Takeoff / MagicLearn
jointakeoff.com
Expert-led video courses that teach AI-assisted coding to beginners and teams.
Mckay Wrigley
Builds and teaches AI coding; creator of Chatbot UI and founder of Takeoff
About Mckay Wrigley
Mckay Wrigley is a self-taught software engineer who became one of the most followed voices on building with AI. Early in the GPT era he shipped a run of open-source AI apps, most famously Chatbot UI, an open-source chat interface for any model that has collected over 33,000 GitHub stars, alongside projects like an AI code translator, a Paul Graham essay RAG demo and a Perplexity clone.
In 2023 he founded Takeoff AI, a small education company that teaches individuals and teams to code with AI. Its courses, now under the MagicLearn brand at jointakeoff.com, cover tools like Cursor and Claude Code and building full-stack apps with AI, aimed at people with little or no coding experience.
On X and YouTube he posts frequent demos of agentic coding workflows and opinions on new models, and he open-sources the app template he uses to start new full-stack projects. His mix of shipping in public and teaching made him a reference point for the vibe-coding wave of 2024 to 2026.
Products by Mckay Wrigley
Chatbot UI
github.com
Open-source AI chat interface that works with any model; one of the most-starred AI chat repos on GitHub.
Mckay's App Template
github.com
The open-source template he uses to kick off new full-stack AI projects.
AI Code Translator
github.com
Uses AI to translate code from one programming language to another.
Builds indie alternatives to:ChatGPT
- First product
- Launch / milestone
- Started 2023
- 2023First product: Founded Takeoff AI to teach AI coding skills
- 2023Launch: Released Chatbot UI, which went on to pass 30,000 GitHub stars
- 2024Launch: Launched 'Complete Cursor' and 'Building Full-Stack Apps with…
Timeline
- 2023 — Released Chatbot UI, which went on to pass 30,000 GitHub stars.
- 2023 — Founded Takeoff AI to teach AI coding skills.
- 2024 — Launched 'Complete Cursor' and 'Building Full-Stack Apps with AI' courses.
How Mckay builds
- Learn by building real projects with AI rather than reading about it.
- Open-source your tools and templates to build trust and reach.
- Treat coding agents as general-purpose agents, not just autocomplete.
- Anyone can learn to build software now, with no prior experience.
Learn from Mckay Wrigley
[course]
Takeoff AI coding courses
Courses on Cursor, Claude Code and building full-stack apps with AI.
[youtube]
Mckay Wrigley on YouTube
Tutorials and live builds with AI coding agents.
Mckay Wrigley FAQ
Who is Mckay Wrigley?
Mckay Wrigley is an AI builder and educator, creator of the open-source Chatbot UI and founder of Takeoff AI, which teaches people to code with AI.
What is Chatbot UI?
Chatbot UI is Mckay Wrigley's open-source chat interface for AI models, with more than 33,000 stars on GitHub.
What does Takeoff AI sell?
Takeoff sells AI coding courses, now branded MagicLearn, covering tools like Cursor and Claude Code and building full-stack apps with AI.
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