Episode Transcript
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 0:16
Once upon a time, there were 10s of 1000s of makers struggling every day they built for hours and hours but didn't chip 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 escape in our life, 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 have 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 Seth Fannin. Seth has 12 years of experience in project management, operations, and it serving enterprise public sector customers outside of his day job. He is a no CO developer, a Webflow, freelance web designer, and electronic music producer, and the co host on my no code story podcast. Seth, how are you today?
Seth Fannin 2:12
Hey Aziz thanks for having me. I'm very good. Thank you.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 2:16
You're welcome. And it's my privilege, my honor. And my good fortune to have you today. So I would like to ask this question, which is one of my favorite these days, what seems to be something that you think a lot about, maybe it's a problem that you're trying to solve in insight that you had recently, or a life lesson that is important for you, you're trying to capture? What have you been thinking about again, and again, and again, in this period?
Seth Fannin 2:52
Well, over the past few years, I've definitely seen the no code space evolve. I think back, you know, in the early days of all these tools that we know, today, when they first rolled out, you know, a lot of us were just trying to make stuff, you know, to see if we could do that as a side hobby. I mean, some of us didn't think about all this could possibly, like create a future, or we could start our own company or our own business, and build things that people will actually use. I think over the past few years, now, I've started to see, you know, the benefits of that, and I'm on my journey, I would say, to try to fulfill that desire of mine is far as starting a an online business, a lifestyle business, you know, one for my family, one for you know, where I can sustain a lifestyle that, that I enjoy, instead of, you know, working 40 hours, you know, for a corporation for the next 30 years. And it's definitely stepping stones. So I've just, that's something that's been on my mind as now how do I take what I've learned, and package it and solve some solid problem that I enjoy actually solving for a customer that I enjoy solving for?
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 4:15
Thank you. And, to me, that concept of lifestyle business is very important. It's something that I have always yearned for. And actually I salute your perseverance, because, for me, I actually had a corporate job for two years where I hated my life there. I then have shared values with the people because they were saying, Look, I want to work until I'm 60 or whatever, and then I will enjoy life then I will retire then. And I used to think, what if you die that 59 years old? I mean, it makes no sense but nobody really was thinking about it. And I remember actually After two years, 30 days before my birthday, because you have to give a 30 day notice, I resigned. And I just went off to the Philippines, which was very affordable, I had some savings in order to search or myself to think about what value I can offer in this world. And I really couldn't take that what you spoke about the stepping stone where the yearning goes too much, because when you're working, like you said, 40 hours, you're a lot more exhausted than what is necessary for the entrepreneurial venture to work. But even then, let's speak about the lessons learned. When you think about the lifestyle business, which is great, it's not something that you're trying to make multi million dollars or create a unicorn out of, and it's something that I'm sure a lot of people within the no code community share. Well, what did you learn about it? What is necessary? What are the lien minimum components for it? Where should people look for their audiences, or the niche that they will choose? Tell me what you've learned so far?
Seth Fannin 6:15
Yeah, and this is, from my experience, you know, so I'm still on my journey. I'm not quite there yet. But it's definitely been a it's a, it's always an observation, you know, it's always taking a look to the lens, I would say, a couple of times a year, I've definitely, you know, I've been able to eliminate the things I don't want to do, and the things I do want to do. Because like I said, I don't come from a tech background, or a startup background. I come from, you know, a corporate, you know, more of a traditional background, but I guess what this mindset change, you know, over the past couple years of being within the community of others, you know, of learning from others, it, it really turned on the light in my head of Oh, okay. There's so much here to learn, and so much things can actually be, you know, accomplished, you know, I know, code was definitely an outlet for that, you know, it gave you the tools, it gave you the know how the community itself, the people teaching each other. And that was really something that spoke to me. And for as for me, right now, I'm still experimenting with things I, you know, definitely the small bets, you know, small portfolio of small projects. But as well, I'm also, you know, just looking to where I want to really, you know, try to pull off a national company, you know, a b2b, mostly b2c, it just really depends, you know, I'm not really a, I wouldn't say, Oh, I'm very fond of a certain market. Just, I became, you know, really obsessed with, like, the product management side of things, and really understanding like customers and like, what is the problem? Versus the solution? And how do you actually identify those things. And once you learned those skills, it's it really, it's fun to go and try to find problems. So I'm still on that journey. As far as, you know, finding your niche and finding what you like. I mean, this is different for everyone. Because you hear so many amazing stories from others that I wish I could live up to their story. But I haven't yet. You know, finding, obviously, we've heard that, you know, finding something in the middle of what you love. And what you know how to do is the advice, but sometimes that doesn't always come into play. For some people, some of us, I think it really depends on your lifestyle, your network, your day to day. So I really just focus on like, right now I'm thinking more about like, what is my unfair advantage? Whether that might not be something that's more prone or more trendy, necessarily, but it's still my unfair advantage. So I'm looking like, How can I take the skills that I have learned, even if they're not, they don't really apply to the General, General, you know, community of other makers and creators? How can I actually take that and build in that market? You know, with no code tools, because no code tools are just a way to get there, you know, it's just a way to validate the idea. So that's how I think about, I'm thinking about things right now, you know, and just trying to leverage and see what natural energy flows from some of those things that I'm attempting to do. And with whatever sticks and obviously listen to people and customers and go from there.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 9:54
Thank you. And actually, this takes time. What I mean is We often even when it comes to books or any knowledge or entrepreneurship, the answers are there. You have heard them. But it's more superficial, the understanding until over time, you're like, wow, I really understand what this means. And it takes maybe one year, two years, three years, whatever time it takes, where you hear the same thing. But it rings into your mind in a different way. And I say to everybody that they should keep at it, because the answers are there they exist, it just that you need to evolve enough to absorb them in the right way that you can practically use and you need to fail enough in order for them to make sense, if that makes sense. And this journey is full of failures, well, you're trying, maybe it helps you that you have a job already. So you have some sort of financial security, but also there is ego involved with it, where some people don't want to miss they make mistakes, or that they think, Oh, I'm dumb, or whatever it is, how do you open yourself up to trying more and more things, so that you find those, like the small bets you spoke about? And the ones that will work? How do you open yourself up to rejection to failing faster to build in in public, and then things not working out? I'm not saying that you build in Bob public, but as a general approach, how do you let yourself be that entrepreneur that takes risks and knowing that maybe 99% of things will fail, but that 1% will be the light at the end of the tunnel?
Seth Fannin 11:46
That's a good Very good point. I'm definitely for the, you know, build in public. You know, I think it's, you know, like, it works for some people, it doesn't for others, it's basically their choice. But I am for it, I think it definitely is amazing when us but we also have definitely seen the downfalls and the cons of that. But as far as like lifestyle, he bring up a good point, like, yeah, I definitely have a full time day job. And it's great, it does provide financial, you know, stability, I have kids, I'm married. So I definitely have, you know, responsibilities and things that are first, for sure. But I, when it comes to actually having this additional life outside of my job, it is sometimes, you know, it presents constraints of its own, as far as having the time to be able to you like, you know, to give the time to be consistent, whether it's on Twitter, or talk with other people. But you really just got to find that extra time. Whenever you can, in the way I think about, you know, problems or products that I want to build. Speaking of that, I actually haven't, you know, been as active as I would like to be this year, or last year, wondering COVID I was, I wasn't affected, thankfully, I work from home, but it as far as the workload, you know, it was really busy. So it just, I would have liked to have made more, you know, and I, it's I think it's easy for us, as creators and makers to get down on ourselves, maybe, you know, like, when we're having that stress of, you know, like, the constraints of life pulling us one way, and then having just time in general. Because I have a three year old now. So it's definitely a it's a constrain for sure. So the way I think about those things is now I just took a step back, I guess, and just try to learn from the community. You know, always be writing my notes down ideas I have, going and validating whether it's talking to people through Twitter, DM Reddit, just reaching out to people, and really finding out if it's a problem, because did you know, ask myself this question, as in, okay, since I don't have this maybe as much time as another creator or maker to actually act on, you know, just build, build, build, build, even if it's not a business, I want to build a business. So I want to make sure that what I'm going to build is going to be somewhat validated before I build heavily because of the constraints that I have. And because I know that I'm not 20 years old. Yeah, I don't you know, I'm trying to make the right decisions, but at the same time, be open to experimentation.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 14:44
Thank you. I believe, you know, everybody wants to have that business that is already vetted and, like you said, heavily, yes, heavily tested and somewhat proven before investing. More and more into it. And you mentioned Twitter. Is Twitter worth it? I mean, is it really valuable? Did it open doors for you? I mean, okay, this podcast is caused by Twitter. But other than this exception, did it change your life? Or is it a time thing that gives the illusion of productivity compared to doing something else and creates the illusion of a relationship, but actually, you don't have people that will end up truly transformative in your life and you in their lives? Just because of Twitter? What's your perspective on it? Now, all the hours? Were they worth it? And tell me everything?
Seth Fannin 15:45
Yes, that's, that's interesting story to that, that really, Twitter has changed my life. I would definitely say that. Before 2018, I was, you know, just trying to learn how to code in Visual Studio. You know, I was just on my own. I didn't have a Twitter account. I wasn't really I was curious about startups. And I was teaching myself like, Okay, what is this world of startups? What is marketing? What is product management? Like, what is all this what is, you know, basically just teaching myself and just being interested. So I stumbled upon no code one day online. And when I was trying to learn how to hook up in the Roku, back end or so I definitely, it's open, you know, doors, for sure. You know, when I came upon Twitter, I found the hashtag no code. And it was just, that was the first thing that led me to creating an account. And this was back in early 2018. So it, it was still the space was still small. You know, Ben tassel, AJ from card, you know, like, he definitely had the tarried you know, the early people that were already, you know, building amazing things, you know, so, I saw this as a as an opportunity, I was like, this is this is amazing. So I'm definitely all in, I wanted to learn from others. And that was really the power of what you know, kept me in this community and Twitter and really just helped me a lot. I wanted to say that I've think Twitter now that I've, you know, been on there for a few years with and within the community, seeing how it's grown, I can see how Twitter can be an issue, it can be noisy at times, especially as a Creator and Maker, you know, you can, you can, you know, definitely be distracted, when you're trying to build and or focus on a certain problem, but at the same time, you have your, you have close circles and friendships that you've developed over time. And I've definitely met some great people that I speak to weekly, now through Twitter. And I definitely think it's opened my network, and I'm so like, happy that I like, you know, took that chance, or just that, you know, insight to, you know, joining and leaning into, you know, having friends that are online or acquaintances that I can reach out to for feedback. Because that's, you know, as a maker, we struggle with all this and we're all learning together. So that's what makes it really powerful to me. And the podcasts, you know, I Ash has been great and given me the opportunity to help him and us and learn from others. And just, that's because that's actually one of my passions is podcasting. I love audio as a medium. And I think it's amazing medium if you're for the right person, of course. But uh, I've definitely leaned into that, and I'm learning a lot. And it's just the unexpected can happen on there if you let it happen. But you definitely got to mitigate. You know, your daily, you know, time with Twitter, I guess if you're gonna be building because it can conflict with each other.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 19:15
Thank you. And I love your approach to learning that you're looking for that lifestyle business. Well, do you know, I know that the niche and all that will need to be vetted. But do you know how much or what kind of lifestyle business or what would you do once you have that for your family? Is it to take your kids and your wife and everybody you love traveling around? Is it more to have time so that you spend with your family? Is it the freedom from not having a boss that is telling you what to do or you can live truly 100% Doing what you believe in? What's the thing that a lifestyle business will give you In your life,
Seth Fannin 20:01
family, for sure, definitely time to spend with my family. And I'm all for work, I come from a middle I was in the military. For five years active duty military, I've been out for 10 years now. So I'm definitely not afraid to work, you know, and I do believe in actually having a, you know, something to work on, you know, as far as you know, keeping my mind going. So whatever kind of business that would be, I definitely wouldn't mind to, you know, approach that, and just learn from it, because I've never been through it yet. So I want to definitely have the financial freedom, and, you know, serve a customer and learn from that. But I think at the same time, it depends on the scale of the problem you're solving, you know, if I can build something that can be acquired, you know, for my first go around, maybe a small micro SAS or something like that, then that would be my goal, just so I can get my foot in the door and create a little bit of financial leverage, as far as being able to take you know, more time later to work on those, you know, bigger problems and hiring a team. Because right now my wife, you know, you know, going out and getting any kind of venture capital or, you know, just doing that it's just not on the table for me right now. So that's just, uh, you know, maybe later I'll try, you know, 15 years from now, who knows? But right now, that's a Yeah, as my goal is to create, you know, small, small problems with a nice, you know, steady revenue, solving a problem for a customer learning from it. And then I guess once I'm at that point, once I do make it to that point, I can say more on that, because I don't really know how it is, I might like it. And I might want to just keep running, running it. Or I'm I want to sell it through Michael acquire. So that's how I think about those things.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 21:54
Thank you. And things podcasting is one of your passions. And there are a lot of upcoming podcasts within the community. A lot of people who want to share their voices, what lessons have you learned through podcasting that can help a new podcaster or you share with yourself at the beginning to save yourself a lot of hassle and trouble? What can you share with us that will be lessons that will make podcasting more effective, more enjoyable, easier, and benefiting more people?
Seth Fannin 22:32
Well, I'm definitely still learning. As you can tell, I've definitely had some filler words, as today, even. I've done a few episodes now with Ayesha and I recently did a story about the air table, and the founder. So I'm definitely still learning this is a new thing for me. It's much harder than it looks, I would say. But there are guides and there's some good content out there on how to learn it, and how to practice you know, the public speaking as well. And even though I've, I'm used to public speaking, public speaking on a podcast is very different from speaking in person at a corporate job to a roomful of people. And I thought it was going to be easy, but it's definitely not easy. So I would say that the things that I've been learning so far, that are helping me and I'm still practicing daily, this podcast is practice right now for me, I would say is ask open ended questions, circle back, when somebody says something, and for me, I'm actually a fast talker, you know, by nature. So I always have the struggle, and I probably always will have having to slow down and try to relate to what's being said to me, and then, you know, come back out with my output. So those are my learnings so far. This is currently in the process in progress. So I hope that gives a little bit of overview of helm already about it.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 24:17
Thank you. It's really, really wonderful. And you've been involved with the no code community for a while now. Where do you see it going? What do you feel are the next trends? How will it evolve? What can we look forward to in the future? Based on your own intuition, understanding and observing how things have evolved so far?
Seth Fannin 24:45
That is a very good question. And obviously, these are predictions. These are broad predictions, but there's going to be a couple of things that I think happen. The tools that you know, we're seeing now, you know, bubble Webflow we're seeing more tools now, you know, every day, every month, it seems it's really great. And the actual limitations of these tools are being reduced. Now, through the developers, and the no code creators are now coming to the point to where they're working together. I think, and I'm seeing this a lot. And that is entering the workplace now, from my observations, and I can see that, you know, a lot of enterprise companies, whether they're not in tech or not, are taking the old traditional path of rpa, and business process automation, those jobs, and trying to understand what low code and no code the phrase and terminology mean, because, you know, it's just sometimes it's marketing, but they're actually trying to learn how to okay, how can we improve our, our processes and automations? You know, with these tools, so you're definitely seeing now a push into the enterprise. And I think that that is a big opportunity, and it's still, it's still very, in its infancy stages, I think with enterprise, we see that no code as definitely taking the b2c market a little bit more easily because of its accessibility, you know, being able to just jump in and start creating things. First, you know, there's less limitations, maybe for a b2c app when it comes to security compliance. So I think some of the challenges that are going to be some of these bigger, no code platforms are going to have to figure out our, you know, adopted, having requirements for enterprise customers to adopt them. And not just tech companies, like compliance, security, data compliance, you know, HIPAA, you know, all these constraints that, you know, they might not encounter in, you know, a b2c market, there are a lot of, you know, walls and different things that apply in some of these older, broader markets that are still being not being touched. There's large companies out there that are, you know, legacy, you know, living on server stack, still, that are out there, but are large, but are willing there, they are willing to move to no code, but I still think they're trying to find platforms that are accessible with compliance and some of their standards, I've definitely learned what I've learned, working in the public sector for the last 10 years is that, you know, some of these customers are not necessarily easy customers to have. So they, you know, there are trade offs, and I think it's, you know, it's going to be a learning journey. But as far as no code, you know, being able to be introduced into the it, it stack of a, you know, large company, is really going to definitely help things, but I think it's culture as well. Culture is probably the most factor that is probably going to challenge that. So culture, you know, just like any kind of technology adoption, or any large technology, inflection point, we see, there's always going to be, you know, challenges with culture. And, you know, there's gonna be adaption laggards, there's going to be you know, eventually I think it will come around. So, it's very interesting, because, you know, you just see one side of makers creating for this market and moving fast. Whereas in, you see this other side, that's, you know, having some constraints still and you still you do see growth, and we are seeing b2b, you know, enterprise tools being developed now, but it's still, you know, not as much as the b2c side I would say, as being as far as the accessibility to customers and especially with an organization so
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 29:17
well, maybe that's exactly the problem you can create your lifestyle business on fixing and maybe grow it and get funding for it and with the fees and all the stuff since you're observing looks at this is a very interesting conversation and there is so many questions where we can go speaking about but to respect the listeners time, that could be like a part two and part three and part four of this. So if people want to communicate with you, they want to ask you questions or get info on what you're working on your latest developments. What What are the best links for them to do so? And I'll make sure to write your Twitter in the description.
Seth Fannin 30:07
Yeah, let's say Twitter would be the best way to if you want to reach out to me, if you are new to the code space, or just in general trying to validate an idea, maybe he wants some feedback or something. Yeah, reach out to me through DM on Twitter, I'm usually pretty open. And I get back to people as fast as I can. I'm all for meeting people, and learning from others. So you can reach out to me on Twitter. And if you'd like you can go to Monaco. Story podcasts and leave us a review. And hopefully don't make fun of my, my podcasts recordings on there. But I think no code wealth podcast is podcasts, and the other Noca podcast. We're all definitely in this together. But we're also just learning from one another. So I think it's a great opportunity. And I appreciate it. Thank you.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 31:08
You're welcome. It was my privilege and enriching conversation. I love our community. I love to hear people's perspectives, and it's always fascinating. Thank you so very much and I wish you a great day.
Seth Fannin 31:26
Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you too.
