Learn inside a working studio.
Crafter’s Lab helps solo developers build and operate their own app studio. I’m Daniel: I teach from the products, experiments, agent teams, and systems I use at Crafter Apps while you develop a way of working that fits your own projects.
You bring a real project, an idea, or a way of working you want to improve. We learn, try things, compare approaches, and evolve together as the tools and our studios change.
Crafter’s Lab begins with an intentional chapter from January 2027 through December 2029. Read The Founding Chapter to understand the shared commitment and how we will choose what comes next.
One workshop. All connected.
- Resources teach the work and the reasoning. In videos, guides, and field notes, I explain how a setup works, why I made a decision, what I tried, and what I change. Skills, blueprints, and available files help you apply the learning. Explore resources and categories.
- Notion gives you shared knowledge and systems to adapt. The Foundry, Swift Brain, and Ops Lab each support a different part of building your own studio. They are included with Crafter, Founder, and Mentorship. Understand the three shared Teamspaces.
- Slack is where members talk. Discuss the resources, share what you are building, ask questions, and compare approaches in the rooms included with your pass. I take part and share work in progress from my own studio. Explore the Slack community.
These parts support the same learning path. A resource can explain the reasoning behind a workflow shared in Slack; related Notion material can help you adapt it. You choose where to begin from the work in front of you.
Find the topic your work needs
The five paths group connected capabilities. Their categories help you find relevant work, from coding and agent responsibilities to Apple product craft, studio operations, positioning, promotion, and launch. Each path guide explains what every category explores and where to start.
- Build with AI — Improve how you plan, delegate, code, and ship with AI.
- Build and operate agents — Construct capable agents, give them real work, and run them reliably.
- Build Apple products — Turn Apple platform capabilities into thoughtful, reliable products.
- Run the solo studio — Build the operating system and business judgment behind a one-person product studio.
- Market your products — Find the right audience, communicate the product clearly, and build a repeatable path from launch to learning.
Move between topics as your project develops; there is no required sequence to complete.
Compare the passes
Builder opens the resource library and the member community. Crafter adds the three shared Notion teamspaces and their focused rooms. Founder is the same complete Crafter access, paid once through December 31, 2029. Every benefit below links to the guide that explains it.
| Benefit | Builder | Crafter | Founder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learning and the workshop | |||
| Full resource library across five learning paths | Included | Included | Included |
| One new Lab video every weekday | Included | Included | Included |
| Slack workshop rooms and resource discussions | Included | Included | Included |
| Workshop Hour, Sundays 21:00–22:00 Malta | Included | Included | Included |
| Crew Log, with Pulse polls and Ship It launches | Included | Included | Included |
| Community Calendar | Included | Included | Included |
| Monthly newsletter, when you opt in | Included | Included | Included |
| Shared Notion teamspaces and focused rooms | |||
| The Foundry | Not included | Included | Included |
| Swift Brain | Not included | Included | Included |
| Ops Lab | Not included | Included | Included |
| Focused Slack rooms for the teamspaces | Not included | Included | Included |
| Crew AMA questions | Not included | Included | Included |
| Requests for new resources | Not included | Included | Included |
| Commitment | |||
| How you pay | Recurring plan | Recurring plan | Once, no renewal |
| How long access lasts | Through your paid period | Through your paid period | Through Dec 31, 2029 |
| Rate stays locked while subscribed | Included | Included | Paid once |
| Private founding recognition | Not included | Not included | Included |
Crafter Mentorship is a separate program, by application, for building and operating your AI-native app studio with me. It includes everything in Crafter while it is active, plus a private Mentee’s Cockpit, and is built around a three-month commitment you can cancel at any time. Prices and availability are on the membership page; Membership Locked explains price locking and cancellation.
The rhythm of the Lab
- Every weekday: one new Lab video joins the resource library. Guides, files, and other material follow the work rather than a daily schedule.
- Every Sunday, 21:00–22:00 Malta time: Workshop Hour in #the-bench, open to members and invited guests.
- The final Friday of each month: the monthly Crafter's Lab newsletter for paying members who opt in. It recaps what happened in the Lab and its tools and connects it to the five learning paths. The first edition is still ahead.
The rest happens asynchronously, so you can take part around your own schedule; membership does not include scheduled live classes. The Community Calendar brings the rhythm together with scheduled resource releases.
Start with your own work
- Join Slack from onboarding or Profile and introduce yourself in #welcome: what you are building and what you want to improve.
- Choose a resource or category around a current problem. Apply the idea, inspect the result, and bring your questions or experiments back to the workshop.
- Bring something you are building to Workshop Hour on Sunday, or ask in a thread whenever it suits you.
- If your pass includes the shared Notion teamspaces, I arrange the invitation through Slack. Study the relevant material and adapt the pieces offered for reuse.
- If you join Crafter Mentorship, I open your private Slack channel and Mentee’s Cockpit.
- Use Crew Log for connected conversations and Calendar for scheduled resource releases. Profile holds your account settings, including the explicit opt-in for the monthly newsletter. Turn it on to receive the first edition; payment never opts you in automatically.