The Platform

This is the build plan: the concrete tools and systems that turn the strategy into a running business. The organizing truth — and it's Jer's own thesis — is that we build everything that isn't the soul. The AI tools in his promo video failed because "what was missing was the soul"; so the division of labor is clean. We build the plumbing for the crock-pot — cheaply, fast, AI-assisted. Jer brings the voice, the relationships, and the room. Building is ~10× cheaper than it was even two years ago, so the old instinct ("that's a big expensive project") is usually wrong now.

Each tool below has its own page with a build-vs-buy verdict and an effort/cost estimate. This page is the architecture, the access model, the build-vs-buy philosophy, and the phased plan that keeps it disciplined.

The architecture (who sees what)

                          THE WILD DOGS PLATFORM
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  PUBLIC (unpaid)       marketing site · promo video · Scorecard · free Bytes
        │                          ↓  capture · book a call · get nominated
  ENROLLED (paid)       course delivery · pre-watch video · per-lesson discussion
        │                          ·  assignments / WOOP · the Bytes
        │                          ↓
  DEEPEN (paid-pro)     15-month track · 1:1 coaching space · (the Pack — later)
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  MENTORS (Guides)      their cohort's roster + discussion · facilitator tools · host playbook
  INTERNAL (Jer/admin)  pipeline / CRM · lesson & cohort stats · content studio · AI copilot
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  PLUGGED-IN SERVICES   auth · payments · video host · email · booking · transcription

The top half is what each persona experiences; the bottom line is the commodity infrastructure we never build — it's bought and plugged in.

The personas (and what each unlocks)

Content surfaces by role: a Student sees only their cohort and course; a Guide sees the cohort they host; the 15-month track unlocks only for Paid-Pro. This is role-based access — straightforward to build on top of a bought auth layer (below).

Build vs. buy — the whole stack at a glance

The rule of thumb: buy the commodity and the dangerous; build the brand-defining and the bespoke. Never build auth, payments, video delivery, or email reputation — the edge cases (security, PCI, bandwidth, deliverability, spam) are a forever tax and someone already solved them. Do build the things where an off-the-shelf tool would impose a generic aesthetic or hold your content hostage — that's where the "529 Steakhouse, not a McDonald's" brand lives.

The two questions you raised — answered

Should the site have conversation / comments / posts? Split it in two:

• Per-cohort, per-lesson discussion during a live cohort: yes — and build it. This literally mirrors how Jer already teaches on Radix (post on the discussion questions async → discuss live). At 8–12 people it's a simple threaded comment box per lesson, not a social network. It's on-brand, it's easy, and the engagement stats fall right out of it. → see Course Delivery.
• A big public/alumni social feed (the Pack): not now — and when it's time, plug in, don't build. Your instinct ("there are sooo many others, maybe we just plug in") is exactly right. The red-team review already deferred the paid Pack; building a Facebook is a maintenance trap. If/when the Pack earns its keep, plug into Circle or Skool. → see Community & The Pack.

Should we use an existing lesson platform (LMS), or build? HYBRID The honest near-term answer: for one cohort of 8–12 meeting live, you don't need a full LMS at all — pre-watch videos (hosted on Vimeo/unlisted YouTube) + async discussion + a live call is the whole delivery loop, and that's a light build (or one more cycle on Radix). When you want the owned platform (before the March-2027 mission handover), the real choice is build-light (custom front on plugged-in auth+video+db — full brand control, per-persona surfacing, no silo) vs. buy all-in-one (Circle/Heartbeat ~$49–89/mo — zero maintenance, generic feel). Given Jer's wariness of "borrowing a vehicle" and the premium brand, build-light is now the more on-brand answer because building is cheap — with buy as the lower-maintenance hedge. Full reasoning in Course Delivery. (This refines the "Heartbeat or Circle" line in the Strategy Brief.)

The tools (one page each)

Tier 1 — the front door + the first dollar

• The Public Site & Funnel — the two-door site, booking, nomination form, payments.
• Building the Scorecard — the sober, custom, no-fee screening quiz.

Tier 2 — the voice & content corpus (AI drafts, Jer edits/records)

• The Content Studio — the 5-day mini-course, Off Leash Bytes, the book, testimonials.

Tier 3 — run the cohort

• Course Delivery — the LMS decision, persona access, per-lesson discussion, lesson stats.
• Instrumentation & Evidence — surveys, pre/post, the dashboard that becomes the B2B proof.

Tier 4 — the layers that compound

• Community & The Pack — the build-vs-buy verdict on social/comments.
• The AI Layer — Jer's private facilitator copilot, the client prep workbook, the story corpus.

The phased build (disciplined, not a build-everything fantasy)

The red-team review's discipline applies here too: the income floor gates anything with ongoing cost or Jer-hours. But almost everything in Phases 0–2 is cheap and low-Jer-hour, so it needn't wait.

• Phase 0 — the front door (now, ~free): public site, Scorecard, nomination form, booking, payments. Unblocks the first repriced dollar.
• Phase 1 — the corpus (AI-drafted): mini-course, remaining reveals, testimonials page, Bytes scaffolding, book outline. Plus the AI facilitator copilot — do this early; it's cheap and makes Jer faster on everything else.
• Phase 2 — run the cohort: instrumentation kit, the missing facilitation guides, a lightweight cohort space with per-lesson discussion + stats. Decide build-light vs. buy for the owned platform; migrate off Radix before March 2027.
• Phase 3 — income-floor-gated / later: the full owned platform if building; the paid Pack (or plug into Circle/Skool); public-facing extras.

What we can't build — and shouldn't pretend to

The trust with the eagles. The voice in the recordings. The presence in the room. The selling conversation. Those are Jer's, and they are the product. Everything on this page is scaffolding around the one irreplaceable thing.