Address
Pittsburgh, PA
Work Hours
Monday to Thursday: 9AM - 5PM ET
Friday: 9AM -1PM
Upcoming Programs — Launching March 30 🚀
All cohorts will be limited to 6 participants.
AI Product Builder Accelerator
From Idea to validated MVP in 4 weeks. Small cohort. Structured execution. Real validation.
Portfolio Accelerator
Upgrade your UX Portfolio and get interview-ready. Live critiques. Hiring-focused feedback. Real momentum.
UX Product Audit
Clear, actionable feedback in days, not months. Learn what’s working, what’s costing you users, and exactly what to fix next.
An AI-First Product Design Lab — Evolving Into Structured Programs 🧬
Our work lives at the intersection of design leadership, emerging technology, hands-experimentation, and real world mentorship.
What we do:
Designed for 🦄
Product leaders
Looking to understand how AI and modern workflows are changing discovery, design, and decision-making.
Designers and builders
Who want to learn by doing, experiment responsibly, and build real things instead of slide decks.
Teams and organizations
Exploring new ways of working and learning through workshops, labs, and hands-on training.
🥷 Learn by doing
Big Nerd hosts free live workshops, hackathons, and webinars designed to help designers and teams experience modern product discovery firsthand. These sessions are how we share what we’re learning and how organizations can engage with the lab.
Vibe Coding Hackathon
April 2026 @ 5:00 pm MT
Exact date TBD. Have an idea waiting for its moment? Bring it to life at our upcoming rapid prototyping hackathon. You will build quickly, learn even faster, and compete for prizes as our guest judge selects the winners.
Supported by:
Vibe Coding Hackathon
Mar 19, 2026 @ 5:00 pm MT
Have an idea waiting for its moment? Bring it to life at our upcoming rapid prototyping hackathon. You will build quickly, learn even faster, and compete for prizes as our guest judge selects the winners.
Supported by:
Vibe Coding Hackathon
Feb 19, 2026 @ 5:00 pm MT
Have an idea waiting for its moment? Bring it to life at our upcoming rapid prototyping hackathon. You will build quickly, learn even faster, and compete for prizes as our guest judge selects the winners.
Supported by:
Our Rapid 5-Step Cycle
We use a structured, time-boxed format to explore ideas, test assumptions, and learn quickly. This cycle powers our internal experiments, public workshops, and hands-on training sessions.
Discover
The process begins by aligning on the problem, goals, and success metrics. Stakeholder input, lightweight research, and requirement definition typically happen at this stage.
Prototype & Review
A functional prototype is created and reviewed to gather fast, actionable feedback.
User Test & Refine
Feedback is incorporated, the prototype is refined, and usability testing helps surface risks and opportunities early.
Harden & Secure
Validated prototypes are hardened and prepared for dev, with an emphasis on quality, feasibility, and clarity.
Reflect & Share
Outcomes are reviewed, learnings are captured, and insights inform next steps.
Why this lab exists 🤔
Experiment safely
Experiment with emerging technologies through real prototypes and real constraints, without the pressure of risking half-baked ideas in production.
Learn publicly
Learning happens faster when it’s visible. By building in public, we turn experiments into shared lessons that build clarity and confidence.
AI moves fast. This lab turns hands-on experiments into practical insights teams can actually use to design better products with less time and effort.
A few insights from our blog 🧐
Behind-the-scenes look at how we launch apps faster, and deliver quality results.
March 2026 Hackathon Recap
Introduction We kicked off another Big Nerd Hackathon with a simple challenge: build a fully functional app in under an hour using AI. Madi opened with a warm welcome as designers, product managers, engineers,…
Building My First AI Agent: What I Learned About Judgment, Rubrics, and Real Decision Systems
Most AI tools generate answers. AI agents evaluate outcomes. This project started as a simple experiment: if we are running AI hackathons, why not let AI help evaluate the demos? But the experiment quickly…
Why Popular AI Tools Aren’t Always Safe
Editor’s Update Feb 23, 2026: Less than a week after this article was originally published, another high-profile incident occurred involving the same tool, Clawdbot. A senior AI leader at Meta publicly described a nightmare…
What’s next 🤩
March 30 — First cohorts begin.
Limited seats. Structured application.
If you’re interested in joining the first wave,
join one of the interest lists above or: