A Makers Academy alternative. For the work that comes next.
Moonlabs is the operator-led AI Academy in Derby. We run three live companies — Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk — and we teach twelve students per cohort to ship a real AI product, sell it to a real customer, and raise on it. Three pillars: Coding, Commercials, Investment. Twelve weeks. £6,000.
Moonlabs is what we are. Two operators — James Freestone and Louis O’Connell-Bristow — who run Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk. We have hired Makers / Le Wagon / General Assembly graduates and we know what the 2014-2020 bootcamp curriculum produced. We have also seen what 2026 hiring managers actually ask for. The honest comparison on this page is the version a recruiter would write if they were honest.
The Academy is what we do. A twelve-week, in-person, twelve-student cohort in Derby. You build a real AI product. You sign a paid pilot on it. You write a deck and a financial model. You leave with a deployed system, a paying customer reference and a live investor pipeline. Coding, Commercials, Investment — the three pillars taught in equal weight every week.
Why this page exists. Makers Academy, Le Wagon and General Assembly retrained a generation of UK engineers in the 2010s and we respect what they built. It is no longer the right shape for 2026: a twelve-week Ruby/JavaScript syllabus does not produce a junior who can compete with one who has lived inside Cursor and Claude Code for a year. You leave the Academy with a deployed AI product, paying customer reference and a senior-band conversation on the table — not a placement on a graduate jobs board. Deeper comparison essay here.
Coding · AI-native, not AI-curious
A classic bootcamp puts AI as a side-module on top of a Ruby/JavaScript syllabus. The Academy puts Cursor, Claude Code and Codex at the centre of the editor. Production retrieval, agents, evals, observability, deploy pipelines — the production stack 2026 hiring managers ask for. A deployed AI product by week twelve — not a portfolio of static React apps.
Commercials · the half a classic bootcamp skipped
Pricing. Discovery calls. A one-page pilot agreement. The first paying customer. Classic bootcamps graduate a junior engineer ready for a graduate-scheme briefing; the Academy graduates an operator with a paid pilot reference. A paid pilot by week six — a different artefact, a different price ceiling on the back of it.
Investment · the founder option a bootcamp never offers
A classic bootcamp’s best-case outcome is a junior dev job. The Academy’s best-case outcome is a funded company. Cap table, ten-slide deck, financial model, term sheets walked line by line. Cursor ($2.5bn), Lovable ($200m+), Granola, ChatPRD, Replit Agent — founders shaped by exactly this work. A live investor pipeline by demo day, in Derby, at half the London cost of living.
Common questions.
Is this an anti-Makers page?
No — we genuinely respect what Makers Academy built. Several past Moonlabs collaborators are alumni. This page exists because the bootcamp question in 2026 looks materially different from the one Makers solved in 2014, and people search for it.
Will I learn the same engineering fundamentals?
Yes — and more. We do not skip Postgres, auth, billing, deploys, observability. We add evals, agentic workflows, retrieval, and the commercial and investment work the classic bootcamps did not teach.
I want a fast track to a junior dev job. Is the Academy the right shape?
Honest answer: depends. If you want to walk into a recruiter briefing as a Ruby-on-Rails CV in two months, a classic bootcamp may still serve you. If you want to walk in with a deployed AI product, paying pilots and a senior-band conversation on the table, the Academy is built for that.
How does the cost compare?
Tuition is £6,000 against the £8,000-£10,000 typical of a London bootcamp, plus materially lower cost of living in Derby. Bursaries, scholarships, employer funding and apprenticeship routes accepted.
I am already mid-bootcamp at a classic provider. Should I switch?
Probably not, unless something is clearly broken. Finish what you started; the Academy is a strong follow-on for graduates of classic bootcamps who want to add AI-native commercial fluency on top of their engineering.
More Academy entry points.
The Academy is one course with many doors. Each of these pages is a different entry point into the same twelve weeks.
Build it. Sell it. Raise on it. In twelve weeks.
Tell us where you are starting from and what AI product you would build first. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.
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