Types of IT products and how they are created |
| 02 | How to manage a project Planning, goals, organising tasks |
| 03 | Teamwork Team roles, communication, peer review |
| 04 | Idea generation Finding problems, frameworks, and problem vs solution |
| 05 | Target audience Thinking like a user, building a persona of one specific person |
| 06 | Research and interviews Three real interviews, quotes not conclusions |
| 07 | Competitors and inspiration Analysing analogues and what they left out |
| 08 | First working version Describe it in words, build it with AI |
| 09 | Making it actually work The second pass, until it is usable |
| 10 | How a product makes money Freemium, subscriptions, ads; if it’s free, what’s being sold |
| 11 | Product launch A landing page and first promotion steps |
| 12 | Success metrics Activity, retention, engagement |
| 13 | Testing on real people Five strangers, one deliberate change |
| 14 | Ethics and responsibility Digital safety, honesty, the limits of AI |
| 15 | Consultations Preparing the defence with a mentor |
| 16 | Project defence Jury, questions, diploma |
What they leave with
Five things, and none of them is a certificate of attendance
- A working product they can open on a phone and show a friend
- A page on the internet, written for one specific person
- A recording of the defence, and a diploma
- One document where they set out the problem, the user, what they built and what they learned
- The experience of adults listening to their idea seriously
Honestly about the alternatives
Three ways to learn this, and all of them work
On their own, with AI
Free, available today, better answers than any course. They will build a first version in an evening. Two problems. The chat won’t notice when they stop in week two. And it will call the idea great even when nobody needs it, because it is built to agree.
A cheaper course
There are many. They teach the method and cost a fraction. Usually a group spanning ages five to fourteen, a coordinator instead of the author, and a prototype at the end: a picture you cannot open. If the goal is to introduce your child to the subject, that is an honest choice.
ProdKids
One age group. A deadline, and a person who notices when you’re stuck. Five real people who tell the truth about your idea. A defence where adults you’ve never met listen to you seriously.
We cost more. Exactly as much more as we differ.
Who teaches the course
Sergey Khaletsky
“I created ProdKids so children would understand: IT isn’t scary, and it’s open to anyone. Especially now, when a machine can write the code but still can’t decide what to build.”
Sergey Khaletsky
“I run every session myself. Not because I don’t want to hire teachers, but because the course lives in one conversation: why did you choose that problem, why did you drop that idea. You cannot hand that over as a set of instructions.”
Sergey Khaletsky
Objections
What parents ask before they say yes
“They can just ask a chatbot”
They can, and they should. We teach exactly that in week eight. But a chat answers when asked. It won’t remind them about Thursday, won’t notice a two-week gap, and won’t say “nobody needs this, you haven’t checked.” And it cannot be an audience. Being taken seriously requires other people.
“What’s the point if they didn’t write the code?”
They are responsible for the decisions, not the code: which problem to take, who to ask, what to cut after testing. Code today is written by AI for everyone, including engineers with twenty years of experience. The proof of a child’s work is not lines of code. It is that they carried an idea to real people and changed it after their reaction.
“I’ve seen a similar course for a third of the price”
You have, and it exists. The difference is what you are paying for: there, a group spanning ages five to fourteen, a coordinator instead of the author, a prototype at the end. Here, one age group, live sessions with me, a working product and a defence in front of outsiders. If the first is enough for your child, take the first.
“I don’t want to push them into the wrong thing”
The course does not turn a child into a programmer and is not meant to. It lets them try and find out whether this is theirs. Some leave it for design, some for writing. That is a normal outcome, not a failure.
“My child is shy, they won’t survive the defence”
They don’t go out alone. Teams form in week three and hold to the end; the defence is rehearsed in week fifteen. For many students it is the first time adults listened to them seriously rather than assessing them.
“Isn’t this too much alongside school?”
Two sessions a week, plus 10–20 minutes between them. Usually observing or talking to people, not written work. There are no grades and no homework marking.
“What if they don’t like it?”
You can have your money back in full after the first session. Not a separate trial lesson, but a real session with the group. That is the only way to see how it actually works.
Price
First group pricing
This is the first-intake price. From the second group the course costs €30 per session. By then I will have reviews, cases and student work that don’t exist yet. The first group gets the same thing cheaper because they help me build them.
Payable in three instalments, no surcharge · Full refund after the first session · up to 16 in a group
What happens next: I get in touch, and we spend fifteen minutes talking about your child. What they’re into, what they already make on their own. Sometimes after that conversation I say the course isn’t right for them. If it is, I send the full programme and the terms.
Start with an application. Fifteen minutes on a call, then you decide
ApplyEnrolling now · groups of up to 16 · full refund after the first session