Trifid Academy · Mentorship · 2026 Intake
Master the craft
that moves millions.
Eight weeks, 1:1, with Mahdi Shafiei and the senior Trifid team — the same operators behind the studio's films, campaigns and client work. For founders running real businesses, not students looking for theory.
Next intake opens
July 13 — August 7 · 2026
Who you're working with
A coach asks how you feel about the business. We ask why the next hire hasn't been made yet.
Mahdi Shafiei
Founder & CEO, Trifid Media
4×
Founder
105K+
3
Markets
“I lead every mentorship. Not a delegate, not an assistant. Eight weeks, weekly, on your real numbers.”
Founder of Trifid Media — a Dubai-built studio behind films that moved governments and campaigns that moved markets.
Investor in operators across SaaS, content and agency. Speaker on building from the Gulf.
The Trifid Team
Production · Brand · Growth · Ops
100+
Brands
3
Continents
1
Studio
“Specialist drop-ins on the weeks where their craft is the lever. You don't get one perspective. You get the studio.”
Senior operators across the Trifid Media studio — the same team behind production, brand and growth for founders and institutions worldwide.
They join on the weeks where their craft is the lever — not the entire eight.
The work that travels
Reach isn't a gift. It's an output. There is a system underneath every account that grows on purpose.
We rebuilt the studio's Monday-morning playbook into a curriculum and a 1:1 program. Hooks, story, hand-off, feedback. The same loop the team runs on real client work.
Module 01
Hook craft
The opening line as the whole job.
Module 02
Story under 30s
Beat structure for short-form, with examples.
Module 03
The cadence problem
Posting volume, posting taste, and where the line is.
Module 04
Distribution mechanics
Platforms, captions, edits, sound — what each one does.
Module 05
Personal brand layer
Voice, lane, look. The narrow that makes you findable.
Module 06
Reading the data
Retention, shares, saves — what they actually mean.
The conversation we keep having
Six rooms most founders walk into in their third year.
Each one shows up in the mentorship application. Each one has a chapter in the eight weeks.
01 · The room
“I'm the bottleneck for everything in the business.”
Every retainer, every brief, every hire goes through you. You haven't taken a real week off in eighteen months.
Inside the mentorship
A pipeline you can describe in a sentence and operate without you. Who to hire next, who to stop carrying, and what to delegate this month.
02 · The room
“I'm charging like I'm new, and I'm not anymore.”
Your work has compounded. Your pricing hasn't. You hold rates well in your head and lose them on the call.
Inside the mentorship
What to charge, when to walk, how to hold the line on a real call — practised on your live pipeline, not in role-play.
03 · The room
“Leads come in. I can't tell which ones to take.”
Inbound is up. Half of it is wrong-fit. The team is busy on the wrong work and you're the one who said yes.
Inside the mentorship
A qualification screen, a routing system, and a small list of names you stop entertaining — written down and yours.
04 · The room
“I'm good at the work. I'm thin on the founder layer.”
The studio runs. The founder presence doesn't. You know the inbound loop matters and you keep deprioritising it.
Inside the mentorship
Your founder voice, your studio's lane, an inbound loop that runs even on the weeks you don't feel like posting.
05 · The room
“I don't know what to read on a Monday morning.”
There are dashboards. There's a P&L. None of it tells you, in a sentence, whether last week was good.
Inside the mentorship
The four numbers we read every Monday — margin, runway, owner pay, and the one operating metric you can't fake.
06 · The room
“Every coach I've hired asked me how I felt.”
You've had the journaling. You've had the frameworks. None of it touched the offer, the pipeline, the price or the team.
Inside the mentorship
The operator's version. Diagnostic, blunt notes, weekly 1:1 with Mahdi on the parts of the business that pay the bills.
The eight weeks
The curriculum, in plain language.
Eight weeks, written down. Each one ends on your real numbers. None of them end on a worksheet.
- W01
The offer
What you sell, who buys it, and what you'd cut if you had to cut something.
- W02
The pipeline
Where leads come from, where they fall out, what to fix first.
- W03
The pricing
What to charge, when to walk, how to hold the line on a real call.
- W04
The team
Who to hire next, who to stop carrying, what to delegate this month.
- W05
The systems
Contracts, retainers, hand-offs — the boring parts that actually scale.
- W06
The brand
Your founder presence, your studio's voice, your inbound loop.
- W07
The numbers
Margin, runway, owner pay. The dashboard you should be reading on Mondays.
- W08
The next quarter
A plan you'd defend to your board, if you had one.
From the operators in the room
Real creators, real results.
No actors. No stock footage. The founders and creators who finished a Trifid Academy cohort — said in their own words, on their own phones.
10 · creators
“I joined to fix the offer. I left with a pipeline I can describe in a sentence.”
Haneen
@haneen
Dubai
“Mahdi reads the P&L on call one. That was the first sign this was different.”
Kate
@kate
Sydney
“The diagnostic was blunt. The decisions I'd been avoiding came out in week one.”
Sara
@saraworks
London
“Eight weeks. One quarter of strategy, written down. The first month back paid for it.”
Omar
@omar.builds
Riyadh
“We don't role-play. We do it on the real client, on a Tuesday. That's the unlock.”
Layla
@layla.studio
Cairo
“The Trifid team specialists were the unfair advantage. Production, brand, growth — each one for one week.”
Imran
@imran.media
Manchester
“I'd hired three coaches before. He was the first one who actually looked at the numbers.”
Daniel
@danielr
Toronto
“I didn't want a course. I wanted somebody to tell me which hire to make. I got that and the rest.”
Maya
@mayawrites
Abu Dhabi
“It's not soft. It's the kind of conversation you have once and then you can't un-have.”
Yusuf
@yusufk
Istanbul
“I raised prices the week after the diagnostic. The client said yes. I should have done it a year ago.”
Sofia
@sofia.m
Lisbon
From the operators in the room
Said by the founders who finished, not by the page that sold it.
06 quotes
I'd hired three coaches before Mahdi. He was the first one who looked at the P&L on call one.
Yusuf K.
Founder · Performance studio, London
Eight weeks. One quarter of strategy, written down. The first week back I made two calls I'd been avoiding for nine months.
Hala A.
Director · Brand consultancy, Dubai
The bit that broke me open: we don't do role-play, we do it on your real client, on a Tuesday.
Daniel R.
Founder · Content agency, Sydney
The Trifid team specialists were the unfair advantage. Production, brand, growth — each one for one week, on my actual problem.
Imran S.
Founder · Production house, Riyadh
I didn't want a curriculum. I wanted someone to tell me which hire to make and which retainer to drop. I got both.
Sofia M.
Founder · Boutique agency, Manchester
It's not soft. It's the kind of conversation you have once and then you can't un-have.
Karim N.
Founder · Creator studio, Abu Dhabi
What you're buying
What this is — and what it isn't.
What it is
- Weekly 1:1 with Mahdi — not a delegate, not an assistant.
- Specialist sessions with the Trifid team when the topic calls for it.
- Live work review on your real numbers, not hypotheticals.
- A direct line for the eight weeks. Not after. Not before.
- One quarter of strategy, written down, owned by you at the end.
What it isn't
- A monthly retainer that quietly becomes a year.
- Group calls where you wait your turn behind nine other founders.
- Generic frameworks pulled from a course someone bought in 2021.
Pricing
Intentionally not posted. Set on the interview call, against the business and the season. If we're not right for you, we'll say so — and you'll know in forty-five minutes.
A week, in shape
What every week looks like, from Monday to the next one.
Eight weeks, eight repeats of the same loop. You'll know the shape of a week by the end of the second one.
Pre-read
Diagnostic note from the previous week, three questions to bring to the call.
1:1 with Mahdi
60 minutes. Live on your real numbers. Recorded, transcribed, yours.
Specialist drop-in
Optional — one of the Trifid team on the week's lever. Production, brand, growth, ops.
Field work
One decision implemented in the business. Not theory — a real call, a real hire, a real cut.
Direct line
Async over the day. Voice notes, screenshots. Replies inside two hours during your window.
Quiet day
No work. Recover.
Notes back to Mahdi
Five lines on what shifted this week. Goes into the quarter-plan you walk away with.
The studio
You don't get one perspective. You get the studio.
Mahdi runs the eight weeks. The senior team joins on the week their craft is the lever. Production, brand, growth, ops — each one for one week, on your business.
Mahdi Shafiei
Founder · CEO
Mentorship lead — every founder, every week
Layla H.
Director of Production
Films, narrative, hand-off to edit
Karim A.
Head of Brand
Positioning, voice, identity systems
Noor R.
Head of Growth
Channels, paid, the inbound loop
Yara D.
Director of Ops
Contracts, retainers, hand-offs
Omar T.
Senior Strategist
Offers, pipeline, pricing
Aisha B.
Editorial Lead
Founder writing, social, books
Sami K.
Senior Producer
Campaigns, talent, distribution
By application only
Built for the operator running the business — not the seat next to them.
This is for you if —
- You're a founder, agency scaler or start-up owner running a real P&L.
- You've watched smaller operators overtake you and you can't name why.
- You can take feedback that doesn't flatter, and use it before next week.
- You can defend why you raised the price last time — or you can't, and you want to.
- You'd rather get a blunt note than a kind one.
This isn't for you if —
- You want a certificate more than you want better work.
- You're hoping for shortcuts. There's a system here, not a hack.
- You won't show your real numbers in front of two operators.
- You're looking for a coach who asks how the founder feels first.
- You're not the one who decides what the business does next.
How it runs
Five steps. No surprises. No upsell at the end.
We'd rather you say no on the interview than yes in the second week.
Step 01
Application
Three questions about the business, three numbers we want to see. Takes ten minutes if you know them. Longer if you don't — that itself is useful.
Step 02
Interview with Mahdi
Forty-five minutes. We see if the fit is real before we waste yours. You'll know on the call.
Step 03
Diagnostic
Your business, our notes — written, blunt, not delivered politely. Delivered before week one.
Step 04
Eight weeks
Weekly 1:1 with Mahdi. Specialist drop-ins from the Trifid team where it matters. Direct line for the eight weeks. Not after. Not before.
Step 05
The plan
One quarter, written down. Yours to run after the eight weeks end. We don't onboard you onto a retainer.
What you walk away with
Five things, on paper, that weren't there when you started.
- 01
A pipeline you can describe in a sentence and operate without you.
- 02
A pricing structure that holds when the client pushes back at the table.
- 03
A quarter of strategy, written down, owned by you — not by us.
- 04
A founder presence that brings inbound on the weeks you don't feel like posting.
- 05
A network of operators that picks up when you call the next time.
Apply
Three questions about the business. Three numbers we want to see.
We read every one. Decisions inside five business days. If we're not the fit, we'll say so — and we'll point you at the operator we think is.
The questions we get the most
Eight answers, before the call.
If yours isn't here, write it into the application. Mahdi reads them.
Because the price is set on the interview call, against the business and the season. If we're not the fit, you'll know in forty-five minutes — and we'll point you at someone who is.
Strictly 1:1 with Mahdi. The senior Trifid team drops in on the weeks where their craft is the lever — production, brand, growth or ops. You're not waiting your turn behind nine other founders.
Most of our founders aren't. We run intakes globally. Calls are scheduled in your window, recorded, transcribed and yours.
We open applications eight weeks before each intake. The week one slot tends to go first. If your timing is hard, write that in the application — we read every one.
You walk away with the plan, the notes and the network. We don't onboard you onto a retainer. If the studio is the right next move, we'll tell you — and we'll tell you when it isn't.
A course teaches you frameworks. This is 1:1 work on your real numbers, with the operator who built the studio. Different product.
On weeks where the decision needs both heads — yes. Default is the founder running the business. We'll align on this in the interview.
We'll say so on the interview. You'll know in forty-five minutes, not five weeks in. We'll send a short note with who we think is a better fit — Trifid Club, the kits, a different operator.
The next intake
Bring the business.
We'll bring the studio.
Eight weeks, 1:1, with Mahdi and the Trifid team. By application only. Intakes are capped. The week one slot tends to go first.