A friendly, practical guide for executives, founders, and curious teams. Three stages, in order, with the things I actually do and recommend. No tech background required.
Most AI advice is either too vague or too technical. This is the middle path. Each stage builds on the last, and trying to skip ahead is the #1 mistake I see. Pick the stage you're actually at, not the one you wish you were.
Learn to prompt well. Use it daily for real work. Build the fluency everything else depends on.
Stop re-typing context. Build helpers (Skills, GPTs, Gems) that know your job and get sharper weekly.
Agents run whole workflows. You supervise. The frontier, but only after the first two are real.
Keyboard shortcuts, prompt patterns, and the moves that make every stage faster.
You can't shortcut the journey. The teams I see fail at AI all skip Stage 2 to chase agents. The teams I see win build slowly, in order, and let each stage compound.
Start where you are. Move at the pace you can sustain. Compound from there.
Most people I talk to are stuck somewhere between "I should be doing more with AI" and "I have no idea where to start." This is the playbook I share with friends, colleagues, and the leaders I work with every day.
It lives here, on a subdomain of the Shenoy Fund, because the Fund is built around education, and AI literacy is one of the most consequential skills the next decade will ask of us. The people we love deserve to navigate this shift with their feet under them.
If this helps you, share it. If something's wrong, tell me. If your team or community needs a workshop, reach out.
The Shenoys Dallas, TX
The whole guide is free. Each page takes about 15 minutes. If you're new to AI, start at Stage 1 even if you've been "using ChatGPT for a year." Fluency is different from familiarity.