Entrepreneur | I Left Google to Pursue No-Code — Here's How It Changed My Perspective on Bringing Products to Life

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In 2019, I left Google. I relocated to Dublin for the role, but after one year, I knew it wasn’t for me. I had access to excellent sales training and appreciated the perks, but I struggled to get obsessed with my day-to-day role. I was consulting enterprises on their digital transformation strategy, but my entrepreneurial itch was getting bigger and bigger.

Throughout my life, I’ve always had ideas. Yet I’ve been limited by my ability to do something with them. I always thought I needed to find a technical co-founder or resort to a non-technical idea. No-code completely shifted my perspective. It gave me the belief that anyone can bring their idea to life. If someone like me can bring a product to market, anyone can!

I used to have an idea and worry about how I would actually make it happen. Eventually, the idea would lose momentum, and I’d see someone else do it and regret I didn’t do anything with it. Now I have an idea and don’t think about the things holding me back; I think about the quickest way to test it.

There isn’t a better time to start a business. It’s cheaper than ever, resources are readily available, and there is more support. No-code is key to that. Instead of spending one year and $100,000 to launch, no-code enables you to launch within one month with much less money.

I joined Zinc VC as an Entrepreneur in Residence earlier in my career. It’s a program that takes 50 entrepreneurs to tackle a specific mission: improving the quality of later life. For context, there are one billion people worldwide aged over 60. By 2050, there will be two billion. One of the aims of the program is to find a team. The assumption is that you’ll be more likely to find the right co-founder because they’ve done lots of filtering. They’ve filtered on risk to start a business, passion for the problem area and quality.

But after testing many different co-founders, it just didn’t work. In the end, I decided to go solo.

I launched Diaspo: live cooking classes from expert home cooks. We focused on minority home cooks, equipping them with the necessary skills to teach online. The problem was that we failed to unlock older adults’ experience and knowledge. I was worried we’d lose their expertise, skills and knowledge. Food is one of the best ways to connect cultures and generations, so that’s where we began.

But with no team and technical skills, I wasn’t sure how to bring this idea to life.

I went through all the food Facebook groups and reached out to those passionately posting food photos. I’d offered to help monetize their skills. Once we had a few vetted home cooks who told great stories, I started spreading the word, and we hosted the cooking classes on Google Hangout.

The pandemic hit, and everyone turned to cooking, lucky timing. The word started to spread on these Facebook groups. We upgraded our product to Wix, and the number of sign-ups continued to grow.

Then, Sky News reached out for a global piece on how we’re helping people stay connected in the pandemic. The moment it went live, our website crashed, and I knew it was time to upgrade. With our growing demand, I tried to find someone technical, but it didn’t work out, so I cracked on my own with a need to upgrade our product.

Our customers were demanding more features. With a limited budget and time, I scoured all the available tools. I came across no-code and started learning. We built out an entire marketplace. Teachers would be able to set up their own cooking classes. Learners could search through various classes, filtering by their availability and favorite cuisines. They would automatically receive the link and the recipe when they booked. The user experience became seamless and efficient.

As I started working on different parts of the business, I started outsourcing our development. But I had such mixed experiences. A few people were great, but a lot made me very stressed. Eventually, the lockdown ended, and our business changed. We spoke to our teachers and learned that many wanted to sell their food but didn’t have the means.

That’s when we launched a Shopify for home cooks — a SaaS tool enabling home cooks to set up their own store in minutes without technical skills. We built this SaaS tool in one month, costing us less than $10,000. I never thought that was possible.

While the product didn’t work, no-code allowed us to experiment quickly. We went back to what was working and focused on corporate classes. We worked with companies like Spotify, Marks and Spencers and Accenture, helping their team connect through cooking. Today, Diaspo still offers team socials, and I only spend about 1 hour on it since most of the process is automated.

That’s why I’m so passionate about no-code. Not only does it enable you to automate all of the manual processes, saving hours of work. It also allows you to innovate. The ease of bringing a product to market means you no longer worry about how to build it. You can use no-code tools to test an idea and judge its traction.

The ability to experiment quickly at an affordable price made me double down on no-code. It wasn’t like the quality was compromised; we were creating revenue-generating products that people used daily. I was amazed that someone like me — a nontechnical — could finally bring my ideas to life.

I believe anyone should be able to bring their ideas to life, so I’m building Goodspeed, a no-code agency. Agencies tend to get a bad rep, so I’m determined to change that. Having been on the other side of the table, we’re building a founder-first agency. I’m obsessed with providing clear communication, proactivity and attention to detail. I want to help more people bring their ideas to life.

Goodspeed has worked on over 100 projects with entrepreneurs, venture studios and enterprises. For entrepreneurs, it’s the quickest and most affordable way to launch new ideas and venture studios. For enterprises, it’s a way to be more efficient, innovative and productive — whether automating tasks, creating internal dashboards, or quickly testing a new product.

So that’s why no-code is changing my perspective. It helps more entrepreneurs bring more products to life.

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