Why it exists
The tools changed. The hesitation did not.
Building a first version used to require money, technical experience or somebody willing to build it for you. AI changed that. One determined person can now research, design, write, prototype and reach customers at extraordinary speed.
Yet most potentially good businesses are still trapped in private. LOCKIN was created to remove the ordinary reasons for waiting and replace them with a week that demands useful evidence.
Who created it
Steve Franco
Steve is the creator of LOCKIN and co-founder of Founder15, an AI native company builder based in London. He has spent twelve years launching ventures and turning strategy into products, systems and businesses that actually ship.
At Founder15 he leads the AI operating platform, including agent design, automation and digital transformation work across the businesses the company builds and supports.
LOCKIN takes the same practical bias into a concentrated format for people at the very beginning: choose the problem, make the first version, put it in front of people and learn what is real.
Read about Founder15The workshops
Operators, not motivational speakers
The programme includes guided working sessions with founders who have launched products, found customers, raised money, changed direction and made expensive mistakes.
Sessions focus on the decisions in front of the room: choosing what to build, using AI without producing generic work, finding early users, making an offer and getting the first version out.
The final workshop line-up will be shared with accepted applicants before they confirm their place. We would rather announce the right people than decorate the page with names.
The standard
No invented outcomes
Camp 01 is the first LOCKIN camp. That means there are no manufactured alumni stories or borrowed testimonials. The website says what is planned, what is included and what success can honestly look like.
After the camp, participant stories will be published only with permission and with the uncomfortable parts left in. A killed idea can be as valuable as a first customer when it saves somebody another year of guessing.
Judge it by the work.
Read the method, inspect the full Madeira programme and ask anything that still feels unclear before you apply.