Professional Certification
Limited Capacity - 28 seatsModern Retirement Course:
AI-First Company Design
Earn the Modern Retirement AI Company Design Certification (MRAIC™). One capstone company, started in unit one and finished in the last: content, AI UGC ads, outbound calls, SMS, and multi-channel nurture, with AI doing the repeatable work.
Earn an extra $100,000/yr, nearly passively.
Founders and operators already building companies this way.
Tools you will actually use
Upgraded AI
Bland
ElevenLabs
Twilio
n8n
Higgsfield
Airtable
Cursor
Claude Code
Google Analytics
ChatGPTClaude
Gemini
Copilot
PerplexityOpenAI
NotebookLM
Notion
Figma
Canva
Make
HubSpot
Slack
Stripe
Ahrefs
Google Ads
Mailchimp
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
TikTok
Jira
Linear
GitHub
Midjourney
Grok
Zapier
Clay
Gamma
Granola
HeyGen
LovableWho it's for
Every seat at a small company
At a startup, the AI edge is not being excellent at one department. It is being able to design all of them — so hiring, handoffs, and heroics stop being the growth plan. Modern Retirement is for the people who have to make the whole company work.
Founders
You are the company. Design marketing, sales, delivery, finance, and product so a small team runs like a staffed one.
Marketers
The content operating system, SEO and AI search, newsletters, community, and AI UGC ads — produced as a system, not a scramble.
Operations leads
Turn tribal knowledge into SOPs, queues, and a weekly cadence that AI can actually run when you are not in the room.
Client success
Onboarding, health, renewals, and the inbox — designed so nothing waits on one heroic employee.
Business development
Outbound calls, SMS, and multi-channel nurture — plus discovery and proposals — as a sequence, not a personality.
Software engineers
Workflows, agents, and custom GPTs that connect the product to the rest of the company — and ship without a bigger team.
Product managers
Discovery, design, PRDs, and go-to-market in one unit. AI does the synthesis. You keep the judgment about whose problem this is.
Designers
Research, information architecture, wireframes, and design systems — faster, and still human-centered.
Legal professionals
Responsible AI, governance, and the controls a growing company needs before a contract, a claim, or a regulator asks.
Jackson Payne
Founder, Deeleeo
Kelly Moodie
CEO, Provance
Donal Byrne
CEO, Paige
Scott Spence
Head of Growth, Parvis
Kevin Jing
Co-Founder, Hot Takes
Jon Tirmandi
Co-Founder, Normative
Norm Trainor
CEO, Covenant Group
Geoff Linton
Founder, Tekside
What you leave able to do
The concepts, frameworks, & skills behind an AI-run company
The same building blocks taught in leading AI, marketing, product, and design programs — practiced here as one operating system, not four separate careers.
Concepts
- Prompt engineering & prompt chaining
- A company brain: knowledge, voice, and connectors
- AI workflows, agents & custom GPTs
- Outbound calling agents, SMS, and nurture sequences
- AI UGC ads and creative testing
- Responsible AI, ethics & governance
- SEO, paid search & AI search (GEO)
- Product discovery, design, and product-market fit
Frameworks
- RISE & pillars of prompting
- Atomic thinking & workflow mapping
- Agent design canvas
- Sequence design: channel, clock, and handoff
- Content pillars & customer journey maps
- Capstone company, from offer to cadence
- Jobs-to-be-done & OKRs
- Lean build-measure-learn
- Double diamond & design thinking
- Weekly company operating cadence
Skills
- Write prompts that hold up on real work
- Build reusable AI skills and agents
- Run the content OS: social, newsletter, community, journal, and search
- Produce and test AI UGC ads from one source
- Run calls, SMS, and multi-channel nurture from one sequence
- Design SOPs for delivery and client health
- Write the design, the PRD, and the go-to-market together
- Close the books and stay investor-ready
Next kickoff
5 weeks · live sessions
In person in Vancouver, Costa Rica, or live online.
One 3-hour session a week, taught by practitioners who build AI companies.
Employer funding
Canada training grant eligible
Employers apply on their own behalf and can be reimbursed for most of the cost. Modern Retirement is built as skills training that leaves someone in a stronger job — the outcome these programs are written for.
Course investment
$3,500 before the grant. At 80% reimbursement, the employer’s share is $700 per person. The employer pays up front and claims the rest after training starts.
$3,500
80% covered
$700
80%
of eligible training costs covered under the B.C. Employer Training Grant. The employer covers the rest.
$10,000
per participant, across B.C. and Ontario programs. Alberta covers a share of costs up to the same cap.
$300,000
maximum per employer each fiscal year in B.C. (April 1 – March 31). Apply as often as you need.
B.C. Employer Training Grant
80% of costs, $10,000 per employee, $300,000 a year. Small businesses, first-time applicants, and training in priority sectors — including AI — move up the queue. Decisions within 60 days.
Canada-Ontario Job Grant
Up to $10,000 per trainee. Small employers may qualify for 100% of eligible training costs.
Canada-Alberta Productivity Grant
50–75% of eligible costs, up to $10,000 per trainee and $100,000 per employer each year.
Employers submit the application themselves with a Business BCeID. Participants complete their own information forms. If approved, the employer pays up front and claims reimbursement after training starts. Training should lead to a better job, more security, or a new hire.
Course curriculum
Ten units, one company
A capstone starts in unit one and is only finished in the last. Along the way you build the company the product already runs: the brain, the content OS, UGC ads, calling and SMS agents, and multi-channel nurture.
Unit 1
Company Ikigai: Offer Creation & Internal Focus Audit
Before the tools, the person. Map the zone of genius, then turn it into an offer, a set of AI workflows, and a content plan that makes an extra $100,000 a year the reasonable outcome — and use vibe coding to build the first version by describing it.
Capstone piece - Name the company, the buyer, and the offer in six lines. Do the $100,000 math. Ship the one-page site you will still be using in the last unit.
ChatGPTClaudeCursorNotionKey skills
Zone of genius
Understand what makes each person special. Make the lists: skills, proof, taste, relationships, and the work that comes easily and matters. That inventory is the raw material for the offer.
A focused offer worth $100,000s a year
Work through an offer, the AI workflows that deliver it, and a 12-month content strategy that makes it unreasonable not to earn an extra $100,000 a year.
Vibe coding landing pages
Build the first version by describing it. Talk the offer, the workflow, and the page into existence with Cursor, Claude, and ChatGPT — software shaped in conversation, not from a blank file.
Unit 2
AI foundations, prompting & reusable skills
See how a model produces an answer, then practice until the prompt is something you would send. Chain the steps that do not fit in one question, package them as a skill the team can run again, and write the governance a company needs before AI touches a customer, a contract, or a hiring decision.
Capstone piece - Write one RISE prompt you would send, the tool policy, and the company voice. Package that prompt as a skill: a name, the inputs, and the check that says it worked.
ChatGPTGeminiClaudeCopilotPerplexityKey skills
Understand the technology
How models produce an answer, and where that answer should live: AI Chat for the work in front of you, the knowledge base for what the company knows, Brain AI for the voice, and connectors for the tools already in use.
Prompt engineering that holds up
Structure, context, and specificity, then the RISE pattern under pressure. Practice on live tools until the output is something you would actually send.
Chaining and reusable skills
Break a messy job into atomic steps, connect them so the output of one is the input of the next, and judge the result across models. A skill is that chain with a name, the inputs it requires, and a check.
Ethics, governance & responsible AI
Bias, privacy, transparency, and the controls a company needs before AI drafts a customer email, a contract clause, or a people decision.
Unit 3
Workflows, agents & custom GPTs
Combine prompts, tools, and process into workflows that research, plan, write, and hand work off. Then agents: an objective, a short tool list, and a stop. In the product this is Agents, custom instructions, and retrieval from your own knowledge — not a demo that only works while you watch.
Capstone piece - Fill an agent canvas for one weekly job: objective, inputs, tools, stop, and the human check. If you cannot name the stop, it is not ready.
Upgraded AIChatGPTClaudeGeminiMaken8nOpenAIKey skills
Workflows that produce real deliverables
Content, creative, and project plans built by chaining tools — not a single chat window. Practice on problems a company actually has this week.
Agents, custom GPTs & retrieval
When an agent beats a prompt, how to design one, and how retrieval (RAG) lets it answer from your own knowledge instead of the open internet.
Unit 4
AI Content OS, part 1
The fundamentals. Start with the audience, then publish where the product already does: Social, Newsletter, Community Distribution, and SEO/AEO. Same claim, four doors, on a calendar you can keep.
Capstone piece - Put one pillar on the calendar: a social post, a newsletter, a community post, and a search page.
Upgraded AIChatGPTCanvaAhrefsLinkedInKey skills
Audience
Who it is for, the painful job, and the journey from first look to staying. Pillars come from that, not from an empty calendar.
Social
The native post. Write it for the room it lands in, in the company voice, on a day you will actually publish.
Newsletter
A letter with one idea and one next step. It is not a shorter social post.
Community Distribution
The room where that idea already has an audience. Name the community and the one sentence that room cares about.
SEO/AEO
One page per intent. The answer in the first paragraph, the proof, the steps, and language an AI answer can cite.
Unit 5
AI Content OS, part 2
The harder half of the content system. Study a site or a journal, then make your own. Cut the video. Then AI UGC ads: one true claim, many variants, tested before you spend.
Capstone piece - Cut one UGC ad with three variants that all point at the unit-one page.
Upgraded AIHiggsfieldHeyGenChatGPTCanvaGoogle AdsKey skills
Website Cloner
Clone a page to study the structure. The page you ship is still written in your offer, not in someone else’s.
Journal Cloner
Study how a publication is built, then write the issue in your own voice. The clone is a reference, not the piece.
Video Editor
Turn one source into the cuts the channels need. Hold the claim still. Change the length, not the promise.
Ads
A UGC ad is proof that looks like a person, produced as a system. Change the hook, the person, the clothes, and the room. Use Ads to see what is already running before you buy a click.
Unit 6
AI Revenue OS
Pipeline that does not live in one person’s head. Each lesson is a product: Leads, Sequences, the Revenue Agent, CRM & Deals, and the Support Agent. Calls run through Bland. SMS runs through Twilio. ElevenLabs, Retell, and Vapi are the same pattern when you build the agent yourself.
Capstone piece - Build one sequence for the offer: a LinkedIn or email touch, an SMS, and an outbound call script, plus the nurture path if they do not book. Log it on a lead a human can open.
Upgraded AITwilioBlandElevenLabsLinkedIn
WhatsAppHubSpotKey skills
Leads
A lead is a person you can find again: name, channel, and why they are in the motion. Inbound still gets an answer in minutes.
Sequences
One sequence, many doors. LinkedIn or email to open, SMS when you need a short ask, an outbound call when the stake is a date. If they do not book, nurture continues. If two steps disagree, the sequence is not finished.
Outbound calling
A call step is an agent with a number, a task, and a stop. The script states the offer, asks one question, and hands back when a person should take over. The transcript becomes the next step.
SMS
SMS is one ask, their name, and a clock. Batch bursts so the agent does not reply to half a thought. A human sends the message that asks for money or a meeting time.
Revenue Agent
Every conversation in one place: email, LinkedIn, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, and Slack. Auto-engage drafts in the company voice. A human sends anything that starts the relationship.
CRM & Deals
Discovery diagnoses the job. The proposal restates their words, the price, and the return. Every deal has an owner, a next step, and a date.
Support Agent
The conversations that are not a sale: access, a broken step, a question you have answered before. It drafts from the knowledge base. A person sends anything that admits a fault.
Unit 7
AI Ops OS, part 1
Operations and client success. Delivery is a designed system: inboxes, response promises, onboarding, health, and renewals. The Team Scorecard is where the week’s numbers live.
Capstone piece - Write one SOP a teammate can run, one inbox promise, and one health signal. Put that signal on the scorecard for a real client.
Upgraded AISlackNotionMakeHubSpotKey skills
Onboarding & the inbox
Queues, response times, and an onboarding path that does not restart from zero for every new client.
Team Scorecard
Health, QBRs, churn signals, and the weekly numbers. A scorecard that cannot change a decision is a poster.
Agents
The repeatable operating jobs, named and given a stop. An agent runs the checklist. A person handles the exception.
Unit 8
AI Ops OS, part 2
Finance, accounting, and tax. The books, the cash, and the story you can tell a reviewer. Software Savings and Grants & Tax Credits are the product tools for this part.
Capstone piece - Write the close checklist with a day of the month on it. Name one grant or credit worth a look, and one software line you cannot explain.
Upgraded AIStripeChatGPTCopilotNotionKey skills
Software Savings
Audit spend, renegotiate vendors, invoice, and collect. See which tools you are paying for twice before the surprise lands.
Grants & Tax Credits
Month-end, budgets, and the controls a reviewer can follow. Name the program worth a real look, and the folder of support that has to exist before you apply.
Unit 9
Product design & product management
One unit, because a small company does not have a handoff between the person who frames the problem and the person who draws it. Research the job, structure the path, write the PRD, and prototype the smallest version that can answer a question you wrote down first. AI speeds synthesis and variation. It does not decide whose problem this is.
Capstone piece - From one real conversation: a problem statement with no feature name in it, a grayscale flow to the first win, and a two-page PRD with an explicit not-in-this-version list.
FigmaCursorChatGPTClaudeNotebookLMLinearCanvaKey skills
Research, framing & flows
Interviews, empathy maps, and a how-might-we that does not smuggle in your favorite feature. Then information architecture, the user flow, and a wireframe before anyone debates color.
The PRD and the roadmap
Problem, evidence, outcome, what is in, what is out, and how you will know. OKRs for the quarter. A roadmap a small team can run. Jira or Linear hold the tasks after the sequence is clear.
Prototype, launch & measure
A lean MVP is the smallest artifact that tests the problem — a Figma flow or a vibe-coded page. Go-to-market uses the message from the content unit. Adoption, retention, and what it cost to acquire the first ten people decide the next bet.
Unit 10
Capstone: run the company for a week
You opened this in unit one. This unit is the assembly. The offer, the page, the brain, the skill, the content calendar, the UGC ad, the sequence, the SOP, the close, and the PRD have to agree with each other. Then you run the daily, weekly, and monthly cadence once, on a real calendar, and fix the step that still needs you to explain the job.
Capstone piece - Run the company for seven days on the cadence. Collect every artifact from units one through nine. Where two of them disagree, the capstone is not done.
Upgraded AINotionHubSpotChatGPTKey skills
Assemble what you already built
The six-line offer, the page, one RISE prompt, one skill, one agent canvas, one week of content, one ad with three variants, one sequence with a call and an SMS, one SOP, one close note, one wireframe, and one PRD.
The cadence is the operating system
Daily: publish, answer inbound, advance the sequence, triage the queue. Weekly: the long piece, pipeline, client health, and five conversations. Monthly: proof, search, the retro, and renewals.
The portfolio and the MRAIC™
The certificate names the person who finished. The portfolio is the company a stranger can inspect. If an artifact is missing, that unit is not finished.
Operating system
The weekly cadence you leave with
The rhythm the capstone runs on. Marketing, the sequence, delivery, and product, without a meeting for every decision.
Daily
- Publish or distribute one piece of content
- Answer inbound in under five minutes
- Advance the sequence: the next call, text, or note
- Triage the inbox and the ticket queue
Weekly
- One long-form piece and several short ones
- Pipeline, ad variants, and a KPI read
- Client health and delivery planning
- Five discovery or user interviews
Monthly
- One case study and one webinar
- SEO planning and a content refresh
- Process retro and SOP updates
- QBRs and renewal readiness
Why Modern Retirement
Why get certified in AI company design
A credential for the person who can design the company, not only use a chatbot.
Full-stack operations
Marketing, sales, client success, finance, product, and design — one operating system, practiced together.
A portfolio, not a slide deck
You leave with the capstone: the offer, the sequence, the ad, the SOP, and a cadence you can show. The work is the proof.
The MRAIC™ credential
Modern Retirement AI Company Design Certification. Add it to LinkedIn and your resume when the role asks for more than tool familiarity.
Grant-funded for employers
B.C., Ontario, and Alberta programs can reimburse most of the tuition. Many learners are sponsored through L&D.
Live, and small enough
Three hours a week for five weeks, in Vancouver, Costa Rica, or online, with practitioners who deploy this in real companies.
Beginner-friendly on AI
No coding prerequisite. The course assumes you know your job, and teaches the AI and the company design around it.
People
Operators already running companies this way
Founders, growth leads, and finance leads using Upgraded to automate the work Modern Retirement teaches you to design.
“Upgraded helped us secure our first major grant. The AI found opportunities we would have missed and drafted applications in hours instead of weeks.”
Ron Dembo
Founder & CEO, Riskthinking
“Upgraded feels like an extension of our team, not just a contractor. They have saved us time, money, and stress, and helped us raise funding. What I appreciate most is how their process brings clarity to big-picture projects.”
Jackson Payne
Founder & CEO, Deeleeo
“Upgraded's AI Revenue Operations (RevOps) automation streamlined our sales and billing workflows from lead to cash. The entire process is now integrated and self-optimizing—freeing up our team and driving faster, more predictable revenue.”
Scott Spence
Head of Growth, Parvis
“The R&D tax credit discovery alone paid for Upgraded 10x over. We had no idea we qualified until the AI analyzed our operations.”
Norm Trainor
President & CEO, Covenant Group
“Working with Upgraded gave us a trusted partner to navigate Canadian grants, saving us time, money, and significant stress while providing clarity on hiring costs, financial planning, and growth opportunities. Their strong organization and proactive communication kept everything seamless and allowed us to stay focused on running our business.”
Kevin Jing
Co-Founder & CFO, Hot Takes
“Upgraded replaced three full-time roles with AI agents. Same output, zero hiring headaches. The ROI was immediate.”
Jon Tirmandi
Co-Founder & Head of Growth, Normative
Companies using Upgraded
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about Modern Retirement and the MRAIC™ certification.
A professional certification that verifies your completion of the course. Upon completion, you receive the certificate and become a Modern Retirement–Certified AI Company Designer. Add it to your LinkedIn and resume to stand out when applying for AI, operations, and company-building roles.
Yes. Modern Retirement is built for people inside small companies and startups: founders, marketers, operations leads, client success managers, business development managers, software engineers, product managers, designers, and legal professionals. The advantage is the same across roles — you learn to design every function of the company so it can run with AI, not only the slice you already own. No prior AI or coding experience is required.
None. Modern Retirement was created for those new to generative AI who want to add it to their professional toolkit. The course is beginner-friendly and requires no prior experience for admission.
Modern Retirement is taught by AI and company-building practitioners from leading startups. Instructors bring real-world experience from deploying AI employees, automating operations, and helping companies secure government funding.
Sessions are immersive and hands-on from day one. You work on real-world projects, use the tools your company already runs on, and leave with portfolio work: prompts, workflows, agents, and an operating cadence you can put to work the following week.
We keep sessions small enough for focused support from instructors, and large enough that you build useful connections across industries and roles.
Both. You can take Modern Retirement in person in Vancouver, Costa Rica, or live online. Either way you are in a live, interactive room. The format is one 3-hour session per week for 5 weeks.
Modern Retirement is 5 weeks long, with one 3-hour session per week (15 hours total). The schedule is built for busy professionals. Check the form for upcoming kickoff dates.
A certification is targeted and immediate — built for professionals who want a specific skill, recognized quickly, and applied in the job they already have. A degree takes longer and covers a wider range. This one is practical: you leave able to design how an AI-first company actually runs.
Monthly installments, employer sponsorship, and Canada training grant eligibility. Employers can apply for up to 80% reimbursement through B.C., Ontario, and Alberta programs — including the B.C. Employer Training Grant, up to $10,000 per employee and $300,000 per year. Enter your email for tuition and financing details.
Yes. Enter your email to receive the course package, and our team will be in touch. You can also book a call at /earnings-strategy-estimate.
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