Author here, happy to follow up. We wrote the Meerkat manifesto after our experience Hacker Retreat batch 01. The meerkat method should be more effective than the (few) alternatives we tried. If you hear from people having success doing something similar systematically (pair up; mentor picks a project, gives it to learner, only simplifies if learner is really stuck)... let me know. General lore says that people who pair up more improve faster. The twist here is to pair up with a person who is far more advanced and is invested in getting you up to speed.
