📡 Influence · one of the five philosophies
Reach the people it is for. Get a reply.
That is the whole verb. 37 capabilities in this school carry it, from naming an audience to originating a market nobody had named yet — and of those, 2 have a class with a date on it. This page tells you exactly where the gap is, and what runs four mornings a week in its place.
The thing to say before you spend anything
No class here teaches you to market yourself.
That is not a tagging oversight, and putting the Influence label on more classes would not fix it. The three Influence classes on the calendar — The Interactive Fiction Intensive — teach you to move an audience through a piece of work: a campaign, a dataset, a story on a public shelf. What they do not teach is the unglamorous motion of choosing a list of people who have never heard of you and writing to them on a schedule.
That material does exist. It is written, it is good, and it sits inside the Founding Federation curriculum — designing your offer, building your service pipeline, publishing your offer page, an outbound outreach playbook, audience archetypes. It has been turned into apps you can open right now. It has not been built into a class with a date. The school's commitment is to build that class, rather than sprinkle the label onto classes that do not teach it.
All 37 Influence capabilities, by what teaches them today
The 6 that are the missing class
Every one of these lives only inside Founding Federation, which has no session on the calendar. Read them as the syllabus of the class that has not been built.
- 8execute a first touch outbound sequence on schedule
- 9operate a boundary on unpaid work
- 9produce an account of an audiences current workaround
- 9produce an offer page that answers a cold message
- 11justify a price when the buyer pushes back
- 12design an offer for one segment end to end
One more thing that is true and saves people a lot of confusion: applying for a job and pitching an offer are the same outbound motion run against a different reader. Same list, same first touch, same follow-up, same arithmetic below. That is why a single hour serves the people job-hunting and the people selling.
The part everybody's intuition gets wrong
How long until somebody says yes?
Outreach is a chain of four numbers multiplied together, and multiplication is unforgiving. Put your own numbers in. Nothing here is a benchmark and nothing leaves your browser — these are your assumptions, and the arithmetic is only as honest as they are.
Defaults are a starting guess, not a claim about what you should expect. The school does not publish a reply rate, so this page does not pretend to have one. Change all four.
Researched, named, written to individually. Not a list you bought and not a newsletter blast — the number of real first touches you will actually send.
Any answer counts, including a polite refusal.
A call, a proper thread, an interview. Something with a next step in it.
Signed, hired, funded, booked. The thing you were actually asking for.
Weeks until the first yes
8 weeks, sending every one of those 20
Five yeses take 40 weeks at this rate. On these numbers it takes 157 messages to buy one yes.
If you could only move one of them
At these numbers, volume moves the answer most. That flips as you get busier: at forty or sixty people a week, ten more is a small proportional change and the reply rate takes over. The app for volume is the Pipeline.
Two things fall out of this that people resist. The first is that at low volume almost nothing beats sending more, because every rate in the chain is multiplied by it. The second is that once volume is high, the rates are all that is left — and rates are a craft problem, not an effort problem. The bar that wins above tells you which of the two you are currently in.
What exists today, not when the class is built
An hour four mornings a week, and four apps that do the stages
The practice is already a recurring thing even though the class is not. Each app below is the guided version of one stage of the arithmetic you just ran, built from the same Founding Federation material.
Outbound Hour — GTM
Offers, pipelines, offer pages, outreach templates and job applications get worked on out loud, with other people in the room. It is where the sending actually happens — which, per the arithmetic above, is the part that fails most often and the part nobody does alone.
9:00 Pacific
Mon-Thu · led by Spencer
Who you are writing to, what stage each one is at, and whether last week's sending actually happened. The number at the top of the funnel.
/tools/pipeline → Stage 2 · reply rate The Outreach BenchThe first-touch message itself, written against a specific reader and a specific ask. This is the number that decides whether volume was worth it.
/tools/outreach → Stage 3 · conversation The Front Page AuditWhat a replier sees when they go and look you up. A page that does not answer the cold message is where conversations quietly stop.
/tools/front-page-audit → Stage 4 · the yes The Offer DesignerWhat you are actually selling, to which segment, at what price, with what included. Most conversations that die had nothing concrete to say yes to.
/tools/offer-designer →All four are running pages behind a school login, not mock-ups of a class that might exist one day — they were built from the Founding Federation material and they are what people use in the hour. The honest offer is exactly that: this hour and these four apps today, and the class when it is built.
The whole label, unedited
37 capabilities, and the proof each one demands
A philosophy is a label on a capability, not a folder a class sits in — which is why these run from order 8 to 14 (Primary to Paradigmatic) and cut across 8 domains. Each one lists what you must produce to claim it. The tag under each says what teaches it today.
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execute a first touch outbound sequence on schedule
Proof: Sent messages across a two-week sprint, dated, with replies and non-replies counted.
No date Founding Federation: Smallest Sellable Thing
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name an audience and its success criterion
Proof: A written audience statement naming who they are, what they are trying to do, and the observable event that means it worked.
No date Data Activism: Turn Data Into Power
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operate a boundary on unpaid work
Proof: Your brain-picking line written down, and one real request you moved across it, with what you said.
No date Founding Federation: Price and Ideate (Week 0)
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produce a handoff that survives the author leaving
Proof: A handoff document and a record of another person continuing that work from it, with the questions they had to ask counted — zero is the claim.
Taught by nothing yet
-
produce a playable story from a running skeleton
Proof: Your own dungeon, playable end to end, holding at least one piece of state that a later scene reads back.
On the calendar The Interactive Fiction Intensive
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produce a segment definition from observed behaviour
Proof: A written selection rule, the count it returns against real data, and one person it excludes whom a demographic definition would have included.
Taught by nothing yet
-
produce a usable interface for an agent
Proof: A reachable URL and a recording of a first-time user finishing the task with no spoken instruction from you.
Taught by nothing yet
-
produce an account of an audiences current workaround
Proof: Three accounts in the audience's own words naming the tool or habit they use now, and the moment in it that costs them something.
No date Founding Federation: Smallest Sellable Thing
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produce an explanation that survives a hostile reading
Proof: The explanation, a hostile reading of it written by someone else, and the revision that closed the opening without softening the claim.
No date Data Activism: Turn Data Into Power
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produce an offer page that answers a cold message
Proof: A live page, the outbound message that points at it, and the single action it asks for.
No date Founding Federation: Smallest Sellable Thing
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publish a story to a public shelf and get it played
Proof: A story live on The Spaces Between's public shelf, with mood tags and metadata set, and a playtest exchange in both directions.
On the calendar The Interactive Fiction Intensive
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characterise how a claim degrades as it is retold
Proof: A chain of at least three retellings collected in the wild, with the point of inversion identified and what caused it.
No date Practical Propaganda
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characterise one audiences path and where it breaks
Proof: The path as actually walked, the drop-off point identified from records rather than intuition, and that audience's own account of why they left.
Taught by nothing yet
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characterise what a publication reveals about its source
Proof: A draft publication with the identifying details enumerated — including the ones only an insider would notice — and the redactions made, reviewed by someone who did not write it.
Taught by nothing yet
-
classify harmful outputs against a values statement
Proof: The values statement, a labelled set of outputs, and a second labeller's pass with the disagreement rate reported.
Taught by nothing yet
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classify visitors into segments by observed behaviour
Proof: A running classification over real traffic and a confusion table against a hand-labelled sample, including the segment it gets wrong most often.
Taught by nothing yet
-
falsify a segment hypothesis with a held out test
Proof: A hypothesis written before the test, the held-out result, and the decision it changed — including one hypothesis the test killed.
Taught by nothing yet
-
hold several audience models on one surface
Proof: A live surface serving at least three named audiences, the routing rule written down, per-audience outcomes counted separately, and at least one located contradiction between two audiences' paths.
Taught by nothing yet
-
justify a price when the buyer pushes back
Proof: A price defended out loud in a real conversation or a rehearsal, with the objection raised and the number that answered it.
No date Founding Federation: Price and Ideate (Week 0)
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measure a models value alignment against a stated standard
Proof: A written values standard, a scored baseline, an intervention, and a re-score on held-out cases showing the direction of movement.
Taught by nothing yet
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measure whether a user pays more than they cost
Proof: Revenue per user set against cost per user from real months, the usage level where the margin goes negative, and what you changed when it did.
Taught by nothing yet
-
measure whether an explanation changed what people did
Proof: A before-and-after behavioural measure, not a survey, and one instance of stated agreement with no behavioural change attached to it.
No date Data Activism: Turn Data Into Power
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design a channel that reaches people who are not looking for you
Proof: A channel in operation, the share of arrivals who had never heard the framing before, and what they did next.
No date Practical Propaganda
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design a household security posture for people who did not choose it
Proof: A posture in place across at least three people who did not set it up, and one protection that held when someone did the wrong thing anyway.
Taught by nothing yet
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design a packaged assistant over your documents
Proof: A shared assistant used by at least three people who did not build it, its rubric-scored answers, and one answer citing the live API it called.
No date Custom GPTs
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design an interaction protocol for responsible use
Proof: The written protocol, its implementation, and a log of at least one real interaction where it refused or escalated instead of answering.
No date Custom GPTs
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design an offer for one segment end to end
Proof: A shipped offer, the per-segment outcome measured apart from the rest of the traffic, and the one element you changed when the outcome disagreed.
No date Founding Federation: Smallest Sellable Thing
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reconcile community ownership with somebody having to maintain it
Proof: Infrastructure still running after the person who built it stopped, a written maintenance agreement, and one handover that actually happened.
Taught by nothing yet
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reconcile security with what people will actually do
Proof: A requirement people were bypassing, the revised version they follow, and evidence the revision still closes the original threat.
No date Field Opsec
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reconcile several audience models on one surface
Proof: A live surface serving at least three named audiences, the routing rule written down, per-audience outcomes measured apart, and one contradiction found and resolved rather than averaged away.
Taught by nothing yet
-
reconcile several segments on one price surface
Proof: A live surface pricing at least three segments differently, the rule deciding who sees which, and the disclosure a visitor can reach.
Taught by nothing yet
-
reconcile two operating agreements into one team
Proof: The two prior agreements, the merged one in use by both groups, and a named constraint from each that survived the merge intact.
Taught by nothing yet
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reconcile what you built with what you can maintain alone
Proof: A month you were away with the system still serving users, the runbook somebody else used, and the thing you deliberately shut off because you could not keep it alive.
Taught by nothing yet
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synthesise a teaching practice for an uncovered capability
Proof: A published curriculum delivered by at least one instructor who is not its author, and student artifacts showing the capability transferred.
Taught by nothing yet
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originate a market from a need no one had named
Proof: Buyers who describe the need in your terms rather than their own prior ones, and at least one other party organising delivery in the category.
Taught by nothing yet
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originate an interaction paradigm that holds across markets
Proof: The paradigm running in at least two markets with materially different constraints, and one party outside your organisation building to it.
Taught by nothing yet
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originate an operating model for managed agent teams
Proof: A written operating model in use by at least two people, with a recorded instance of it catching a failure that the previous arrangement missed.
Taught by nothing yet
21 of the 37 have no class at all behind them. That is not padding — they are the top of the ladder, where the proof is a market that organises itself around your framing or a paradigm two other people build to. Nobody teaches those in a Tuesday session. They are here so the ladder has a top, and so you can see how far the taught part of it reaches.
Every class carrying the label
8 classes, 1 of them with a date
Counted from the curriculum, including the parts that do not flatter it. Of the 9.0 recorded hours in this philosophy, all of them belong to one class that is not currently scheduled — so the three classes you could actually attend have no recording at all.
| Class | Influence caps | Video | Exercises | How far alone | Next session |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Interactive Fiction Intensive produce a playable story from a running skeleton · publish a story to a public shelf and get it played | 2 | nothing recorded | 15 | Companion (7 apps) | 29 Aug |
| Founding Federation: Price and Ideate (Week 0) operate a boundary on unpaid work · justify a price when the buyer pushes back | 2 | nothing recorded | 34 | Guided app (2 apps) | not scheduled |
| Custom GPTs design a packaged assistant over your documents · design an interaction protocol for responsible use | 2 | 9.0 h / 7 clips | 6 | No app yet | not scheduled |
| Founding Federation: Smallest Sellable Thing execute a first touch outbound sequence on schedule · produce an offer page that answers a cold message · design an offer for one segment end to end · produce an account of an audiences current workaround · name an audience and its success criterion | 5 | nothing recorded | — | Guided app (4 apps) | not scheduled |
| Practical Propaganda name an audience and its success criterion · design a channel that reaches people who are not looking for you · characterise how a claim degrades as it is retold · produce an explanation that survives a hostile reading · measure whether an explanation changed what people did | 5 | nothing recorded | 21 | Guided app (18 apps) | not scheduled |
| Data Activism: Turn Data Into Power name an audience and its success criterion · produce an explanation that survives a hostile reading · measure whether an explanation changed what people did | 3 | nothing recorded | 25 | Guided app (11 apps) | not scheduled |
| Field Opsec reconcile security with what people will actually do | 1 | nothing recorded | 20 | No app yet | not scheduled |
| Founding Federation: Build With Your Heart First execute a first touch outbound sequence on schedule | 1 | nothing recorded | — | No app yet | not scheduled |
Read the last two columns together. The classes with the strongest apps — the ones you could get through mostly on your own — are the ones with no date, and that is the whole shape of the problem this philosophy has.
Where this label does most of its work
4 of the nine paths lean on Influence
A path earns a place here by carrying at least three Influence capabilities. If one of these is closer to who you are trying to become, start there instead — the path pages sequence the classes, this page only sorts them by verb.
Founder with an AI-first company.
9 classes · 36 capabilities · 106.3 h recorded Open this path → 🎨 The AI CreativeA creative studio with AI.
5 classes · 41 capabilities · 22.4 h recorded Open this path → 🧙 The Weird Internet WizardBuild strange systems that change how people think.
8 classes · 46 capabilities · 126.6 h recorded Open this path → 📊 The AI CitizenA liberal-arts curriculum rebuilt around AI.
4 classes · 34 capabilities · 22.4 h recorded Open this path →Disqualify yourself here rather than after paying
Do not buy this for Influence if…
- You want a recorded course to work through This philosophy has 9.0 recorded hours and they are about building packaged assistants. The other four philosophies carry the archive; this one is a live hour and a set of apps.
- You want the marketing class specifically It is not built, and no amount of relabelling makes it built. If that is the only thing you came for, come to the hour, use the four apps, and watch the calendar.
- You will not send anything on a schedule Every number in the arithmetic above is multiplied by the first one. A perfect offer sent to nobody is worth exactly what an empty week is worth.
- You want an audience without naming one The order-8 capability here is naming a specific audience and the observable event that counts as success for them. Everything upward composes from that, and there is no version of this that skips it.
The offer, stated plainly
The hour and the apps today. The class when it is built.
Come to Outbound Hour — GTM, Mon-Thu at 9:00 Pacific, with ten real names on a list. Send the first message there, in the room, with other people doing the same thing. The Pipeline keeps the list honest between hours. And if you want the archive of everything else the school records while this class gets built, that is what the $250 tier is.