Work Experience — 20 Weeks

The platform is built.
Now run the business.

Here’s the twist most people never get to see: the software was built by AI in one night. The booking system, the payments, ScoutAI, the dashboard — all of it exists and runs. What AI can’t do is fly the drone, win the clients, judge the quality, and grow the company. That’s your job. This is your 20-week plan to do it.

How This Works
The ground rules

Every Monday is a working day. You have tasks, a goal, and a deliverable. You’ll use Claude to think and write, Claude Code to change and extend the platform, and the operator console to run real jobs. You do the work.

Rule 01

Learn by operating

No theory-only weeks. Every session moves real jobs, real content, or real clients forward. The business is the curriculum.

Rule 02

AI builds, you direct

The platform was built overnight by Claude Code from a spec. That’s the modern lesson: building is cheap now — knowing what to build, checking it’s right, and running it well is the valuable skill. You’ll learn to read the system, change it, and extend it.

Rule 03

Escalating ownership

Weeks 1–8: Dad leads, you execute. Weeks 9–14: you lead, Dad reviews. Weeks 15–20: you run it, Dad advises.

✍️
Content & SEO
💻
Directing Claude Code
⚙️
Operations & Automation
📈
Business & Finance
✈️
Flight & Field Work
Claude AI task
Claude Code / platform task
Operations / console task
General task
What Already Exists

The platform you’re inheriting

Built overnight from the v4.0 business plan: two brand websites, a booking engine with deposit and balance payments, the ScoutAI report engine running on the Claude API, a client portal, an operator console, a CRM, and automated email throughout. It runs the full nine-step client journey with no phone calls and no chasing. Your first job is to understand it. Your real job is everything it can’t do.

stormscout.com.au

Storm damage brand site + booking

overwatch — staging

General surveys brand site + booking

scout-ops

Operator console: jobs, reviews, CRM

ScoutAI

Claude-powered analysis & PDF reports

Stripe

Deposit → balance → portal gating

9-step automation

Booking to delivery, fully wired

Phase 1

Foundation

Weeks 1–4

You’ve already made the case for the business. Now learn the machine you’ve inherited — every screen, every trigger, every email — and prove it works with a real flight. By the end of this phase you can run a job end to end without help.

Week 01

The Case for the Business

Before you build anything, prove why it should exist. Research the competitive landscape, then build and deliver a presentation that makes the case for StormScout & OverWatch.
Competitor analysis: Brisbane drone operators — who they are, what they charge, where the gaps are
Build the presentation: why this business needs to exist, what makes it different, the role of ScoutAI
Deliver the presentation to Dad — defend the case, take the feedback
Delivered: Competitor analysis + founding pitch. You made the case for the business out loud.
Week 02

Learn the Machine

The platform exists — now own the knowledge of it. Walk the full nine-step journey as a client and as an operator until nothing about it surprises you.
Read the v4.0 business plan and the automation spec (docs/automation-spec.md) end to end
Book a test job on the StormScout site as a fake client — pay the mock deposit, read every email
Log into the operator console — find your job, read the shoot brief, walk it through scheduled → flown
Upload test photos, watch ScoutAI analyse them, open the PDF report it produces
Pay the mock balance, open the client portal, download the report — the full loop
Use Claude to explain anything in the system you don’t understand — keep asking until it’s clear
Draw the 9-step workflow from memory — every trigger, every branch — then check it against the spec
Deliverable: One complete test job run through the entire system by you alone, plus your hand-drawn workflow map matching the spec.
Week 03

Make the Brands Yours

AI wrote the first draft of both websites. First drafts are never final. Review every page as the owner — fix what’s wrong, sharpen what’s flat, and set up the brand accounts only you can create.
Read every page of both sites as a sceptical customer — list everything that’s wrong, unclear, or untrue
Direct Claude Code to fix your list — copy changes, pricing corrections, anything that doesn’t sound like us
Rewrite the About pages with Claude — your real story as the pilot, in your voice
Create Instagram and Facebook accounts for both brands
Set up Google Business Profiles for both brands with Dad
Use Claude to write the bios and first posts for each account
Deliverable: Both sites reviewed and corrected by a human owner. Social accounts live. GBPs created.
Week 04

First Real Flight Through the System

Prove the whole machine with real drone imagery. Fly a family or friend’s property, process it through the live system, and judge the report like your name is on it — because it is.
Pre-flight: CASA app airspace check, weather check, property access confirmed
Fly the property — full survey pattern, roof, gutters, solar, boundaries
Upload the real images through the console — watch ScoutAI process genuine data
Read the report critically: what did the AI get right, miss, or overstate?
Work with Claude to improve the ScoutAI prompts based on what you found
Direct Claude Code to apply the prompt improvements and re-run the analysis
Compare before/after reports — document the improvement
Deliverable: A real property surveyed through the live platform, and a measurably better ScoutAI prompt — your first platform improvement.
Milestone 1

You can run a job end to end alone. The brands are yours, not the AI’s. ScoutAI is better because you judged its work.

Phase 2

Operate

Weeks 5–8

Reps. You’ll process practice jobs until operating the system is muscle memory, harden the legal and safety side with Dad, and flip the platform from test mode to live payments. By the end of this phase the business is technically and legally ready to charge strangers.

Week 05

Operations Reps

Run multiple practice jobs in parallel — different services, both brands, both report tiers — and learn what operating at volume feels like.
Run 3 practice jobs simultaneously: one standard, one verified-tier, one before/after pair
Practice the review queue with Dad — he reviews a verified report, you watch what sign-off means
Deliberately break things: upload a wrong file, abandon a booking — learn what failure looks like in the console
Ask Claude to explain the audit log of one job line by line
Write your own one-page operator checklist: a Monday morning routine for the console
Deliverable: Three practice jobs delivered, one failure recovered, and your personal operator checklist.
Week 06

Legal, Safe & Insured

A business that flies drones over houses needs its paperwork straight. Work through the compliance file with Dad and close every gap before a stranger pays you.
Work through the compliance & risk document with Dad — CASA accreditation status, what your licence covers
Confirm public liability insurance — get quotes, understand what it costs and covers
Build the pre-flight safety checklist into every job: airspace, weather, neighbours, privacy
Use Claude to draft the terms of service and privacy policy for both sites
Direct Claude Code to add the legal pages to both sites
Agree the supervision structure with Dad — who signs off what, given your age
Deliverable: Compliance gaps closed or scheduled. Insurance quoted. Legal pages live. Supervision agreed in writing.
Week 07

Go Live on Payments

Flip the platform from mock payments to real Stripe payments with Dad, and verify every money path with real (small) transactions.
With Dad: add the Stripe keys, seed the live products, understand what each price object is
Run a real $1-scale test transaction end to end — deposit, balance, refund
Verify the webhook events fire in production — read the logs with Claude’s help
Turn email from log mode to live mode — send every template to yourself and read them as a client would
Fix any email copy that reads flat — these are the only letters most clients will ever get from us
Refund the test transactions, reconcile in the Stripe dashboard
Deliverable: Live payments proven with real money in and refunded back out. Live email verified. The platform can now legally take a stranger’s booking.
Week 08

SEO Foundations & Search Presence

Make Google and the AI answer engines aware both brands exist. The sites shipped with schema, llms.txt and sitemaps — now wire them to the outside world and learn why each piece matters.
Set up Google Search Console for both domains, submit both sitemaps
Set up Google Analytics on both sites
Ask Claude to explain every SEO asset the sites already have (JSON-LD, llms.txt, agent.json) — write your own notes
Complete both Google Business Profiles: photos, services, hours, service area
Audit the 6 launch articles with Claude — tighten titles and openings for search intent
Direct Claude Code to apply the article improvements
Deliverable: Both sites indexed and measurable. GBPs complete. You can explain what every SEO asset does.
Milestone 2

The business is legally ready, payments are live, the system is muscle memory, and search engines know both brands exist. Nothing is stopping a launch.

Phase 3

Launch

Weeks 9–12

Content, announcement, first clients. You take both brands public, push through your personal network and local groups, and serve your first paying customers on a platform you know cold.

Week 09

Content Engine

Build the marketing muscle before launch day: a content calendar, a bank of posts, and fresh articles so both brands look alive from day one.
Use Claude to build a 4-week social calendar per brand
Draft 14 posts per brand with Claude (28 total) — you supply the local knowledge
Create post graphics in Canva — consistent look per brand
Schedule the first 2 weeks of posts
Co-write 2 new articles per brand with Claude (4 total)
Direct Claude Code to publish the new articles to both sites
Deliverable: 28 posts drafted, 2 weeks scheduled, 4 new articles live. The content engine runs.
Week 10

Final QA & Dress Rehearsal

One last full pass before strangers arrive. QA everything on mobile, run a final complete dry run, and prepare the launch materials.
QA every page of both sites on your phone — links, typos, forms, speed
Full dress rehearsal: one complete job, live payments (refunded), live emails, real images
Draft the launch announcements with Claude — one per brand, plus a personal outreach message for Dad’s network
List 10 local Facebook groups and community pages worth posting in
Any final fixes with Claude Code
Go/no-go meeting with Dad — confirm launch Monday
Deliverable: Everything QA’d on mobile. Dress rehearsal clean. Launch materials ready. Go confirmed.
Week 11

Launch Day

Take both brands public. Push everywhere at once, watch the system handle real traffic, and respond to every enquiry like the company you want to become.
Post launch announcements on both brands’ socials
Send personal outreach to Dad’s network
Post in the local Facebook groups from your Week 10 list
Monitor the console and logs all week — every booking, every email, every webhook
Draft responses to enquiries with Claude — fast, warm, professional
Track where every enquiry came from — start the source log
Deliverable: Both brands public. Launch pushed through every channel. Every enquiry answered same-day.
Week 12

First Paying Clients

Serve your first real customers. Aim for two completed paid jobs this week — flown, analysed, reviewed, delivered, and followed up.
Complete your first paying jobs (target: 2)
Run each through the full pipeline — watch the automation handle real clients
Ask each client for feedback and a Google review
Analyse with Claude: what worked, what was slow, what surprised you
Fix any production issues with Claude Code
Celebrate properly. Then log the revenue in the tracker.
Deliverable: First revenue earned. First reviews requested. The business is real.
Milestone 3

Both brands are public, the platform has served real paying clients, and the first revenue is in the bank.

Phase 4

Grow

Weeks 13–16

Stop waiting to be found. Build the B2B pipeline, extend the platform with suburb pages and referral tracking, and turn one-off jobs into repeat relationships.

Week 13

Optimise From Real Data

Two weeks of production data is enough to learn from. Review everything — report quality, automation timing, client feedback — and ship improvements.
Review all client feedback and your source log — what patterns are showing?
Improve the ScoutAI prompts again based on real report quality
Review the automation timing in the audit logs — where do jobs sit longest?
Ship improvements with Claude Code
Review Stripe data: revenue, average order value, deposit-to-balance conversion
Deliverable: Post-launch review done, improvements shipped, numbers known.
Week 14

B2B Pipeline

Consumers find you after storms; businesses book year-round. Open the real estate, broker, and builder channels that make OverWatch a weekly business.
Draft outreach for real estate agents (OverWatch) and insurance brokers (StormScout) with Claude
Contact 10 local real estate agencies and 5 insurance brokers
Pitch 3 builders on construction progress packages
Follow up every launch-week enquiry that didn’t convert
Keep the social cadence running
Deliverable: 18 B2B contacts made. Pipeline started. Follow-ups done.
Week 15

Extend the Platform: Suburb Pages

Your first real platform extension: programmatic local SEO. Spec it, direct Claude Code to build it, QA it, ship it — the full developer-director loop.
Pick the top 10 Brisbane suburbs with Claude using storm history and property data
Write the spec yourself: URL pattern, page structure, local content blocks, schema
Direct Claude Code to build the suburb page generator from YOUR spec
QA every generated page like a sceptical local
Ship the first 10 suburb pages, submit updated sitemaps
Deliverable: 10 suburb landing pages live, built from a spec you wrote. You extended the platform.
Week 16

Referrals & Repeat Revenue

The cheapest client is the one your last client sends you. Build the referral programme and pitch your first subscription clients.
Design the referral programme with Claude ($20 off both sides)
Direct Claude Code to build referral tracking into the CRM
Email past clients with the referral offer
Identify and pitch 5 potential subscription clients (landlords, strata, agents)
Walk one subscription client through the auto-scheduling flow
Deliverable: Referral programme live in the platform. First subscription pitches delivered.
Milestone 4

An active B2B pipeline, a platform you’ve personally extended, referral mechanics live, and subscription conversations underway.

Phase 5

Own It

Weeks 17–20

You run the business now. Dad advises but doesn’t lead. Financial literacy, growth systems, a data-driven review, and the handover that proves you can operate beyond work experience.

Week 17

Financial Literacy

Read the business in numbers. Real revenue, real costs — including what every ScoutAI report costs in API tokens, which the platform tracks per report.
Pull all Stripe revenue to date; reconcile against the platform’s payment records
Pull the per-report API costs from the reports table — what does ScoutAI actually cost per job?
Calculate true operating costs: hosting, Stripe fees, API, fuel, insurance
Calculate net profit and the 50/50 split with real numbers
Build a financial tracker with Claude from the real data
Tax session with Dad: GST threshold, BAS, what gets reported where
Deliverable: Financial tracker with real data. You know the unit economics of every service, including the AI.
Week 18

Growth Systems

Set up the repeatable growth machinery: paid search timed to storm season, and the subscription base that smooths the seasonal trough.
Set up Google Ads with Dad: StormScout storm-season campaign (paused, ready to trigger), OverWatch always-on Brisbane
Write the ad copy variants with Claude
Spec the BOM weather-warning trigger: when a severe storm warning hits Brisbane, what should the platform do automatically?
Direct Claude Code to build the storm-trigger automation from your spec
Push subscriptions: follow up every pitch from Week 16, aim for 3 signed
Deliverable: Ads ready to fire. Storm-trigger automation built from your spec. Subscription base growing.
Week 19

Performance Review

Measure everything, conclude honestly, and decide the next quarter from data, not gut feel.
Pull Analytics + Search Console: traffic, sources, rankings, suburb-page performance
Pull Stripe + platform metrics: revenue, repeat rate, average order, tier uptake
Pull automation metrics from the audit logs: booking-to-delivery time, failure points
Have Claude analyse it all and propose the top 3 growth opportunities — then argue with it
Draft the partnership performance report with Claude
Deliverable: A full performance report you can defend line by line, with a data-backed Q2 growth plan.
Week 20

The Handover

Present the business to Dad: where it started, what you operated, what you extended, what it earns, where it goes next. You walk out of work experience as a business operator.
Build the 20-week journey presentation with Claude
Present to Dad: performance, the platform, what you learned, what’s next
Record your operator documentation: how to run a Monday, how to process a job, how to handle failures
Set the ongoing rhythm: weekend ops, after-school sessions, storm-season readiness
Plan next quarter: targets, content, B2B, the platform extensions you want next
Deliverable: Presentation delivered. Operations documented. Q2 plan set. You’re in business.
Final Milestone

StormScout and OverWatch are live, earning, and running on a platform you operate, improved, and extended. You own half of it. You run it.

The AI built it in a night.
You’ll spend 20 weeks becoming the one who runs it.

The best work experience is the one that doesn’t end when the placement does.