Update: I removed the signup wall from the free course

Quick update on kambolab.

Since launch, clicking "start the free course" dropped you on a signup form. Seemed obvious to me at the time. Account first, course second, that's how every course platform does it.

Then I actually walked through it as a visitor and it felt bad. Someone lands on my site wondering if a terminal tool is really usable by a non-programmer, and my answer to that doubt is an email form.
So last week I changed it. Free course is now open to anyone, no account at all. The paid one shows the whole table of contents and only asks you to sign up if you actually want in. You still can create an account, but the pitch changed. Now it's "sign up to save your progress", which is a real reason, instead of "sign up because I said so".

Slightly meta bonus: I built the change the same way I teach in the course. Described what I wanted to Claude Code in plain English, went through its plan, made it write tests for the access rules. The change touched all three of my codebases and honestly the trickiest part was making sure a guest can't peek at paid lessons through the API. Good reminder that the browser is not where you enforce anything.

Numbers so far: paying customers, zero. Working on it. My next step is finding five people to go through the paid course free in exchange for blunt feedback. If you don't code but keep hearing about Claude Code and wonder what the fuss is, comment and I'll set you up.