You work in a business you do not understand
You know your job and not how the company actually earns.
Courses
See what you would learn
See how a business makes money, in plain examples.
A course for people who work in or around businesses without ever having been taught how they work. It covers customers, costs, pricing and competitive advantage, using everyday companies rather than jargon.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.
Type this when Cadence asks what you want to learn
I want to understand how a business creates value and makes money. Explain customers, costs, pricing, and competitive advantage using clear examples a beginner can follow.
Change any word so it fits your situation. The course is built from what you type and a few setup questions.
- Best for
- Business
- Prerequisites
- None. Bring the situation you have.
- Course length
- 7 to 30 lessons, sized to your goal
- Lesson pace
- About 10 minutes a day
- Format
- Read it, or play the audio
- Access
- Available on the App Store, with early features and Android testing access
Before the course is built
Setup asks about your situation first.
Lesson 1 opens on the moment you describe, and the examples use your role. For this request, expect questions like these.
- Why do you want this: your job, a business idea, investing, or curiosity?
- Which businesses do you know from the inside or use every day?
- How comfortable are you with basic numbers like margins and percentages?
Right for now
If any of this sounds familiar, start here.
Business language loses you
Margins, unit economics and moats get used around you and never explained.
You have an idea and no model
You know what you would sell and not how it would make money.
Course arc
Where the course goes, in order.
Cadence writes the lessons for you, so the exact path follows your answers. This is the ground a course built from this sentence covers.
01 / 06What a business is
Solving a problem for someone who will pay more than it costs to solve it.
Customers and value
Who pays, why they pay and what they compare you with.
Costs and margins
Fixed and variable costs, and why some businesses scale and others cannot.
Pricing
How prices are set in practice, and what happens when they are wrong.
Competitive advantage
Why some businesses keep their profits and others compete them away.
Reading a real business
Applying the framework to a company you know well.
What changes
What you will be able to do, and what you will stop believing.
You will be able to
Explain how a given business earns
Trace the money from customer to profit for companies you use.
Read the basic numbers
Understand revenue, cost, margin and cash in the simplest useful form.
Judge a business idea
Ask the questions that reveal whether something can work.
Ideas this course corrects
Revenue means success
Plenty of high-revenue businesses lose money. Margin and cash tell the real story.
A good product makes a good business
Products are necessary. Distribution, pricing and cost structure decide whether the business survives.
Course questions
What to know before you start.
Is this a fixed course?
No. Cadence builds the course when you type the sentence and answer a few setup questions, so the lessons follow your situation. This page describes what a course built from this request covers. You see the whole path before Lesson 1.
Who is this course for?
A course for people who work in or around businesses without ever having been taught how they work. It covers customers, costs, pricing and competitive advantage, using everyday companies rather than jargon. It sits under Business in the Work & ambitions part of the library.
Do I need any prior experience?
No. Setup asks what you already know and where you want to use it, and the course starts from there. Bring a real situation if you have one; the examples are built around it.
How long does it take?
Courses run 7 to 30 lessons of about 10 minutes, sized to what you asked for. One lesson a day is the intended pace, and you can go faster. Lessons can be read or played as audio.
Does this course award a certificate or degree?
No. Cadence is for practical self-learning and does not award accredited degrees or professional certification.
Start today
Type it, answer a few questions, open Lesson 1.
The sentence to type
I want to understand how a business creates value and makes money. Explain customers, costs, pricing, and competitive advantage using clear examples a beginner can follow.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.