I help empower young leaders through online tools & leadership training courses

Jonathan is the Chief Experiment Officer of AI Never Sleeps - an AI Automation Agency that helps Small Businesses automate their boring tasks.

Jonathan has a track record of more than 20 years of consulting and project delivery experience in Financial Services and Technology. He loves solving business problems to create value for organisations, has a history of end-to-end project delivery (idea inception to strategy development to execution and change) and loves working with people to ensure that outcomes are delivered.

He spent 8 years in a range of fintech startups to listed companies in various leadership roles from COO to CTO to CMO to CPO to CSO and Chief Growth Officer.

He 5.5 years with the Boston Consulting Group with their Sydney and KL offices where he worked on a diverse range of topics: from creating 5 year visions and strategies to M&A target selection and deal support to Inventory optimisation.

Prior to BCG, he worked for 5 years in Westpac (one of Australia's largest banks) in Group Strategy and Retail Banking. His last role was the Head of Strategy for Westpac Retail and Regional Banking where he was responsible for developing actionable initiatives to create value for the bank's branch network and led and assisted the delivery of both projects and operational issues.

Prior to joining Westpac, Jonathan worked in South East Asia for 4 years and was based in Singapore.  

Jonathan has a Bachelor of Business and Information Technology from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), as well as a Masters of Management and a Masters of Business Administration from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM).

Jonathan Chan

Indie Hackers just featured my story.

Not quite the AFR or Wall Street Journal.

But if you're building something online, Indie Hackers is more relevant than both.

It's the OG community for independent founders and bootstrapped builders.

Started in 2016, backed by Stripe, and home to thousands of entrepreneurs sharing real revenue numbers, real strategies, and real lessons from the trenches.

No fluff. No VC hype. Just founders being transparent about what's working and what's not.

The fact that they wanted to feature my journey from a $420K corporate salary to building AI Never Sleeps and Pear, it still feels surreal.

Eight months ago I was reviewing other people's work and sitting in steerco meetings.

Now I get to build, break things and share the journey in public.

If you want the full breakdown of what I've built, how the revenue stacks up, and the biggest lessons from going solo, the article covers all of it.

Link in comments.

I help non-technical people build apps and automations with AI | Ex-BCG & Westpac → Building in public | Building a portfolio of AI businesses

Most entrepreneurs post about grinding until midnight.

My day ends at 9:30pm reading books to my boys.

4-5am - Up early, meditate with DailySelah.co , emails, deep work on my newsletter and businesses

6am - Breakfast and lunch prep with my wife

6:30am - Bible study together

7-8am - More focused building, whether it’s AI Never Sleeps content or Pear 

9-5pm - Consulting at an ASX-listed company right now, so it’s back-to-back meetings, workshops, and interviews

7pm - Dinner prep

8pm - Quality time with the boys

9:30pm - Asleep

No cold plunges. No “rise and grind” mantras. No 16-hour work days.

Just a rhythm that lets me build something meaningful without sacrificing the people who make it worth building.

The unsexy truth about entrepreneurship - it’s less about working more hours and more about protecting the right ones.

What’s one non-negotiable in your daily routine?

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$420K a year.

That's what I walked away from 9 months ago.

Everyone told me I was crazy.

"Just get another job, Jc."
"You have a family to think about."
"The market is tough right now."

Here's what actually happened:

Not finding another job was the best decision I've ever made.

First question everyone asks:

"But how do you pay the bills?"

Independent consulting.
Teaching people how to build using AI.

Platforms like Pear

You don't need a "job" to make money.

You need skills people will pay for.

But here's the thing:

AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor changed everything.

Now the "business people" can build.
The ones who actually know the products.
Know the customers.
Understand the problems.

No more waiting 6 months for "Tech" to prioritize your idea.

If you can describe what you want, you can build it.

Last month I went to my kid's swim carnival.

First one in over 10 years.

10 years of "Sorry Josh, I've got a meeting."
10 years of choosing the corporate calendar over my family.

In January I was on the beach during school holidays.

Not because I "earned" a day off.
Because I chose to.

Here's what I'm hearing more and more:

People losing their jobs.
Replaced by someone younger.
Replaced by someone cheaper.
Replaced by AI.

And every time, they're devastated.

Because their entire identity was tied to a title, a company, a salary.

Here's the thing:

The skills you've built over 10, 15, 20 years?

They don't disappear when the badge stops working.

9 months in.
Building every day.
Present for my kids.
On my own terms.

I wouldn't trade it for $420K.

Have you walked away from a big salary? Or lost your job?

Tell me your story below.

$40,451 in March.

That's month 10 after leaving corporate.

February was $27,800. I shared every dollar.

Here's March:

CONSULTING
One client, 2 projects = $29,700 (sourced from Pear)

AI NEVER SLEEPS
Course, agency, newsletter = $9,605

SAAS APPS
Trvel.co (eSIM): $744
Bank-Statements.co : $402

Pear is growing gangbusters (but not taking anything out just yet).

Total: $40,451

Now the honest part.

73% is still consulting.

I said I wanted to move away from time-for-money work.

And then I had my biggest consulting month yet.

Hard to say no to $29,700.

But here's what I noticed.

AI Never Sleeps went from $12,400 in February to $9,605 in March.

Down $2,800.

That stung.

Month 10 is not a straight line.

Some months the brand grows. Some months consulting carries you. Some months you just survive.

But zoom out.

Month 2: $15,498 total. I almost quit.
Month 9: $27,800.
Month 10: $40,451.

Three income streams. Two apps live. A brand that pays me even when I sleep.

The $420K salary was one stream. One boss. One decision away from zero.

This is messier. Less predictable.

But it compounds.

I break down every dollar, every month, inside the AI Never Sleeps newsletter - link in the comments.

Not just the numbers. The systems behind them. The automations. The stuff that actually moved revenue.

My mum thinks I'm building Skynet.

My friends think I'm Neo.

I think I am Cobb from Inception building worlds.

What I actually do?

Stare at "TypeError: Cannot read property" 500 times a day.

Ask Claude Code to fix it (nicely) every single time.

Then break something else.

Then ask Claude Code to fix that too.

Sometime I mix it up and ask Cursor to FIX IT NOW (nicely).

Here's the truth about "building with AI":

90% of it is debugging.

5% is Googling error messages.

4% is telling people you "build with AI."

1% is the actual building.

And yet.

That 1% is how you end up with...

...a real app. With a database.

User accounts. A public URL.

Something you built and own.

The gap between "AI builder"

and "person who stares at TypeErrors"

is smaller than you think.

It's basically the same person.

Who's with me? 😂

Stop chatting with AI.

Seriously. Stop.

I ran a webinar this week and the same question came up 5 times:

"Isn't Claude Co-work just ChatGPT with extra steps?"

No. And here's why that matters:

Chatting with AI = you ask, it answers, you copy-paste, you do the work.

Co-working with AI = you direct, it does the work, you review.

That's not a small difference. That's a completely different way of operating.

4 things make co-working different:

#1. File access It reads your folders, your Google Drive, your spreadsheets. No more uploading one document at a time. It can even transcribe photos of your whiteboard notes. (Ex-consultants with 400 whiteboard photos - you're welcome.)

#2. Planning layer Give it a big task and it creates a to-do list. Shows you the plan. Asks before acting. You approve, adjust, or intervene mid-task.

#3. Connectors 50+ apps out of the box. Gmail. Calendar. Notion. Slack. Figma. Zapier. Every morning at 7:30, mine reads my calendar and emails me a summary of my day.

#4. Skills Reusable recipes that replace mega-prompts. Write the instructions once. Use them forever. I have skills for LinkedIn posts, legal reviews, YouTube scripts, expense reports.

Each one I wrote once. I use them every week.

That's the shift.

From a prompt library to a system. And systems scale. Prompts don't.

Comment COWORK and I'll send you my quick-start checklist for setting up your first Co-work workflow.

My SaaS product bank-statements.co gets better every single week.

The secret?

Not analytics. Not A/B tests. Not competitor research.

Live chat.

A customer named Dominique messaged me this morning about a PDF processing error.

She was in Canada. I was in Australia. It was 10am her time, 5am mine.

We went back and forth troubleshooting her issue in real time.

Within that one conversation, I understood exactly why she needed the product, how she found it, and what was stopping her from getting value.

That 15-minute chat gave me at least 10 new ideas for features and positioning that no amount of guessing would have produced.

Not hypothetical user personas.

A real customer. A real problem. A real conversation.

Most founders automate their support as fast as possible.

They put up chatbots, FAQ pages, and ticket systems to create distance between themselves and the customer.

I do the opposite.

Every chat message that comes through, I answer personally.

Because the best product insights don't come from dashboards.

They come from the people who are actually trying to use your product right now.

I used to believe everyone had a good book in them.

Now I believe everyone has a good app in them.

15 non-technical people just finished 8 weeks of Zero to Builder.

One built a book club voting app.

One built a Chrome extension that actually saves them time.

The moment that got me was when a student said: “It doesn’t feel like a pipe dream anymore.”

That’s the whole point.

Zero to Builder Cohort 2 starts March 19. 

Link in the comments.

What’s the first app you’d build?

graphical user interface, text, application

I signed a document last month that would have cost me control of a deal.

And I didn't even know it.

Here's what happened:

I was doing a deal. One party said:

"We require a signed mutual NCND covering
the investor and all related entities."

Sounded reasonable.
Mutual non-disclosure.
Protecting the investor. Protecting me.
Standard stuff.

I've signed more than 50+ of these in my life.

So I signed it.

Then I thought... let me run this through my Claude legal review skill. Just to be thorough.

The skill flagged something I completely missed.

That "mutual NCND" wasn't just a non-disclosure.
It was a non-circumvention agreement that required me to get written consent for ALL communication with the potential partner.

Every email. Every call. Every meeting.

This party would be the complete go-between.
For everything.

I would have signed away direct access to my partner.

Let that sink in for a second.

The skill caught it in under 2 minutes.
I'd read the document myself and missed it entirely.

Here's why this matters:

I built a skill - a reusable set of instructions -
that reviews legal documents against
Australian employment law, equity agreements,
and commercial contracts.

It's not a prompt I paste in each time.
It's a 400-line system that knows what to look for.

Feed it a document. Get back a clause-by-clause
analysis with risk ratings and red flags.

It doesn't replace a lawyer.
But it catches the things you miss
when you're moving fast and the language
sounds "standard."

I now run every document through this skill
before I sign. Every single one.

The cost of not doing this?
I almost found out.

Safe to say I didn't send the signed document.

I'm running a workshop on the 27th of March where I'll walk you through
how to build skills like this in Claude, Claude Co-work,
and Claude Code - and I'm sharing my top skills live.

Current newsletter subscribers get this workshop free.
Prices go up March 22nd to US$59/month (now ~US40).

Comment WORKSHOP and I'll send you the details.

Ran a course teaching non-technical people to build apps with AI.

Asked a student what they valued most.

The answer wasn't what I expected.

It wasn't the tools. It wasn't the frameworks. It wasn't even the projects they shipped.

It was confidence.

"ZTB gave me the know-how and confidence to get started on using AI tools to build."

That's the real unlock.

Most people already have the ideas. They already see the opportunity.

What's missing isn't knowledge, it's the belief that they're allowed to start.

Zero to Builder Cohort 2 kicks off March 19.

If you've been sitting on an idea waiting for the "right time" to start building, what's actually holding you back?

Link to the course here: https://lnkd.in/ejPJrFyX

Most people are learning AI wrong.

They watch tutorials. They collect prompts. They follow 47 AI influencers.

And 6 months later, they've built nothing.

Here's the pattern I've seen:

#1. "I need to study more before I start." 
#2. Watches 200 hours of YouTube/ signs up to a course. 
#3. Feels smart. Hasn't shipped anything. 
#4. New tool comes out. Goes back to step 1.

I call it the Learning Loop.

It feels productive. It isn't.

Here's what actually works:

Pick one problem. Pick one tool. Build something ugly. Ship it. THEN learn what you need for the next version.

That's it.

Every person I know who's building real things with AI started by building something bad.

Not by watching someone else build something good.

The skill isn't knowing AI. The skill is directing AI to solve YOUR problem.

And you can't learn that from a tutorial. You learn it by building.

What's one thing you could build this week? Drop it below. I'll tell you where to start.

Most people think you need a technical co-founder to build software.

One of my Zero to Builder students just proved that wrong.

Wendy Mackay started the course with years of ideas but zero know-how.

No coding. No technical background. Just frustration from watching others build what she wished she could.

8 weeks later, her first app went from an idea in her head to an MVP almost ready for launch.

She kindly posted about it here https://lnkd.in/g4XUBzh4 and got more than 100 reactions and comments and more importantly some great market signals that this is not just a problem that she faces.

Her words, not mine:

"Starting from zero felt daunting, especially with so many courses to choose from. Zero to Builder turned out to be the perfect fit - practical, incremental learning built around real examples."

When I asked what was most valuable, she didn't say a specific tool or framework.

She said: "Learning what to use and how it all fits together."

That's the real unlock.

Not another tutorial. A mental model for building.

Cohort 2 starts March 19.

If you've had an app idea collecting dust, what's actually stopping you from starting?

Link in comments.

Senior Executive and NED | Strategy, transformation, innovation | ex-BCG Managing Director & Partner | Graduate Australian Institute of Directors

Feeding a sporty kid is harder than it looks. So I'm building an app to help.

I've just completed Jonathan Chan's "Zero to Builder" course, learning to build AI-powered automations and applications from scratch.  I'm excited to be putting it to work.

My first app is for busy parents of sporty tweens and teens: think fuelling a 12-year-old with two training sessions a day and a gluten intolerance, or figuring out the right pre-match meal when kick-off is at 8am.  Simple in theory, can be tricky in practice.

The app will be ready for testing in the next couple of weeks — drop a comment or DM me if you'd like to be one of the first to try it!

I'm still early in the building journey, but being able to bring ideas to life is incredibly exciting. More adventures in the pipeline. Watch this space. 🚀

#AItools #JuniorAthletes #ParentingHacks

A 400-line skill caught something I missed
in a document I'd already signed.

Here's what happened:

The other party sent a "mutual NCND."

Sounded standard.
Non-disclosure. Protecting both sides.

So I signed it.

Then I ran it through my legal review skill.
Just to be thorough.

It flagged something buried in the language.

That "mutual NCND" wasn't just non-disclosure.
It was a non-circumvention agreement
requiring written consent for ALL communication
with the potential partner.

Every email. Every call. Every meeting.

I'd signed away direct access to my own deal.

The skill caught it in under 2 minutes.
I'd read the document myself and missed it entirely.

Here's what the skill actually does:

#1. Reads any contract or agreement
#2. Checks it against Australian employment law, equity terms, and commercial contract standards
#3. Returns a clause-by-clause analysis with risk ratings

It doesn't replace a lawyer.
But it catches the things you miss
when you're moving fast and the language sounds "standard."

The cost of not doing this?
I almost found out.

I'm running a workshop (27th March) where I'll walk through
how to build skills like this, and sharing my top skills live.

Newsletter subscribers get the workshop free.
Prices go up March 22nd to US$59/month (up from US$40).

Comment WORKSHOP and I'll send you the details.

I help companies access top-tier consulting without the top-tier tax

What if you could build a McKinsey-grade deck without writing any slides?
We’re giving independent consultants who sign up with Pear free access to a Claude tool that does exactly that. 

Here's why:
We think independent consultants don't just need another project marketplace. They need a better operating system.

The hard part of going independent isn't the consulting. It's everything around it:

→ Platforms that take a heavy cut 
→ Ghosting after "great conversations" 
→ Endless CV uploads 
→ No feedback. No progression. No community.

That's what Pear solves.

Yes, we help top-tier independents find the right projects – with better rates, structured progression, feedback & coaching and a real community (Friday beers included 🍻).

But we want to go further than just that. 

We want to equip our network with tools that help consultants work faster, better, and smarter.

A big part of that is AI.

Used well, AI removes huge friction from consulting work – structuring storylines, drafting slides, synthesising notes, getting to a strong first draft in minutes.

We’re lucky to have Jonathan Chan (JC), our CTO, who has spent a lot of time testing practical AI tools and prompts for consulting. We will keep curating and releasing the best ones to our network.

Join Pear not just to find projects. Join to get better at the work.

If you're a top-tier independent consultant – sign up and we'll send you free access to this Claude tool that builds McKinsey-grade decks without writing a single slide:

👉 https://lnkd.in/gaVS5_Nk

Curious but not ready to join? Drop a comment or DM me – happy to share it.

Alexandre (Alex) Garcia
#AI #consulting #productivity #managementconsulting #futureofwork

Commuter Learning

We specialise in helping SMEs (50 to 200 FTE) create highly engaged and productive teams through scalable, step-by-step, guided learning programs.

Our programs focus on eight critical interpersonal and communication skill areas that research shows are essential for success in the digital age.

We have specific expertise in coaching sales teams to pitch for and win complex commercial deals.

Director

ACE Group

12 month contract to design and implement a Sales Leadership Development Strategy for the Combined Sales Division of ACE Insurance across Australia and New Zealand.

Designed and implemented assessment centres, including structured feedback processes across a sales line management population of 150 people.
Developed a comprehensive curriculum for all sales leadership levels, aligned to the ACE corporate leadership competencies.
Developed, wrote and implemented a complete series of leadership development workshops to address the most significant sales leadership competency gaps identified from the assessment centres.

Sales Leadership Development Manager

BankWest

12 month contract role to implement, build and develop a new national training team of 26 people responsible for identifying, designing and facilitating training programs – to meet the needs of all lines of business and operations across Bankwest Business.

Recruited the majority of required training resources from scratch – and led the team to a BAU state over 12 months – within agreed budget of $2.3m for FY11 and $3.2m for FY12.

Designed a competency based BAU induction and training program to meet the ongoing needs of 1400 staff across all sales lines of business.

Head of Business Training

Commonwealth Bank

Implemented and embedded best practice leadership and front line sales and service behaviours across Business and Private Banking, leading to significant improvements in business performance and customer service results.

Executive Manager, Business Sales & Service Performance

RAMS

Drove the development of sales and sales management skills across both the Franchise and Third Party sales channels, whilst delivering HR services across the entire business.

Learning & Development / HR Manager

Mayne Group Ltd, Hospitals Division

Recruited and led a national L & D project team to deliver alignment in business goals and activities of each hospital with the vision and goals of Mayne Health.

Head of Leadership and Team Development

Colonial State Bank

Created and implemented a learning platform for Retail Franchisees in areas of management structures, strategy and planning, sales development, business review and performance management.

Head of Franchisee Personnel Development

MaST International

Developed business and delivered leadership, strategic planning and performance management programs to banking, finance and IT clients across UK and Europe.

Management Training Consultant

Kraft General Foods, UK

Led an L&D team conducting sales training programs across KGF UK.  Conducted corporate learning programs across KGF in UK and Europe.

National Sales Training Manager

Kraft Foods Ltd, Australia

Designed, developed and implemented management and leadership development programs across the Australian business.

National Training Manager

Developed and managed business relationships with specific retail clients – in order to deliver to these retailers' needs and to exceed  sales targets.

Retail Sales Key Account Manager

Director at Commuter Learning

We specialize in helping SMEs (50 to 200 FTE) to achieve substantially improved business performance.

We focus on vital interpersonal and communication skills that research shows are essential for success in the digital age.

We have specific expertise in coaching sales teams to pitch for and win complex commercial deals.

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