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buildspace

Summer 2020Inactive

we're the place where people build cool shit.

Save
buildspace logo

buildspace

Summer 2020Inactive

we're the place where people build cool shit.

Save
Company details

we’re the largest place where you give your idea a shot.

and, we mean any idea — a hip-hop album, short film, a novel, some indie software, a youtube channel — whatever.

no idea is too big or too small.

it all starts with nights & weekends.

it's six-weeks where you can start any idea from zero on your nights and weekends, and by the end you'll have your first fans, revenue, downloads, whatever.

in 2023:

12M+ ppl saw our content across Instagram and Twitter. more than 30,000 people joined nights & weekends to work on their own ideas. 1,000 people flew to meet us and others like them for 3-days.

and, we had 1,000 people come out to one of our physical, 3-day events.

to get a sense of what this all looks like in practice, see our video for season four here.

we even built a physical campus for people who want to go full-time on their idea and need place to figure it out -- again, we don't care how big or small the idea is.

overall, it's been a journey.

so, now what?

in 2023, we built up massive distribution. it was all about creating really high-quality content + experiences. but, it was all very one-off.

in 2024, we're fully focused on taking all our learnings and building a world class product. a product that can help millions pursue their passions and build their ideas.

and, we're looking for talented engineers and designers to help us figure it out.

Location
San Francisco, CA, USA
Founded
2019
Category
Education
YC Directory Pagebuildspace.so

we’re the largest place where you give your idea a shot.

and, we mean any idea — a hip-hop album, short film, a novel, some indie software, a youtube channel — whatever.

no idea is too big or too small.

it all starts with nights & weekends.

it's six-weeks where you can start any idea from zero on your nights and weekends, and by the end you'll have your first fans, revenue, downloads, whatever.

in 2023:

12M+ ppl saw our content across Instagram and Twitter. more than 30,000 people joined nights & weekends to work on their own ideas. 1,000 people flew to meet us and others like them for 3-days.

and, we had 1,000 people come out to one of our physical, 3-day events.

to get a sense of what this all looks like in practice, see our video for season four here.

we even built a physical campus for people who want to go full-time on their idea and need place to figure it out -- again, we don't care how big or small the idea is.

overall, it's been a journey.

so, now what?

in 2023, we built up massive distribution. it was all about creating really high-quality content + experiences. but, it was all very one-off.

in 2024, we're fully focused on taking all our learnings and building a world class product. a product that can help millions pursue their passions and build their ideas.

and, we're looking for talented engineers and designers to help us figure it out.

Location
San Francisco, CA, USA
Founded
2019
Category
Education
YC Directory Pagebuildspace.so

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On this page
  • Overview
  • Founding Story
  • Timeline
  • What They Built
  • Market Position
  • Audience and distribution
  • Competition
  • Business Model
  • Traction
  • Post-Mortem
  • A voluntary sunset, not a forced failure
  • The founder explicitly denied common explanations
  • The closing record is incomplete
  • Key Lessons
  • Sources

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Exec Briefing

Actionable insights

If you only have a few minutes to spare, here’s what investors, operators, and founders should know about buildspace (S20).

  1. The project stayed constant. Audiences changed, but making and shipping remained the teaching unit.
  2. Participation needed labels. Children, starters, graduates, students, and users were different metrics.
  3. Counterfactual ARR was not revenue. Sponsorship potential described a path not realized economics.
  4. The sunset was voluntary. The founder denied runway, investor, monetization, and drama explanations.

Overview

Buildspace was a five-year search for a scalable way to help people make things. Founded by Farza Majeed in 2019, it began as ZipHomeschool, became ZipSchool, shifted into project-based web3 education, broadened into the Nights & Weekends builder program and a San Francisco campus, then launched an AI social product in its final year.[1][2]

Majeed voluntarily shut the company down on August 23, 2024 after about a year of deliberation. He said the joy and conviction to push buildspace were gone and he could not find a next direction he fully supported. He explicitly denied runway, investor pressure, monetization difficulty, and internal drama as causes.[3] The company remained funded and active; this was a founder-led sunset, not evidence of insolvency, board conflict, or failed monetization.

Buildspace logo
The company moved through homeschool software, web3 courses, builder cohorts, a campus, and an AI product.

Founding Story

Majeed said the company began in December 2019 as ZipHomeschool, software for parents homeschooling children, with $25,000 from an early backer named Furqan. The source is a republished founder announcement and is not independently verified.[4]

The education company later operated as ZipSchool, an online elementary school for homeschoolers. Majeed's site says it reached about 150,000 children, but the packet does not define users, retention, curriculum completion, revenue, or how the product transitioned.[2] A former early employee described pivots across K-6 education, web3, machine learning, and AI education.[5]

The web3-era product rejected passive courses in favor of project guides, live kickoffs, cohort channels, progress sharing, and pressure to finish and deploy. Its tagline was "Learn by making stuff." It advertised a Discord community of more than 30,000 developers and used NFTs and access to crypto work as incentives.[6]

Nights & Weekends began as a side project. Season one enrolled 500 people and had 50 graduates, all building web3 projects. Season two split between web3 and AI. By season three, buildspace had pivoted the entire company toward the six-week program and admitted musicians, artists, creators, game developers, filmmakers, researchers, and other builders.[7]

The founder called the model "low touch" but "high access," an open game anyone could join.[8] That stance distinguished it from selective bootcamps while making participation, graduation, and outcome definitions especially important.

Timeline

  • December 2019: ZipHomeschool began; the company was founded that year.[1]
  • 2020: The company joined YC's Summer batch and operated as ZipSchool.
  • Web3 phase: Buildspace taught developers through deployable projects and cohort community.[6]
  • 2022: Buildspace raised $10 million in an Andreessen Horowitz-led round, framed as building "Hogwarts for the builders and dreamers."[9]
  • 2023: Nights & Weekends reported more than 30,000 participants, broad content reach, and physical events.[1]
  • After season four: Majeed traced his declining conviction to September 2023 and spent about a year deciding.
  • June 15, 2024: Season five began with grants, a San Francisco event, and demo day.[10]
  • August 23, 2024: Majeed announced an immediate full shutdown.[3]

What They Built

Buildspace's consistent unit was a project, even as its audience changed. The web3 product gave developers guides and a cohort in which to build and deploy. Nights & Weekends generalized that mechanic: participants spent six weeks moving an idea toward first fans, revenue, downloads, or another external result through live or asynchronous work, lectures, workshops, and progress sharing.

Season four reportedly had more than 7,500 starters and 400 graduates. It offered as much as $100,000 to participants making the most progress, and prior winners included an album, indie game, local news channel, and community garden.[7] These are program-defined participation and graduation metrics, not independently audited educational outcomes.

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