Build Your AI Team | A hands-on workshop with Turnstone (YC W26) for your everyday work
Bring a real workflow. Leave with an agent operating system built around the way you actually work.
Most people use AI one prompt at a time.
This session is about going a step further: taking a real part of your work - client management, research, recruiting, operations, reporting, outreach, planning, or something entirely different - and turning it into a system of AI teammates that can work with your context and help move it forward.
This is not a traditional hackathon, and you do not need to be an engineer.
It’s a hands-on build session for operators, business owners, consultants, and AI-curious professionals who want to move beyond experimenting with AI and start applying it to work they already do.
🌟What You'll Build
Come with one workflow, business problem, or idea you want to explore.
You might:
Improve how you already work
Turn a repetitive or fragmented workflow into an AI-assisted system — from client delivery and research to sales, recruiting, reporting, or internal operations.
Build an AI-native team around a new idea
Experiment with how a small business or new project could operate with a virtual team of specialized AI collaborators.
Explore a new way of working with AI
Test your own approach to agents, memory, workflows, and AI-native organization - using Turnstone or other tools you already like.
The goal is simple: build something useful enough that you would actually keep using it after the event.
🌟What to Expect
We’ll start with a short conversation on how AI is changing the way individuals and small teams organize work, followed by a live example of an AI operating system in action.
Then we build.
You’ll have dedicated time to create and test your own setup, with hands-on support from the Turnstone team.
Throughout the afternoon, we’ll break into small workflow clinics so you can compare approaches with people doing similar work, troubleshoot what isn’t working, and borrow ideas from one another.
We’ll finish with a mini showcase of a few of the most interesting systems built in the room.
🌟On Stage
🎤Aryan Vij & Jai Bhatia | Co-Founders, Turnstone (YC W26)
🎤Harry Meng | Co-Founder, Swishables; previously PATH Water Co-founder (9 figures rev)
🎤Ethan Wang | Google DeepMind, Gemini MidTraining / PostTraining
🎤Zachary Bandremer | Talent, SpaceX
🎤Ishita Ahuja | Product Manager, Salesforce
🎤Mark Liu | Investor, Applied AI and agentic systems lead, UpScaleX🌟Who This Is For
This workshop is designed for people who already spend much of their day running, coordinating, or delivering work and want to use AI more effectively - without becoming AI engineers.
Think:
Small-business owners and founders
Chiefs of Staff and business operators
Consultants, recruiters, agencies, and service-business owners
Independent and solo operators
Growth, sales, and operations professional
Investors and other knowledge workers managing research, relationships, and recurring workflows
🌟What to Bring
💻 A laptop + charger
🧩 One real recurring workflow, business problem, or idea you want to work on
📂 Any relevant context or materials you’re comfortable using during the session
🧠 Curiosity and a willingness to build, test, and share
🌟What You'll Leave With
By the end of the session, our goal is for you to leave with:
A working AI-assisted workflow or operating system built around your real work
A clearer understanding of where AI agents actually create leverage - and where they don’t
Ideas and workflow patterns from other operators in the room
A system you can continue refining after the workshop
🌟Agenda
10:00 AM | Arrival, coffee & introductions
10:30 AM | Opening conversation + live example
11:00 AM | Choose your workflow + start building + workflow clinics
2:00 PM | Mini showcase
2:30 PM | Wrap
📍 Palo Alto
🍕 Lunch, snacks, and drinks provided
🌟Hosted by Turnstone × UpScaleX
Turnstone is building a personal AI workspace where people can create teams of AI agents that understand their context, collaborate across tasks, and support recurring workflows. The team is focused on making AI useful as an ongoing part of how people work - not just as a one-off chat tool.
UpScaleX is a San Francisco and Palo Alto-based seed fund and founders’ community investing in AI-native applications, agentic economies, and vertical AI, built to empower the next generation of AI innovators.