Episode Transcript
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 0:16
Once upon a time, there were 10s of 1000s of makers struggling every day they build for hours and hours. But they didn't ship and didn't earn enough income. One day, the no code wealth podcast came to help them find a way because of this, makers became founders and live the lives they deserve. Because of this, founders live lives of abundance, freedom, and creativity. That's what I'm really all about. Hello, my name is Aziz and from being a poor boy born to a single mother in North Africa, to fail in multiple startups, yet learning a whole lot to barely escaping alive the war in Ukraine, even living as an illegal immigrant. I've lost everything twice. And now, I'm rebuilding my life one more time. 1% a day, sharing the wisdom of luminaries of interviewed on this podcast from Google executives to Amazon, Microsoft, Forbes, Technology Council, Harvard Financial Times, and even a priest from the Vatican church. Everyone is welcome, here. So let's begin. My guest today is Mustafa psychology's. Mustafa is the CEO and co founder of CO two, and no code platform that helps people to build customer facing web applications. Originally a computer scientist and software enthusiast. For the last 16 years, most of our became a serial entrepreneur, and made it to be in a Y Combinator alumnus, Mustafa, how are you today?
Mustafa Sakalsiz 2:13
Thank you up to this. I'm very fine. And thanks for having me.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 2:17
It's my privilege. And my honor. And I appreciate all the things you're doing for your clients for the community, creating new things, which is the hardest thing. That's why we're so proud of being creators and makers, and to explore what's on your mind. Three, simply what seems to be a topic or a goal, or an insight or something that you keep on working on or thinking about these days, because it's important for you.
Mustafa Sakalsiz 2:52
Yeah, thank you. And actually,
I built called Zoom. Because before I go to, I have a consulting company. And before that, I had a SASS company. And during this period, so many people are coming to me and asking me to help build, help them to build their applications, and then websites, and those technological things. However, I didn't have enough time to help all those people. But also, I realized that it is not very hard to build what they need. So and during the consulting company, we have many big enterprises. And we saw so many patterns about building those applications more easily and more effective. So I wanted to combine all this experience into one platform to have more people. And we released the initial version last year, and during the first year, actually, we collected so many feedback. And we I realized that NOC code community is a little bit different than I think. So for example, I am coming from a coding background. So some things is much easier for me to code. But I realized that people are not
this summer, we are bringing the new version
to the public.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 7:46
Thank you so much. That's very, very insightful. And I would like to ask you about a topic that for some is controversial. Some people with a coding background similar to you who understand software architecture, say and think and believe that it's not possible for any person to become a no coder, who is competent. They say you need to understand software architecture, with data structures and types and all kinds of things that you cannot take a person from the street and make them a good person at using code due to let's say, for example, do you agree with this? Or do you believe that any person can easily get up to speed and create things that can make a real big difference?
Mustafa Sakalsiz 8:37
Yeah, actually, I believe that everybody can build an application. So if you want to build a platform, like go to, and so if you want to make all the internal stuff, or the low level stuff on your site, yes, you need to know this software architecture, you need to know the and data structures, algorithms, and all the theoretical information. But building an application and creating a business on top of a technological stack. You don't need to be a programmer, and you don't need to know all these things. So these platforms actually did no code platforms are built for this purpose. So these platforms are abstracting all the unnecessary technical technological stuff from the people and make the people focus on their business instead of this technology. Yeah, I can say that. It's the software stake became more complex in the recent years because of the cloud brought so many technological advances and also they brought scalability and big SaaS applications. So you
Need to know many things to build on top of that stack. But if you're using an orchid platform, actually, those platforms handle all those complexity for you. And you can just focus on your use case on your business. And the only thing that you need to understand is creating some logic around those visual components and the data. So if you can
tweak the data a bit, and if you can create a logic from the UI, to some integration points and the data, then it is just enough to build anything.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 10:43
Thank you. I love this very much what you're saying, and I am excited about the new version that you will launch very soon when the weather is warmer, and people are more have more time to be involved with it, to use it and to learn it. So I'll ask you two questions that I have on my mind. If you were someone who is new at no code, and you didn't have your background, how would you recommend? The person will go about learning so that they will have a solid foundation? Do you recommend they take some specific courses, maybe I don't know, basic coding courses just for the or basic no coding courses, or just using YouTube videos and watching our learning, as well as what? Tell me more about the next version of code to why you're making those changes? What feedback did you notice and the benefits that will be created from the updated and new version?
Mustafa Sakalsiz 11:51
Yeah, so the first questions, actually, yeah, it will be very useful if you understand the concepts of basic coding, such such as the recording grants, step by step, or maybe there are some loops. There are some data access stuff. And also, if you are also familiar with the browser's layout options, so it makes you create more sophisticated applications. But in the more modern, no code platforms, you don't need to learn all this stuff. So usually, people look at the templates. So every platform has their own templates, which are already built applications, and just works as a standalone application, you can just import those applications and running the platform. And so people usually start tweaking those applications and making some small changes and looking at what has changed, and they try to change some behavior in the system. So they usually start doing this. And it is more fun to work like this. And you'll see the results immediately. And so reading documentation, watching videos, maybe it's not for everyone, I also see the pattern that some people follow the video instructions. So for example, the platform record how to do all open sample application. And some people love to follow those steps and do the same things in the platform and they understand the basics. So that will be the another approach to learn the things. And so in the second part, so
for the next release of a culture Yeah, we, yeah, we understand that people are not very interested in the technology part. So they have an idea. They come with an idea. They come within dream, and they are trying to find something similar to that idea. And for example, that's what why the templates are so useful for them, because they even they see something very similar to their idea. They actually believe that they can build this thing in the platform. And also, they don't think their idea as software parts. They think their idea as the features or the capabilities a of their dream, such as, for example, they want to create a CRM, and they think like that, okay, I need to have a CRM and I will have some customer list, I will be able to add customer, I will be able to send email, I will be able to create order. So they think like that. And so they don't think about what should be the data model for the customer, they don't think about Vice you have to be how do I create a relation with customer and order. So they don't think about these things. So it is very beneficial to provide some ready made blocks for them as a software feature. And you should be able to provide those features like ala carte menu. So they can just pick those features, and create application as fast as they can see the results, run it, share it and show to the users. So if you make this all process is as small as possible, then yeah, you can actually win the user. But after some time, they get some users and the users want some more features more customizations. Now, they try to invest more in on the platform, and they start tweaking the system. And they want to add more advanced functionalities to the system. Now your platform should support that functionality to add those advanced things. So that's the approach for the next version we are trying to bring. So we will make the application the allotment like an ala carte menu. But we will also have all the admins tools in the system. So users will able to tweak everything very deeply. So I don't know if I could answer your questions.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 17:26
Oh, did you answer that very well, I thank you for that. I remember you commented how with your background, you found that no code community is very different from whatever communities you were were involved in and consulting, maybe more developer focused communities, etc? What difference did you notice? How are no coders different from everybody else? What's unique? What's surprising? And what did you observe as a culture crack crash, or class from someone coming from another community to this one?
Mustafa Sakalsiz 18:10
Yeah, for example, the developer community, so they usually come with a more mathematical background. So they think very differently, and they think very functional in the, in the lower level of the software stack. So they are looking for tools, and other things. For example, let's think about it as making a cake. So the software developer is looking for Okay. Which floor she should choose or which sugar which kind of sugar she should choose, they test every sugar they test every floor data's even the resolution of the water. So they're very focused on the functionalities of all the ingredient ingredients, but no good community is is not interested in those parts. So they always think about it end product, they always think about how should the cake should be presented? How should the cake so is it it should be fruit fruity or it should be a chocolate cake so they are more focused on the end product functionalities and product presentations. They all they all want to start from there, for example. The developers are also coming to our platform And they start with using data models. But the non coders, they start with the UI. So, and developers ask a how show how how the system scales. But not coders doesn't care about it. But they think that it should scale already. I don't they think about that. Okay, I shouldn't think about that this platform should handle this. So it is the I think the main difference. The community that I was very familiar with, and the NOC code community is more focused on the end product and the results.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 20:49
Thank you so much. This is really fascinating and exciting. You as someone who has been consulting before, who is building now code do, what advice would you give to no code makers who are building their first business or first app? Or thinking about product market fit? who maybe are not aware of the best practices to getting feedback from the clients? If you were to start from zero like them? What advice would you give them so that they don't waste time on some projects that yes, are useful to learn how to use no code, but will not earn them anything? Or will not make a difference in a way that benefits the pain of the clients effectively and their problems? What would be your advice?
Mustafa Sakalsiz 21:44
Yeah, so for example, I can give this advice that. So actually, I heard this from West Bush, the author of the book, product led growth. So he says, products doesn't solve people's problems. He says, products, upgrades, people problems. So actually, this served very good advice in that it says a very deep insight, this sentence, so you can think about that. For example, we made this mistake. And so for example, we made the UI editor in Cotu. Yeah, which is very capable. So you can build any design that is drawn in the figma, or other design tools. And so it has very, very sophisticated components, style options, layout options, so everything is so capable. But it is not the problem of the first user. The first user doesn't know about the components, they don't ever they are so they don't know what properties stylings so they just come and want to create a web page. So their problem is not tweaking the components properties, or the styles or the net. So our product, actually, is an upgraded version of the problem. So it is more focused on the higher end front end developers. But no goddess have a simpler problem. So they wanted to create a fascinating pages first. So now we are starting with the blocks in the new version. So it will be much easier for them to build the fascinating pages using the blocks. But we will then upgrade their problem to the next level, like tweaking the pro those properties, styles and layouts. So first, you need to solve the first problem with a product which upgrades their problem to the next level. So you should always think about and create a path for the user to create the solve their initial problem and upgrade to the next level then you can solve the next upgraded problem than that the other upgraded problem. So you're you should think about that. You're upgrading you're always upgrading the problem of the users to the next level. So this is an advice product from the product perspective. And also it's a common advice for founders to solve the problems first, or they are the people pulled around them. So it is always easy to understand the problem if it is yours or your close friends, and then you will able to see the results. And if your products or the solution solves it, then it's always good to talk to customers directly instead of making surveys and other things. And if your users agree, you can use your application or the product with them and watch them and understand them is very easily. And having to domain knowledge also makes you understand the deeper problems, or the unsolved problems is really so if you're an expert in some domain, I, I suggest that you can start with that area.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 26:02
Thank you. And to simplify what you said, when it comes to domain expertise, it's always recommended for people to check, do they have a hobby? Do they have something that they spent years doing and they understand deeply? Do they have something that is fun for them that they can stop learning about and solving problem for those people will be a lot more perfect because you are your target market. And you can understand what is the real problem you're solving for yourself that other people can agree on, and be involved with? Thank you so much, Mustafa, this was so enriching. And I love the work you're doing at code, too. I wish you a lot more success. And if people want to use code to they want to learn more, what are the best resources, links, websites or social media for them to go and I'll make sure to write some of the links in the description.
Mustafa Sakalsiz 27:07
Thank you so they can visit our website, go to I also there are direct links to the documentation, the blogs, I strongly suggest reading our blogs, because we don't write so many books, so many blogs. So it is not a blog spam, but we actually select every topic. And we think about that. And every blog is a part of our vision in the NOC code space development area, the South, even the startup world. So they can learn so many things. And they can understand many aspects of this area. And also they can follow our twitter accounts, social media accounts. So what are your is our website and also our name in the social media.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 28:07
Thank you so much. It was my pleasure and my honor. And I wish you a wonderful day and I look forward to the next update and upgrade a new version of code two. Thank you.
Mustafa Sakalsiz 28:22
Thank you. Thank you Abdulaziz for giving up. It's given this opportunity to me to tell our story and our reason.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 28:30
You're welcome.
