Your instructor
Maya
Castellanos
Founder · ex-Stripe design engineer
Maya has shipped twelve products in eight years — two acquired, one that quietly pays her rent. She spent four years at Stripe building the Checkout surfaces millions of businesses use, then left to teach builders the unglamorous middle: the part where most ideas die.
She’s taught six Cohorts to 640+ builders. Her whole thing is simple: you don’t need another course, you need to actually finish one — so every session ends with you pushing real code.
The track record
Eight years of shipping.
Not theory from the sidelines. The whole curriculum comes from a decade of doing the work — at scale, and on her own.
- 2020 — now
Founder & teacher · Cohort
Built the six-week live program from a single sold-out session into seven cohorts and 640+ builders shipped.
- 2016 — 2020
Design engineer · Stripe
Worked on Checkout and the hosted payment surfaces millions of businesses rely on to take money.
- 2014 — 2016
Product engineer · Two acquired startups
Shipped early product at two seed-stage companies, both later acquired — the years she learned to cut scope.
- cohorts taught, all sold out
- 7
- finishers launch something live
- 8 in 10
- would recommend to a friend
- 90%
- risk — ship, or your money back
- $0
cohorts taught, all sold out
finishers launch something live
would recommend to a friend
risk — ship, or your money back
Learn it from someone who’s shipped twelve. Build yours with Maya. 14 seats left
Enroll — $69Selected work
Products she actually shipped.
A few of the twelve. Two acquired, one that pays the rent, and the very program you’re reading — all built on the same playbook she teaches.
Ledgerly
8k paidInvoicing SaaS · acquired
A freelance invoicing tool that grew to 8,000 paying users before it was acquired in 2019.
Plotline
$11k MRRWriting app · pays the rent
A focused tool for long-form writers — the quiet product that still funds Maya’s month.
Cohort
7 cohortsThis program
The live cohort you’re looking at now — designed, built, and launched on the exact playbook it teaches.
In a student’s words
What it’s like to learn from her.
Maya’s feedback is specific, fast, and a little relentless — the kind that gets a half-built idea over the line. Here’s how it landed for one builder last cohort.
The cohort format is the whole thing. Knowing 24 other people were shipping the same week I was made me show up. I went from zero backend experience to a deployed app with paying users.
Build it with
Maya.
Cohort 07 starts Monday, July 14 with 14 seats left. Six weeks of her feedback on your project, every step of the way.
Enroll — $69