#14: In London, Max tells me how he went from the #100daysofnocode hashtag to an education company

[00:00:05] Hello and welcome to the No-Code World Radio podcast. I'm Alex your host and you're listening to the fourth season

[00:00:11] I'm in London. This is my very last day actually

[00:00:15] I'm gonna live in a couple of hours, but right before I take my train

[00:00:19] I'm gonna meet with max founder of 100 days of no code

[00:00:23] You probably have seen this hashtag on Twitter or X as it's called now

[00:00:28] And I'm very curious to understand how it all started and what they are doing now because I've seen that it's expanding

[00:00:35] So I'm very looking forward to meet with max. Let's go for the discussion

[00:00:40] Hi max, thank you for having me here at the RSA house in London

[00:00:49] Which is a pretty fancy building and fancy place. You can tell us two words about it after

[00:00:55] I'm very glad that we have a chance to meet you. You're the the founder of the

[00:01:02] 100 days of no code

[00:01:04] Which is quite popular hashtag and there's a project behind it and I want to know all about it

[00:01:09] So I'm very happy that we have a chance even if it was a bit last minute to talk

[00:01:15] First of all, can you introduce yourself a little bit please? Yeah, of course

[00:01:19] yeah, firstly super excited to to be here and

[00:01:24] Although it is a fancy place

[00:01:27] It's it's a really

[00:01:30] Open space for anyone to to come in to so if ever someone is around this area. It's a good spot to work

[00:01:37] But it's a bit of a secret a bit of a secret maybe not anymore after this podcast

[00:01:45] Yeah, exactly, but I max

[00:01:49] So I run 100 days of no code which is an online campus

[00:01:55] That helps people bring their ideas to life

[00:01:59] With the the kind of the twist being

[00:02:02] That they don't have to write any code to to bring their ideas to life

[00:02:07] And that is because we teach people how to visually

[00:02:11] Create their ideas into reality

[00:02:15] We run bootcamps. We run challenges. We have courses

[00:02:19] But it all started as a Twitter hashtag

[00:02:22] Just before we we get into the the story of how you came up with this hashtag and

[00:02:27] The context also because I think it was quite linked to

[00:02:31] What happened at that time?

[00:02:33] What's your background? Did you arrive in into this?

[00:02:36] No code. Yeah, sure. So I guess

[00:02:41] pre no code

[00:02:42] I didn't really have much for a background in the sense of I was straight out of university or nearly straight out of university

[00:02:50] So

[00:02:51] But the the recurring theme like in everything I've done is I've always dabbled in a little bit of like entrepreneurship

[00:02:58] or try to kind of

[00:03:00] Get my teeth stuck into any project or any experience that gives me a little bit more

[00:03:06] understanding of

[00:03:07] How business works and being on that kind of frontline

[00:03:10] Whether we made money or not was a whole another thing

[00:03:13] but at that age have always just been quite intrigued by

[00:03:17] And driven by the fact I didn't really want a job and so how can I make money in another way?

[00:03:25] And that obviously led me into different paths

[00:03:28] But the first thing I did out of university and I guess my background is in social entrepreneurship

[00:03:35] So I did a year-long program

[00:03:38] that kind of

[00:03:40] sent me into the frontline of

[00:03:43] various social impact organizations

[00:03:45] To understand some of the problems

[00:03:49] That they were facing and that was all to kind of give me a bit of a

[00:03:56] An understanding of a problem before going out to build some venture that may or may not kind of solve that but those problems

[00:04:02] So social issues

[00:04:03] Okay, you don't have any technical background. No exactly

[00:04:08] no technical background

[00:04:10] And I would put myself at the very beginning of the technical spectrum

[00:04:14] So at school I was always probably one of the worst people in IT class

[00:04:20] and

[00:04:22] My friends always kind of like joked about it as well. So I was pretty bad

[00:04:28] And like even to just put that into context

[00:04:32] Spreadsheets scared me

[00:04:34] Microsoft Word was just about doable but beyond that I wasn't any good at tech. Okay. Okay interesting

[00:04:42] So how did it all started? How does

[00:04:47] Yeah, so I'll just give you a quick back story. So while at university when I was kind of exploring this whole idea of entrepreneurship

[00:04:54] I worked today and kind of co-founded this AirBnB for storage startup called storage shepherd

[00:05:03] We raised a little bit of money and we won some awards and it was all

[00:05:09] orientated around

[00:05:11] Connecting with people with spare space in their homes to people that wanted to add

[00:05:17] To to share or put their storage somewhere else, but they wanted it to be a little bit cheaper than putting in a warehouse

[00:05:23] and

[00:05:25] Convenient, you know, they could put it in a neighbor's house rather than a big storage warehouse in the middle of nowhere

[00:05:30] Yeah, that was the idea. We thought it was very good at the time

[00:05:36] But one of the reasons we failed

[00:05:39] Was because our team so there was three of us we were all non-technical

[00:05:44] okay, and

[00:05:46] We were very dependent on developers

[00:05:49] To the point where we were kind of not really able to respond to use a feedback

[00:05:54] Because we got some feedback in but we couldn't make any changes to the product

[00:05:58] So this back and forth that took a long time and we couldn't move

[00:06:04] To the speed of the market really

[00:06:08] And that planted a seed in my head of I'm gonna need to learn a bit of some technical knowledge

[00:06:14] if I'm gonna

[00:06:17] You know build my next thing or be successful in some way

[00:06:22] So that was the seed

[00:06:24] And then out of university. I thought well to address this I'm gonna learn how to code

[00:06:28] That was all I knew at the time that was the I didn't know about no code. It just made sense

[00:06:34] So I thought right. I'll sign up to a few coding boot camps

[00:06:40] But fortunately before even starting any of those coding boot camps very fortunately

[00:06:44] I stumbled across an article by Ryan Hoover

[00:06:48] That said that titled the rise of no code. Hmm. That was when I first like was introduced to the idea and I was completely

[00:06:57] sort of

[00:07:00] Taken aback by this idea and went down the big rabbit hole ever since it's

[00:07:06] So yeah, Ryan Hoover is the founder of product and yes, I think I was always been a big advocate of no code tools

[00:07:15] They've been several no code tools launched successfully on product and yeah, and yeah, I think this article

[00:07:20] I think was 2018 or 2019 something but it was a quite a I remember reading it as well

[00:07:26] I think it it was a one of those thing that's kind of started that contributed to start the movement. Yes for sure

[00:07:34] Absolutely, and so what what did you do from there? So from there? I

[00:07:42] Quickly

[00:07:44] Sort of took away my place on some of these coding boot camps. I was about to start

[00:07:49] Because I think I knew deep down that I wasn't really

[00:07:53] Cut out

[00:07:56] I thought actually

[00:07:58] So I keep you. Yeah, yeah, you can

[00:08:01] So I knew deep down that I didn't really want to learn to code

[00:08:06] It was it was more of a out of necessity rather than something I was doing out of joy

[00:08:12] So any other way I could get to the same outcome

[00:08:15] I was very open to that idea and no code was a different way from a to b and

[00:08:21] To me it looked a more fun easier and quicker way to get there

[00:08:26] so I

[00:08:29] scrapped my place on the coding boot camps and

[00:08:31] Started digging into just the world of no code seeing whatever I could find online YouTube videos

[00:08:39] Articles just like Ryan Hoover's one communities, but at that time so in late 2019 the space was very new

[00:08:45] There wasn't much infrastructure around it or people or communities

[00:08:50] So I was a little bit isolated and didn't quite know where to start

[00:08:57] So I essentially failed and kind of gave up and spent a couple of months

[00:09:01] You know in a rabbit hole that didn't turn into anything, but I still had that

[00:09:06] No code knowledge or at least idea of no code in my head that I thought well if I start something again

[00:09:12] I'll come back to it. Yeah

[00:09:14] You made the first the groundwork maybe of like knowing because there's many different tools many understanding the

[00:09:22] I don't know like the ecosystem

[00:09:24] Yeah, so like and that was it. I had very good understanding of the tools and the ecosystem

[00:09:30] But I didn't know how to use any of them

[00:09:32] I hadn't built any projects and I hadn't got any proof that I knew anything about this space

[00:09:37] But did you have any project? I mean do that maybe that was the problem

[00:09:41] Nothing to build or there was a little bit of that and actually

[00:09:46] I'll get to this in a minute, but that was one of the key problems. I had starting out as I didn't have a project

[00:09:54] So I didn't have a motivation level to really dive in because as we all know no code is easier

[00:10:01] But it's not easy. So there's an investment there

[00:10:05] Definitely, but we all know but it's still good to say

[00:10:08] Because there is new people that and there are also people who are starting to say it's easy

[00:10:13] And you know, it's like blurring the message of I think it's it's very important. Yeah. Yeah for sure

[00:10:19] Okay, and so I guess then the pandemic happened. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So

[00:10:26] The pandemic happened and that was almost a good time

[00:10:30] because

[00:10:31] Although it was a bad time for many people

[00:10:33] for lots of people

[00:10:35] Of course, we had a bit of spare time on our hands

[00:10:38] We were locked inside

[00:10:40] and

[00:10:42] I kind of thought well, I dropped no code

[00:10:45] You know a few months back now is the perfect time to actually learn this stuff

[00:10:50] So

[00:10:51] When I had actually looked at learning to code

[00:10:54] I'd seen them there was this thing called 100 days of code and it would always stuck out to me

[00:10:58] Well, actually that looks like a really good way to learn

[00:11:01] A challenge based way of learning

[00:11:04] On top of maybe a bootcamp or something or a structure curriculum. So that

[00:11:09] idea

[00:11:10] Of kind of challenge based learning had kind of plans in my mind

[00:11:14] So when I came to learning no code, I thought well

[00:11:17] The last time I tried this I failed because I didn't have any structure

[00:11:21] Let's now apply 100 days of code, but to no code and do

[00:11:27] the equivalent version

[00:11:29] Which then became 100 days of no code

[00:11:32] And all that looked like was me announcing to

[00:11:35] My sort of 50 follower twitter account

[00:11:39] Hey, I'm going to be learning to code. Sorry, no code

[00:11:44] For 30 minutes a day

[00:11:47] Over the next 100 days, I'm going to share my progress every day. Does anyone want to join?

[00:11:53] And that was it

[00:11:56] So and it resonated with people but that was the that was the start of the journey

[00:12:01] So you started by basically applying to yourself

[00:12:05] Like you did the first run pretty much to inspire people

[00:12:09] But were there people who joined straight away?

[00:12:12] Yeah, or you had to go through alone for 100 days

[00:12:15] So the funny thing is people assume that I was the first person to complete 100 days of no code

[00:12:21] But I wasn't okay because

[00:12:24] People if you really dedicated people that saw that early twitter message

[00:12:30] They completed it before me. Um, because they just had a level of consistency that I didn't

[00:12:37] And they they did it day to day for those 100 days

[00:12:42] Okay, so you did yeah, okay because you say that because you didn't complete like 100 days in a row or

[00:12:48] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so I had a had a couple of rest days

[00:12:52] But some people didn't and they were so excited about

[00:12:55] About learning these skills that they just had a an intrinsic motivation that drove them through that 100 days

[00:13:02] And of course there wasn't much else to do as we keep saying so

[00:13:06] Yeah, but so how did you or those people also kind of structured their

[00:13:13] Work like the 30 days with how did you decide which we're going to do because at that time?

[00:13:17] There were no program or anything. I mean it was an yeah

[00:13:21] And and that was

[00:13:23] That was the thing so it was a very powerful formula for learning

[00:13:27] For people that maybe were coming from more a technical technical background

[00:13:32] But it wasn't so powerful for people like me who didn't have that technical background and needed a little bit of hand holding

[00:13:39] to

[00:13:40] Basically tell me what to do what to learn

[00:13:43] What does

[00:13:44] A database mean what does responsive design mean all these terms were completely foreign to me

[00:13:50] So I did need a bit of that formal education, but I didn't have it

[00:13:54] So what I did was just pick a project and at the time

[00:14:00] That project was a positivity map

[00:14:03] so

[00:14:04] Trying to map out all the positive things that people were doing in response to co vid

[00:14:10] In my local community

[00:14:12] I thought it was a tangible project

[00:14:14] It could be quite useful and help people sort of boost morale in a way and it helped me learn to know code

[00:14:20] And I thought just reversed engineered it and was like well, what skills do I need?

[00:14:26] to

[00:14:26] Have this outcome have this project and kind of just

[00:14:31] Put together

[00:14:33] articles youtube

[00:14:35] videos

[00:14:36] and

[00:14:37] The community on twitter to kind of help me get there and that was it really but there was no formal path. Okay, and did you

[00:14:45] Because it's interesting to understand, you know like the

[00:14:48] The conception of like at which point did you figured okay?

[00:14:52] This is I could something I could reproduce and maybe

[00:14:56] Because you didn't have a chance to have someone to as you say like

[00:15:01] Handle, you know, I don't know. I just said I mean so give you the the the pass at which point did you figure?

[00:15:07] Okay, I'm gonna do it, you know like as I'm doing it

[00:15:11] maybe

[00:15:12] Keep the notes or I don't know what what you did and sure or was it afterwards or

[00:15:18] Yeah, so I think I think it was around

[00:15:21] Day 40 or day 50 when I

[00:15:24] I realized

[00:15:26] Okay, people really care about learning this skill people are really excited about it

[00:15:31] But they need a little bit more structure. The problem I had was I'm still a beginner. I can't give people structure

[00:15:37] I I'm learning this myself

[00:15:41] How am I meant to guide people when I don't know how to guide myself? Um, so what I did was

[00:15:48] In the early days was

[00:15:50] Instead of thinking, oh, I need to create content

[00:15:54] I need to create a curriculum all these things

[00:15:57] I thought well, no, I can't do those so let's instead focus on building a community around people

[00:16:03] And what that like looked like at the time was essentially workshops

[00:16:08] accountability groups

[00:16:11] And things that didn't require me to share knowledge because I didn't have it and it was actually

[00:16:17] Allowing people that did have that knowledge already to share the knowledge

[00:16:21] it's very interesting because

[00:16:24] I mean like there's so much you can learn

[00:16:27] Without a teacher in a way just, you know from your peers like but what you need is a group

[00:16:33] Like and uh and being alone on the internet although there is

[00:16:37] Vast knowledge there. It's not the same as having someone tell you okay, this resource is good or come

[00:16:43] I will do a half an hour workshop on this exactly. So I think yeah, I understand now more like the the past and I think there's a lot of value for you

[00:16:50] You could do straight away, but he was also a bit out of necessity. Exactly. Yeah born born out of necessity

[00:16:57] And I was you know going to these workshops that I'd organized

[00:17:01] And going to these accountability groups and getting more out of it than most people because you know

[00:17:07] I was really at the start of my learning journey as well

[00:17:10] And you're completely right like the accountability groups

[00:17:13] We had a weekly calls people would jump on and they would just share what the best learning resources were they'd be like

[00:17:18] Oh, you should skip that one

[00:17:20] But like do this this is great and then you know, you'd you'd save tons of time

[00:17:25] Um, and your path would become a little bit more clear. Um in the absence of curriculum

[00:17:31] Oh, it's it's very interesting. I remember seeing on on twitter

[00:17:36] People posting photos of the group calls for instance, or there's also like a powerful

[00:17:43] Network effect with this also one each of the people from the community can kind of advertise not in a bad way, but I mean

[00:17:51] Yes, sure

[00:17:52] Yeah, and that's I think that was one of the other or what this still is one of the powerful mechanics

[00:17:58] of

[00:17:59] This way of learning is you've got the formula for learning

[00:18:03] Learn for for 30 minutes a day

[00:18:05] Um, share what you're going to learn every day and make sure you publicly commit to actually doing that

[00:18:11] Um, one of the the think the best things about that is that by sharing what you learn every day

[00:18:17] You bring other people on that journey with you whether that's feedback

[00:18:21] Whether that's just support cheerleaders

[00:18:23] um

[00:18:24] And then you've kind of got your own

[00:18:27] Army of people around you as you're learning versus doing it in on your own. Yeah

[00:18:32] This is that's that's another thing that

[00:18:35] Really, I think emerged at the same time. It's like the the hashtag

[00:18:40] Building public. Yes. Yeah, try the thing about the same time or what would you say or?

[00:18:46] Yeah, yeah, it was it was and it's interesting like

[00:18:50] It's not designed to help people build in public 100 days of no code

[00:18:54] It's helped it's designed to learn to no code

[00:18:57] But in doing 100 days of no code people say it really kind of helped them

[00:19:03] become

[00:19:04] More free on on socials and help them build that habit of sharing what they do

[00:19:11] because

[00:19:12] The funny thing is

[00:19:13] People find it hard to just tweet into the void

[00:19:16] But if they have permission to tweet so oh well, I'm part of this challenge

[00:19:21] It's part of the rules

[00:19:23] Like I need to tweet then it changes the framing of it and people are much more likely to do it. Yeah

[00:19:28] Yeah, it's true. It's interesting, but I mean, yeah

[00:19:31] It's hard and I guess also you also cannot get your first followers also from the community

[00:19:36] So you're not totally speaking

[00:19:39] Alone, yeah, at least you have people who goes through what you're doing and then slowly from there you build

[00:19:44] Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's the that's the beauty of having hashtag

[00:19:48] Is you just type it in and you see everyone else who's on that learning journey

[00:19:52] Um, and obviously you've got lots of community platforms circle slack all this stuff

[00:19:57] But I actually think the best community platform is twitter. Um in a way

[00:20:02] I mean, I agree and I think your story really shows shows that I mean you really build

[00:20:07] The community on top of on top of it and it was great. I think that probably helps

[00:20:12] Like leverage like really the

[00:20:15] And grow quicker. Are you afraid of everything that's that's happening with twitter or x?

[00:20:22] Yeah, exactly. Um, I think

[00:20:27] I my

[00:20:29] piece of mind was a little bit higher when

[00:20:32] When ilo must wasn't

[00:20:35] Running twitter but

[00:20:38] I think

[00:20:40] I think now it it's it's almost a good thing because we actually encourage people to

[00:20:45] To share their journey where they feel comfortable whether that is slack whether that's twitter whether it's linkedin

[00:20:51] I feel like linkedin has grow also kind of

[00:20:54] I mean, it's been around for a while, but I find it

[00:20:57] It's a different format. I used to like the shorter like tweets

[00:21:00] But I feel like linkedin can be annoying, but I can also be quite interesting

[00:21:05] Yeah filter out, you know, like all the noise and the entrepreneurs like saying there are there are solo stories

[00:21:12] Yeah, exactly and so I although it it is

[00:21:18] It could potentially change the dynamic of of how we started i twitter hashtag

[00:21:25] I think it's forced us to think about how does this formula work across different platforms?

[00:21:31] So it's probably will be good for us long term, but

[00:21:35] definitely

[00:21:36] Is an interesting time

[00:21:38] Building a business on top of twitter. Um, yeah

[00:21:42] But so so what is it now because

[00:21:46] I saw that you have even a team of people working with you

[00:21:49] What how did it grow like really because now it's a company that you're running

[00:21:56] Yeah, I mean how because

[00:21:59] From the outside at least I don't feel like you're really dependent on twitter anymore. I mean you're you're more like an education company

[00:22:05] Yes, yeah

[00:22:07] Yeah, exactly. Um, and

[00:22:11] I guess twitter is definitely um very important for us, but thankfully

[00:22:16] Uh, I guess just over that period of time sort of nearly three years now since we started

[00:22:23] You just build up a level of that kind of social proof and

[00:22:27] um audience where you can

[00:22:30] um

[00:22:31] gain distribution from

[00:22:33] Uh multiple sources rather than just one. Um

[00:22:37] And I'm sure that's what you found with um

[00:22:39] Consonement is just like

[00:22:41] You can um find people in different places

[00:22:45] Yeah, um, yeah, so um, but for us, um

[00:22:50] the first kind of so the first

[00:22:53] iteration of the 100 days of no code was a hashtag

[00:22:57] Then it went from hashtag to a community and that was what I said the workshops the accountability groups

[00:23:03] Based on all the things that didn't involve me teaching which is great. Um, so I learned

[00:23:07] as part of that and then it went from

[00:23:10] Hashtag community to essentially education company

[00:23:13] um

[00:23:14] And that leap probably took the longest

[00:23:17] To become an education company because

[00:23:19] What that looks like is designing

[00:23:22] um, you know

[00:23:25] working back from outcomes and

[00:23:27] designing

[00:23:28] learning experiences that help people

[00:23:32] um

[00:23:33] Go from one place to another and that's a whole another beast. Um in and of itself

[00:23:39] When when did people started paying for?

[00:23:42] Which were organizing?

[00:23:44] So they started paying

[00:23:46] um

[00:23:47] When we had a community so we had the

[00:23:50] In public community that anyone could be a part of which is as I said on twitter

[00:23:54] But then we had the paid community which was on slack. Um, and that just offered a few more benefits

[00:24:01] um

[00:24:02] And that was kind of the first validation that

[00:24:05] People want extra help

[00:24:07] Um, and they were learning for it and yeah

[00:24:10] You need this validation in order to figure like that you might build a company. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and

[00:24:17] It was great for validation

[00:24:19] But it was also great in telling me it's hard to build a business of 10 month 10 pound a month subscriptions

[00:24:27] um

[00:24:28] So it kind of got us thinking

[00:24:30] Um, as well how this has become a sustainable business as well

[00:24:34] And that's when I I guess maybe you started doing like more like bootcamp like more format like more formal

[00:24:40] I mean not formal but like

[00:24:42] Experiences as you say like

[00:24:45] Yeah, exactly. So we are kind of first

[00:24:48] um

[00:24:49] first

[00:24:51] uh

[00:24:53] Step into the world of education

[00:24:56] Uh, so I was it was still just me and this was in 2021

[00:25:00] um october

[00:25:02] And I I decided to

[00:25:05] um

[00:25:07] essentially

[00:25:08] add

[00:25:09] A daily bite-sized curriculum on top of the challenge

[00:25:13] So there's that that formula that's always been there the three things

[00:25:17] But then I thought well, okay. I'm now kind of in a place where I can

[00:25:21] Add that layer of structure to people's journey. Will this help people?

[00:25:25] Um

[00:25:26] Get further along will it help them?

[00:25:29] Um direct their efforts in a better way

[00:25:32] so I basically announced this sort of beta version of

[00:25:37] The 100 days of no-code challenge but with curriculum

[00:25:40] um

[00:25:42] in sort of uh, September time

[00:25:44] and

[00:25:46] Rolling around october 1st. We had about 250 people that had signed up but I had no

[00:25:52] Uh curriculum

[00:25:54] Okay, so so essentially I was writing the lessons the day before they came to the the

[00:26:00] Participants must have been intense

[00:26:03] Yeah, it was it was a good accountability mechanism for me. Um, so it was okay validate people want this

[00:26:11] Cool. Now let's write the lessons and maybe that was a bit too lean, but um

[00:26:16] That was how it started

[00:26:18] So that was our first dip into education and then from there

[00:26:22] We've added

[00:26:23] Extra curriculums, but then also boot camps as well

[00:26:27] all right

[00:26:30] Do you have examples of people? I guess I have two two questions. I should have asked two questions sometime

[00:26:36] I know you're good, but it's um what people were building or how did they learn?

[00:26:43] I guess a lot of them had projects. Maybe I'm wrong, but

[00:26:47] And what were they doing after also what they went through the?

[00:26:52] Yeah, sure. Um, so I guess with the project one, um

[00:26:58] Either way, so we we believe and it just makes a ton of sense

[00:27:03] project-based learning

[00:27:05] Is more powerful than um simply learning to learn. Um, so having an output or some form of

[00:27:14] Tangible, um

[00:27:16] Output to your learning makes sense

[00:27:18] Um, but we found that there was kind of two types

[00:27:21] There was people that came in with an idea and they they were fixated on this idea

[00:27:25] And they're really excited about it

[00:27:27] So we channel their efforts around that idea

[00:27:30] And then we found people that were just interested in no code, but we said to them

[00:27:34] you're gonna get

[00:27:36] this far

[00:27:37] If you if you learn without a project and you're gonna get

[00:27:42] Much further if you learn with a project. So in that case, we would give people

[00:27:47] ideas for projects that they could build um, and you'd start with okay a simple blog

[00:27:53] directory

[00:27:56] Job boards, uh, simple personal websites

[00:28:00] the simple

[00:28:01] Zero to one stuff and then we would kind of help them pick those more advanced projects as they went

[00:28:08] Okay, no, that's that's interesting. I think I've really mixed feeling about, um

[00:28:14] Um people coming with their projects because I think sometimes what happened

[00:28:18] I think it's true. It grieves a great motivation. So this is the best

[00:28:23] But he also sometimes it doesn't help learning because maybe their project is too complicated. Maybe

[00:28:28] You know, it's like they are going to

[00:28:31] You know, it's like and I think it's much better at least my point of view when you learn

[00:28:37] To work on kind of fake projects, but are designed

[00:28:40] for learning

[00:28:42] May learning database is learning automation learning like specific skills. I think it's uh

[00:28:47] So I agree totally and um some people try and like sprint before they can walk. Um, and

[00:28:55] we

[00:28:56] Without those

[00:28:57] That fundamental understanding and this is exactly what I did at the start

[00:29:01] I went tried to go too hard too quickly and realized

[00:29:05] I didn't actually understand what I was trying to build. I didn't know

[00:29:09] What data I needed to um to to come in and out of the app. I didn't know

[00:29:15] um

[00:29:16] What design

[00:29:18] All the onboarding experience should be like all these things which

[00:29:22] I didn't have an understanding of because I'd never built a product before a tech product before so without that fundamental

[00:29:29] Uh, grass with the the key concepts

[00:29:32] Then you're going to hit a limit sooner rather than later. So it makes total sense to get those in first as well

[00:29:39] Yeah, and what you're saying is interesting because I feel like there's like those key concepts

[00:29:44] There's obviously technical concepts, but then there's also a little bit of design a little bit product management

[00:29:50] Like when you're building a product and have those things there

[00:29:54] It's hard and it's all our there are professionals in each of those categories, but yeah. Yeah, it's important to get them

[00:30:02] Yeah, that's so so true because it's like

[00:30:05] It's the classic thing

[00:30:07] Sure, there is no code involved

[00:30:10] But there's that kind of classic treat was there's no code

[00:30:12] But actually that doesn't mean there's no design no marketing no product management

[00:30:16] All of the things that come with actually building a tech product. Yeah

[00:30:20] And definitely do you have examples maybe of some

[00:30:23] tech products that were built

[00:30:26] as part of the

[00:30:28] The 100 days or maybe after by the aluminize

[00:30:31] Yeah, um, so I guess one one example that just just comes to mind and it's kind of a good

[00:30:38] example of

[00:30:40] What no code is all about?

[00:30:42] Is and you probably saw them the badge unicorn guys

[00:30:47] So badge unicorn the product studio that kind of built bad business ideas every two weeks. Yeah. Yeah, I remember them. Yeah

[00:30:53] Yeah, the tweets were hilarious

[00:30:57] Yeah, um, so they they set out the intention to to build something

[00:31:02] Um, namely a bad business idea every two weeks and they were able to to work at that

[00:31:09] Speed because they were purely using loco tools. Um

[00:31:13] And some weeks said they would build chatbots other weeks had built marketplaces

[00:31:20] Or kind of mobile apps

[00:31:23] But it was a real demonstration of

[00:31:25] Kind of the merry-go-round of all the different almost things that you can build with no code across different tools

[00:31:31] In that time frame as well

[00:31:33] And the best way to kind of visualize what you can build with no code is almost looking at their sites because that's what they

[00:31:40] Built across that spectrum in such a short period of time. Um, so I definitely recommend looking at those guys

[00:31:46] Okay, cool

[00:31:51] What's maybe before we talk a little bit about how you work, um, what's the the roadmap? What's the coming on?

[00:31:59] 400 days of no code. Yeah, um, so

[00:32:03] I've been interested to see how you're thinking about AI

[00:32:06] Um, but one of the the things that we've been thinking about is

[00:32:12] Okay, so no code is great. Um

[00:32:16] An AI is also really powerful

[00:32:19] But how do we help people leverage both of these things together? Um because

[00:32:25] naturally they're going to converge

[00:32:27] um and

[00:32:29] What does that look like from a building experience when these two things are together?

[00:32:34] Because it's slightly different to just visual development. It is visual development conversational development and

[00:32:42] Code development, but also generated

[00:32:45] All in one. Um, so it's there's more layers to that building process now and we've been trying to think about okay

[00:32:51] How do we help people?

[00:32:54] Navigate that landscape and build in a

[00:32:57] A faster

[00:32:59] More powerful more flexible way thanks to AI and no code together

[00:33:03] How are you thinking about it?

[00:33:06] I think it's um

[00:33:09] I think part of the future of no code is AI. I think I think AI is the

[00:33:15] the

[00:33:16] The extra boost that is going to take the no code movement, I would say to the level of

[00:33:23] Technical things that you can do as with code, which is almost no limits pretty much. Yeah

[00:33:31] That that's what I think but I think we're very early also

[00:33:33] Yes, and I think actually we

[00:33:35] And some people have read that some people are saying that we are already out of the hype cycle of the AI

[00:33:41] So yes now a thing is going to be interesting. It's going to quiet down

[00:33:44] And we're gonna have time to kind of see how it fits

[00:33:48] Um

[00:33:49] But it is it is very important. I think you posted something about it on linkedin now a few days ago how

[00:33:55] You felt like your team needed to to

[00:33:58] Learn more about it now. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Definitely. Yeah, I think it's uh

[00:34:03] It's important that's I think where we are. I think it's I don't think it's important to rush into

[00:34:08] Doing a course or this kind of thing. I mean that that is that's what we're doing

[00:34:13] Yes, but we did enough so we produced some content around AI. So yeah

[00:34:18] And now we're following and see how it goes with the yes

[00:34:21] And I guess it's it's when we speak about one

[00:34:24] We're kind of also speaking about the other because it's rolled into one. So

[00:34:28] um

[00:34:31] And just the looking at tools like zappia

[00:34:35] Or uh, bardeen or or even kind of framer

[00:34:39] They're just adding elements of AI into your existing workflows just to speed up what you already do so

[00:34:47] You're you're teaching the same outputs

[00:34:50] But there are just slightly

[00:34:52] Different ways of getting there with AI that we're starting to see in the tools as you say

[00:34:57] It's not fully imagined fleshed out, but we're starting to see little bits and pieces in those tools

[00:35:03] with AI

[00:35:05] Yeah, I think

[00:35:06] Like people are very focused on chai gpt right now for instance

[00:35:10] Which I agree is fascinating

[00:35:12] But I think it's even more interesting to be able to use

[00:35:16] The open AI APIs using make or zapier

[00:35:19] So that's one thing like automating AI. I think is the true next level

[00:35:25] But as you were you're talking I was thinking actually maybe

[00:35:29] That we won't even have to really use AI because as you said, there will be integrated into the tools

[00:35:34] Yes

[00:35:35] And like if you see already zappia I think zappia is the tool that has the most advanced

[00:35:40] Uh

[00:35:41] Integration, I mean they have close partnership. I guess we open AI

[00:35:45] They are they have their own AI by zappier. I don't know what's under maybe it's open AI

[00:35:50] But it's like a level of abstraction

[00:35:52] You can generate code in the code steps of zappier with AI so

[00:35:57] Yeah, I guess you might have to learn how to prompt but really it's like you're going to be in context

[00:36:01] You don't have to go to chat gpt to do the things you're not going to be

[00:36:05] Yeah, and that's I think that's the exciting thing is it's it's all in one building experience. Um

[00:36:11] So it's it's kind of you go into a tool

[00:36:15] You may prompt initially like build my site map for me based on this criteria or build my

[00:36:24] Build my database schema based on these requirements and then

[00:36:30] Then there's kind of the layer of the visual way, okay

[00:36:32] It's giving me a start. It's giving me a starting point now

[00:36:36] Let's kind of customize this a bit. Okay. I've done a bit of customization. Let's go back and prompt a little more

[00:36:41] So it's just back and forth and then on top of it

[00:36:45] If you need that custom injection of code

[00:36:49] Then as you say like zappier adding

[00:36:51] They're writing the code for you like yeah, there's that layer as well. You can exploit so

[00:36:56] It's all wrapped in this one build experience

[00:36:58] Which I think as you say takes no code beyond what it could have been before

[00:37:03] No, I think it's really exciting and like for instance, I'm really surprised that

[00:37:08] Your table for instance that hasn't announced yet what you were saying because for me it seems

[00:37:13] It's probably not easy to do but like you write a few sentences and you get

[00:37:18] three four tables that that you know

[00:37:21] Modellize like the schema of what you you wrote or so?

[00:37:24] Yeah, that's exactly what I think would be a big benefit because I think they announced something

[00:37:29] Like you can use AI into your fields

[00:37:33] Just to generate content, which is a thing of pretty basic use

[00:37:37] Or generating formulas also would be great. Yeah, you can already do it in chat gpt

[00:37:42] But sometimes you make mistakes. Yeah

[00:37:45] While they have all the data they have thousands of formulas that people have written

[00:37:49] So they must be able to train a model. I don't know maybe no, I will probably do it but

[00:37:54] Yeah, I you wonder on some of these bigger tools

[00:37:59] What they're cooking up

[00:38:02] So yeah, it'd be interesting to see because sometimes you feel like oh, they're slow and but then all of a sudden you have

[00:38:08] You know, they didn't say anything but there was actually a lot of people working on the yeah

[00:38:12] Just like when notion announced

[00:38:14] By notion with no one saw it coming. It came out of nowhere. Yeah, exactly. I feel like they were a bit

[00:38:20] They kind of missed their launch because it was almost at the same time as I don't know chat gpt

[00:38:26] Which version or something? I think I feel like there was a yes an overlap kind of miss

[00:38:30] It's actually we haven't talked about any tools per se. I haven't asked you

[00:38:36] Like almost 40 minutes and we didn't mention any tools

[00:38:39] Just to go back on the intro dates of knockout what what tools people are learning is there

[00:38:45] Is it more like free? Is it like uh, yeah, um, so we

[00:38:49] We do often take quite a tool agnostic approach

[00:38:54] because

[00:38:56] We want or we find that tools

[00:39:00] differ in in the sense of

[00:39:04] How compatible

[00:39:05] They are for each person

[00:39:07] Someone may find web flow very intuitive

[00:39:10] Over another website building tool just because of the way they learn

[00:39:13] So we try and keep it reasonably tool agnostic to give people optionality

[00:39:17] But then we also try and guide them so that they don't

[00:39:20] Go into tools. They're a little bit beyond their level

[00:39:24] Um, so we always kind of start or have recently started with

[00:39:29] five tools that we try and

[00:39:31] help people

[00:39:32] Build from and the idea being that we're not really teaching those tools specifically

[00:39:37] We're actually just teaching them so you gain these transferable skills that you can then apply in any tool you want

[00:39:42] so

[00:39:43] Those look like and I often forget the five because there's always one missing but

[00:39:47] those look like notion which we've talked about for kind of general like

[00:39:52] organization and um project management, etc

[00:39:56] air table for your databases

[00:39:58] softer for those kind of simple web apps

[00:40:01] Zappier to kind of automate what you're doing and then glide

[00:40:06] As kind of that mobile layer and then with those five tools you can build 90 percent of things and then of course

[00:40:12] You can take the skills you've learned out of that basic building blocks of building anything

[00:40:17] And then apply them to more complex tools as you go. So that's how we we do it

[00:40:21] Cool. Yeah, I think it's a very interesting approach and

[00:40:25] I think and so it makes sense that we didn't really talk too much about tools before but no

[00:40:28] But I think it's great because as we're saying right before recording

[00:40:32] I think we're sometimes too focused on the tools themselves and those the shiny tools and the new ones and

[00:40:38] Yeah, I think it's different because I really think everyone needs to to look into it. But

[00:40:45] Yeah, and so so do you have any plans around AI yet or just exploring and

[00:40:50] Maybe you don't want to share it. No, no, no, no, of course. Yeah, it is funny

[00:40:54] I laugh just because

[00:40:55] Finally out of the more existential phase of thinking around it

[00:41:00] And now kind of seeing it as we've discussed as a as a real benefit to to no code

[00:41:05] And seeing the two combined is this like superhuman

[00:41:10] Sort of machine

[00:41:11] Which is really exciting. Whereas I think initially when AI came out

[00:41:15] I almost was seeing it as a negative potentially for no code

[00:41:18] But I think now after reading learning and seeing what's possible

[00:41:23] I think it will only

[00:41:24] benefit no code in terms of what we're doing

[00:41:27] So we have a no code times AI bootcamp that is coming around the corner and

[00:41:33] We are we are kind of

[00:41:36] Which has evolved from just the no code bootcamp

[00:41:40] And that is as mentioned helping people leverage both of these things together

[00:41:46] And then separately which I've actually just launched today

[00:41:50] Is this 100 days of AI

[00:41:53] So

[00:41:54] Okay

[00:41:55] Basically helping people learn

[00:41:58] AI skills just in the way that we have helped people learn no code schools on a daily basis

[00:42:05] And specifically we've kind of got a

[00:42:07] B2C version where anyone can do it like for the hobbyists for the creator and then a B2B version

[00:42:14] So for companies that as we were saying

[00:42:17] They want to put their team through it and kind of get that level of output that they couldn't beforehand

[00:42:23] Where they can kind of grow their their head their

[00:42:26] Grow without growing their head count

[00:42:30] Then that's a path for them. So thinking about it in that way still early, but

[00:42:35] Trying to

[00:42:37] Yeah, help people get on boarded in in these in the space

[00:42:40] Cool. Well looking forward to to see what you but people will be building and

[00:42:46] And see all this on the on twitter on x. Yeah. Yeah, exactly

[00:42:53] We've just just a few minutes

[00:42:56] Tell me about

[00:42:58] Outside of the of your community that you built

[00:43:02] I would say more locally. Have you

[00:43:05] What's your feeling with I would say maybe first like London as a city regarding maybe no code but also take in general

[00:43:12] Do you go to meetups? What's the

[00:43:15] What do you find here?

[00:43:16] Yeah, um, so I've been guilty of not going to many meetups

[00:43:20] But I think that was because of kind of the the post

[00:43:23] So lockdown getting a bit used to being inside

[00:43:26] The transition is weird. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I I didn't kind of move into that ecosystem that early

[00:43:34] but there's definitely lots of like

[00:43:36] smaller no code gatherings not on the scale of the no code summit

[00:43:41] happening in Paris

[00:43:43] But smaller kind of meetups

[00:43:47] and

[00:43:48] Do you do like

[00:43:50] In-person meetups for the 100 days of

[00:43:54] Should be doing them. Um, and it's it's

[00:43:57] Definitely something we should

[00:43:59] Or will want to start doing soon. Um, so yeah, what's the space on that one?

[00:44:05] Um, but yeah, it's it's a it's a good ecosystem to be part of

[00:44:09] Okay, right

[00:44:12] Last question two questions

[00:44:15] Do you what do you what one thing instead of related to no code at all?

[00:44:20] But just one thing that you like to do in London that you would recommend to someone who's visiting

[00:44:26] But you'd like to do yourself not like going to the london eye or something. Yeah, yeah, unless you really like to do

[00:44:33] Yes, so I would first thing london eye magic

[00:44:37] Um, so what would I recommend? Um

[00:44:42] Just thinking because generally

[00:44:46] Because you're not doing the touristy things

[00:44:48] Um, it's not london specific. So for example, I do lots of tennis

[00:44:53] I would recommend people do tennis here, but they can do it in paris as well. So

[00:44:57] Maybe there is something specific here

[00:45:00] I would I would actually if you're here in the summer, I would go to to wimbledon

[00:45:04] Okay, um, so I'd visit because

[00:45:07] What you get is you get the the the british culture and everything about that and it's all

[00:45:13] Fully kind of visible there, but then you also get great tennis. Um, so I'd go go go to that if you can okay cool

[00:45:20] a good recommendation

[00:45:23] And so where last last thing where people can can follow you

[00:45:26] Where do you so obviously on twitter? But just yeah one previous question sometimes. I'm sorry. Yeah, you're good

[00:45:31] But do you document um also what you're doing? I mean like the way you're building

[00:45:37] More like, you know, like your company, I guess maybe on linkedin or

[00:45:42] Little bit on linkedin. Um, I want to share more. Um, because I think it's just interesting for other

[00:45:48] Tiny companies to see how others are building. Um, and it'd be great to be great to hear like

[00:45:55] On your side as well. How how you guys are doing it? Um

[00:45:59] So a bit on linkedin. Um, but generally, yeah, I split 50 50

[00:46:04] time on linkedin and then twitter so you can just find me on um

[00:46:08] At Haining max on on twitter. I will put the links in the show notes. Perfect. Um, so yeah, um

[00:46:17] And that's that's where I'm hanging out really and trying to to share building public a bit more

[00:46:22] Okay, no newsletter

[00:46:24] We've got a got a newsletter but not not a personal not a yeah

[00:46:28] Yeah, but you have one for yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that that's that's the only place where we really document and share

[00:46:36] Like we do but I'm not very comfortable with like social media

[00:46:39] I do it because we have to everyone's it's important for the visibility and kind of like it sometimes but

[00:46:45] But yeah, but our newsletter we try to almost every week have

[00:46:49] share something

[00:46:51] personal but like

[00:46:53] company level like the back stories kind of thing

[00:46:56] I think people like that. I wish we were better at

[00:46:59] Instagram and to do photos more like everything but you guys are good on youtube though, aren't you?

[00:47:04] You've got some youtube presents and yeah, we a little less now, but yeah, we we did a lot on youtube but more like, you know

[00:47:11] Tutorials this kind of things got you got you like never really managed to turn into like youtubers really got you. Yeah

[00:47:19] But maybe that will come I like the podcast actually from my format of I would say is more the podcast and you know the conversation

[00:47:26] Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's a nice intimate intimate format. So yeah, exactly. Yeah

[00:47:31] Well, thank you so much for your time and

[00:47:34] Let's I'm curious to see next time we'll have a chance to talk for sure. Thanks so much for having me. Yes, been really fun

[00:47:46] What a great conversation again

[00:47:48] Very happy to have a chance to meet with max. It was very cool setting actually

[00:47:53] This air see a place and I really like the the exchange. I mean, it's it's always great to meet

[00:47:59] fellow knock-outters and especially

[00:48:02] people went through the same thing of discovering knock-out during the pandemic and having you know common relations and

[00:48:10] Similar vision. So I really enjoyed. I hope you also enjoyed and for me, it's now time to take my train

[00:48:17] I'm gonna add to St. Pancras to catch my train. It was a great week in London

[00:48:22] I'm very happy. I had a chance to produce those four

[00:48:25] Episodes I hope you like them too if you did please share this podcast with

[00:48:30] two people of

[00:48:32] Who are interested in knockout you could share them with anyone you want but really I think

[00:48:37] They're especially interesting for people who are in knockout and there are more and more people around knockout

[00:48:42] You should get all your friends to to get into those knockout tools because they are usage, I think for pretty much everyone

[00:48:49] And hopefully you will hear me soon

[00:48:52] In a new season. I don't know where it's gonna be

[00:48:55] I know the knockout summit is going is going to be in europe in paris in october

[00:49:01] I live in paris, of course. I'm gonna be at the summit

[00:49:03] It will be probably the opportunity for me to meet some very interesting foreign people. So there might be some

[00:49:09] interviews

[00:49:10] Opportunities so maybe that will be a bit of a different season where instead of traveling somewhere people will travel to me

[00:49:17] Yes, they travel of course for the summit, but maybe they also come to to see me a little bit

[00:49:23] I mean after all I started this french knockout community and it's one of the reasons why there is a summit in france

[00:49:29] Um, but yes, let's see. I don't want to to seem like it's all about me

[00:49:34] Um, anyways, thank you for listening for still being here after all those episodes after this long

[00:49:40] outro

[00:49:41] I'm looking forward for the next conversation on knockout world radio