$149 once. 37 lessons. About 6 hours. 14 days to change your mind.
That is the entire transaction. Here is the entire reason: one SAFE signed at the wrong valuation cap, because nobody explained what a cap does, costs a founder several points of ownership at Series A. At that round's post-money, that is six figures or more. The lesson that prevents it takes about 15 minutes.
You have made payroll. You have priced real work and managed real people. Most founder material makes one of two mistakes: it treats you like a beginner, or it assumes you already did a startup. You sit in the gap: fluent in business, new to the machinery.
The people fluent in it usually sit on the other side of the table. You will sign a term sheet once, maybe twice. The investor signing it has done hundreds.
The deal, itemized
Price: $149, one time. You are never billed again.
Scope: 37 lessons across 9 modules, about 6 hours in total. Lessons run 8 to 15 minutes each.
Tools: 6 calculators, 2 decision wizards and 106 glossary entries.
Structure: 5 journey stages you declare yourself. Nothing is locked. Nothing auto-advances.
Updates: 12 months of new and revised content included, then you keep everything permanently.
Exit: 14 day refund. No questions, no form, no interview.
Judge the work before you pay for it
No testimonials, no logos, no ratings. None exist yet, and we will not invent them. No free tier either. What is public instead is evidence.
Every figure below was computed by the same deterministic, unit-tested code that runs inside the product: one founder taken from formation through six financing events. No language model does arithmetic anywhere in it. Formulas documented, assumptions stated. Watch the ownership column. She never sold her company. The documents sold it for her, a few points at a time.
One founder’s fully diluted ownership after each financing event, computed by the dilution simulator.
Event
You own
Founding
100.0%
Grant: Cofounder
60.0%
Grant: Advisor
59.4%
Option pool created
53.5%
SAFE signed: Angel SAFE
53.5% no change
Priced round: Seed
40.1%
Priced round: Series A
32.1%
Read the fifth row. Signing a SAFE dilutes nobody. It converts at the next priced round, and that is when the ownership moves. Founders who miss this are surprised twice: once at the round, and once at the exit.
If a number looks wrong to you, good. Check it.
And one glossary entry, exactly as it ships:
Glossary entry, in full
Liquidation preference
In plain English
The investor's right to get their money back (times a multiple, usually 1x) BEFORE common shareholders see anything in a sale or wind-down.
Why you care
In modest exits, the preference determines whether founders get anything at all. It is the most important term after valuation, sometimes including valuation.
Example
Investors put in $10M with a 1x preference. The company sells for $12M. Investors take $10M first; everyone else splits $2M.
What people get wrong
A 1x preference does not 'double dip' by default. Standard non-participating preferred takes EITHER its money back OR its percentage, whichever is greater.
That is one of 106.
What it teaches
Equity, cap tables, SAFEs, dilution, term sheets, option pools, exit waterfalls, runway and burn, SaaS metrics, and the legal and tax basics that bite early: 83(b) elections, Delaware, sales tax. Fundraising and bootstrapping get equal respect. VC is a financing choice, not the destination.
Legal and tax content cites primary sources, each one linked so you can open it and check that the lesson says what the source says. Practice, law, and opinion are labeled; state-dependent rules are flagged. The curriculum cites 15 primary sources:
No subscription. No community, no guru, no mastermind tier.
No streaks, no badges, no XP, no notifications.
One idea per screen, resumable mid-lesson, works offline. WCAG 2.2 AA.
Progress stays in your browser. No account required.
It is not advice, either. It is education. It will make you the informed party in the room; it will not replace your lawyer or your accountant, and it says so plainly.
The Second Build is a paid, self-guided learning application that teaches startup finance, equity, fundraising and founder operations to people who have already built a product. It covers cap tables, dilution, SAFEs, priced rounds, term sheets, SaaS metrics, runway, entity formation and US startup tax basics, using interactive calculators rather than prose alone. It contains 37 lessons across 9 modules, 6 calculators, 2 decision wizards and 106 glossary terms.
Who is it for?
It is for experienced operators who are new to venture-backed startup mechanics. If you have run a business, priced work and made payroll but have never read a term sheet or modelled a SAFE conversion, this is aimed at you. It is not an introduction to business, and it does not explain what a customer is.
How much does it cost?
$149 once. That includes 12 months of new and revised content as it ships. There is no subscription and you are never billed a second time.
What happens after the 12 months of updates?
Everything you already have keeps working, forever. The updates window only governs content published after your window closes. Nothing is taken away, nothing stops loading, and there is no renewal you have to decline.