The Syllabus
Course Title: Lunch Break Millionaire: Build Your Dream Business with AI
Course Format: 6 Weeks, Blended Online/Experiential Learning
Instructor: Hood Qaim-Maqami (Drawing from an Ivy League education, a masters from MIT, 25 years of executive experience, and a parallel life of building and selling side hustles)
Mode: Self-Paced with Structured Weekly Checkpoints
Target Audience: Initially I did this for my twin boys (who just turned 18)… but the content will also serve working professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs, side-hustlers, and intrapreneurs balancing a day job
Course Description
This class provides a hands-on MBA-level experience in building a real business—step by step, in 28 lunch-break-sized sessions—using AI-driven frameworks and world-class academic research. Students will clarify personal motivations, validate market problems, develop customer-centric business models, and create actionable go-to-market, branding, and sales strategies. By the end, participants will design, launch, and scale a working side-hustle aligned with their purpose.
Content includes day-by-day coaching prompts modeled on the work of leading professors from Harvard, Wharton, Yale, and Stanford. Key skills include jobs-to-be-done, business model canvas, content strategy, trust-based sales, risk management, brand archtypes, and digital scaling—condensed to the essentials delivered through short lectures, applied exercises, and build-in-public case studies.
Learning Objectives
At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Articulate a personally meaningful entrepreneurial purpose (“Why”) and translate this into a concrete, validated business problem (“What”).
- Apply the Jobs-to-be-Done framework, Porter’s Five Forces, and Business Model Canvas to identify and differentiate market opportunities.
- Develop a one-page business plan aligned to customer needs, unit economics, and scalable value propositions.
- Design and protect digital assets: name, domain, social handles, and foundational branding.
- Launch and iterate a minimum viable digital presence (website, CTA, social funnel).
- Master trust-building selling skills: empathy, active listening, transparency, curiosity.
- Establish legal, financial, and operational infrastructure distinct from a day job.
- Use AI prompts and tools to accelerate every stage—problem validation, brand design, review mining, strategic pricing, content planning, and more.
Course Structure & Schedule
Assessment & “Grading”
- Participation matters (so use the daily AI prompts, and participate in in-thread submissions on Tiktok/YouTube/Instagram)
- Collaboration with other students is highly encouraged (see the Community feature in the superserious mobile app - which you can download for free).
- Only other factor: Real-world, tangible progress with building your hustle
Required Materials
- Primary Text: Lunch Break Millionaire (provided, no paywall)
- Recommended Readings:
- Competing Against Luck (Clayton Christensen) — JTBD
- Business Model Generation (Osterwalder & Pigneur) — Canvas
- Give and Take (Adam Grant) — Networking
- Digital Tools: AI chat (any), spreadsheet, free web-builder (Wix, Carrd, Notion), content planner
Teaching Methods
- Micro-lectures (10 minutes/day, on-demand)
- Real-world case studies (instructor's “build-in-public” example and student ventures)
- Experiential AI coaching: Daily customized prompts
- Peer learning via discussion board (optional, for feedback or partner work)
- Potential but highly unlikely weekly office hours (live or asynchronous Q&A)
Policies
- This course is built for busy professionals. All sessions are accessible asynchronously.
- No prior business background required; a growth mindset and willingness to “do it poorly” at first are essential.
- All proprietary prompts, frameworks, transcripts, and deliverables are open-access, in the spirit of anti-gatekeeping and value-first learning.
Instructor Office Hours & Support
- The AI prompt serve as your teaching assistant
- 1:1 chats with the instructor are available (see the Chat/Coaching feature in the superserious mobile app).
Recommended Supplementary Resources
- superserious.com (daily blog transcripts, free)
- TikTok, YouTube, Instagram (the channel is called Educating Squirrels)
- AI “Coaching” Prompts Archive (customize for style, neurodiversity, workflow)