What Non-Technical Founders Need to Know Before Building With AI

[00:00:04] Do you really need to know how to code to build a successful technology business? This is a question that stops countless of entrepreneurs before they have even begun. But today's guest not only believes, but is also going to show you why the opposite has never been more true. Her name's Sophia Matveva and she's going to join me again to explain why this is one of the best times in history to be a non-technical founder.

[00:00:31] And we'll explore together how AI can dramatically accelerate your journey and understand why understanding technology matters far more than just writing code. This is one of my favourite episodes of the year because there are so many actionable takeaways. So if you are sat there with an idea in your head, but you don't consider yourself technical enough to bring that idea to life, we're going to walk you through a very real solution today.

[00:00:57] And I hope there's going to be a few light bulb moments going off and maybe, just maybe, one of you out there listening anywhere in the world is going to bring an idea to life. And if that happens, please report back. I want to hear from you. But right now, we're at the beginning of your journey. And let me introduce you to Sophia right now. So a massive warm welcome back to the show.

[00:01:23] So for anyone that missed our previous conversation, can you tell them a little about who you are and what you do? Hello, everybody. I'm Sophia Matveva and I run a company called Tech for Non-Techies. So if you are a non-technical professional, so you're not a developer, you're not a computer scientist, you're not a programmer and you don't want to be one, then Tech for Non-Techies is for you. We essentially help people who don't have backgrounds in programming and coding succeed in the digital age and the age of AI.

[00:01:51] So if you want to build a tech venture or if you want to launch an AI initiative at a corporate, then the Tech for Non-Techies show is the thing for you to listen and also come to us for our consulting and education programs. It is such important work that you're doing here. I'm looking forward to finding out more about what you're doing now. But before we do, it's what, five years almost to the day since we last spoke. So what have you been up to? What's been keeping you busy since then?

[00:02:20] Well, as I was just saying, one of my favourite things was that last year I spent a large portion of the year in Bahrain, which is near Dubai, so it's in the Persian Gulf. Bahrain is a beautiful little island, which actually is where Cartier gets most of its pearls to this day. Wow. So it's a beautiful little island with gorgeous pearls.

[00:02:43] And the government of Bahrain reached out to me because they had heard about the programs I had been running for non-technical founders. And they said, can you come and do this here? So essentially, I ended up creating an accelerator for them that about 100 people went through. So it was people who have ideas for tech ventures, but they are not technical founders. So you have an idea for an app, but you don't know how to build it. You don't know where you can use AI, where you have to work with developers. You don't even know what developers do.

[00:03:11] You know, you kind of heard that Python and C++ maybe are a thing, but you have no idea what it is. But you see a gap in the market. That is essentially the problem that we've been solving for ages. And it was just such a wonderful experience, you know, to be plucked out. Now, so I was saying, like, I was there in November when in London the weather is, you know, November is pretty horrific. I was swimming in the turquoise sea. It was 27 degrees.

[00:03:39] And I was there because of my work for non-technical founders, which is now, you know, really being recognized in Europe, in obviously in the UK, in Europe, in the Gulf and in the US. So that's so we're still really focused on non-technical founders. But what we have really noticed is that, so, for example, with the Tech for Non-Techies podcast, there were a lot of people who started listening who are not founders. And I was getting kind of contacts from them.

[00:04:08] Like, I know that one of the listeners to the Tech for Non-Techies podcast is a lawyer in a massive law firm. You know, they get paid like, you know, a grand an hour. The partners do anyway. And I was quite curious. I said, well, what are you doing? And he said, well, you know, we work with tech clients, but we're lawyers. So we, you know, we kind of need to understand how tech clients think and how they operate. And so we'll listen to your show.

[00:04:36] And apparently lots of his people will listen to the show. So I said, well, sounds like what you need is a training from us on how tech companies operate. And so me and my colleague and my colleague Rags O'Darley, he actually launched Instagram filters to 600 million people. So if you have used filters to make yourself look hot on Instagram, it was my colleague.

[00:04:57] So him and I created this training for a law firm, White and Case, one of the major law firms that actually have Meta as one of their clients on how, essentially how tech companies and how venture capitalists think. And this made me realize more and more that the knowledge of how tech products are made and what happens on a tech team, you know, what developers do, what all of these terms mean, and also how a product like an app or a platform comes to life and becomes a successful business.

[00:05:27] This is useful not only to people who are going to create these companies. I mean, it's obvious it's useful to them. It's also useful to people who work with these companies, like the lawyers, the accountant, the bankers. Because, you know, if you don't understand what your client is talking about, your client is going to go to somebody who does. Yes. But also I've noticed that a lot of people in corporates are listening to us because every single corporate is going through AI transformation right now.

[00:05:55] And I think we're now in an era where AI hype is now kind of a bit of a disappointment. And now, you know, the CFO is saying, OK, we signed this contract with OpenAI or with whoever, like, give me the cost savings. Like, we seem to be just saying we seem to be doing token maxing. Like, for what reason? Where's the ROI?

[00:06:20] And I think the quest now non-technical professionals, especially people who are looking at the budget, they're really asking this question. And my aim is to help them ask questions confidently because I think, and I mean, we've all felt this, you know, some Silicon Valley guy comes and gives some sort of talk about how, you know, his thing is going to change the world. And we all get very excited, even though we don't really understand what he's saying. It's all kind of like, it's all very big.

[00:06:50] It's very hopeful. It's very exciting. And I think, you know, for if you want to be a successful business person, you also need to be discerning. Like, yes, take the excitement, but then also ask, well, what is it? How is it going to work? How much is it going to cost? When are we going to see the results? How can we make it work for us?

[00:07:11] Because, for example, you know, I saw that Airbnb started working with first OpenAI, but then they noticed that their AI costs were astronomical. So they switched. They switched to Alibaba, a Chinese, well, basically the model that is made by Alibaba. So they switched to a Chinese model. And I thought, well, this is really interesting because, yes, it was a technical decision, but I'm absolutely sure that the CFO was involved.

[00:07:40] I'm absolutely sure that the CFO said, I don't care if we're an American company. I don't care about the ARs between America and China. I care about our shareholders. And we can't go to our shareholders with these costs when there is literally a free Chinese model that we could use. And I think the more people understand how to kind of fight back against AI hype and be discerning, essentially the better decisions that they'll make. Yeah, completely agree with you.

[00:08:09] And if we go back again, I mean, it feels like you were somewhat ahead of your time helping non-technical founders, what, five years ago when we spoke? Because back then, we were at the back end of a global pandemic. We're blissfully unaware about open AI, chat GPT and all things AI that was about to consume everything, every aspect of our life. And, of course, fast forward to present day, AI has now dramatically lowered the barriers to building software.

[00:08:39] But you've said this is the best time to be a non-technical founder for reasons that go way beyond just AI coding tools. So tell me more about that. Why do you think that and why are you so excited about that? It feels incredible, so many opportunities. But you were well ahead of the curve here, weren't you? Well, you know, it's great because now I get to say I'm a visionary and I have the proof, which, frankly, I really didn't expect.

[00:09:09] So, actually, even before the chat GPT generative AI stuff happened, I saw a change in how investors were treating non-technical founders. And I actually have the data to prove it. So, there is a venture capital firm called Cowboy Ventures in Silicon Valley. And the founder of that VC firm coined the term unicorn. So, unicorn is a company that is valued at over a billion dollars.

[00:09:36] And they looked at how many unicorns there were in 2013, who was running these unicorns and what these unicorns were. And so, there were unicorns like, you know, Uber and Pinterest, like the big consumer apps. And they were mostly ran by technical founders. Basically, it was the tech bro era, you know, like the Travis Kalanick era. And then they did the same research in 2023, at the end of 2023.

[00:10:05] And they saw that there were 10 times more unicorns, you know, interesting. They saw also that the number of non-technical founders in poor founders or co-founders of unicorns had jumped from, I think, 10% to 40%. So, there's a huge, huge increase. And so, that means that investors, you know, it's an increase of four times. Like, the number of non-technical founders running unicorns increased four times.

[00:10:35] This is something really, really interesting. And so, I was thinking, well, why is that? Because obviously, that means that investors are now giving founders literally billions of dollars, giving non-technical founders billions of dollars to build tech companies. And I started looking at what are these tech companies. And a lot of the non-technical founder-founded companies, they're actually enterprise sales. So, they're not consumer apps. They're companies that essentially sell to other businesses.

[00:11:05] And then I was thinking, well, what does it take to sell to another business? You can't be a tech bro with no social skills. Because selling to businesses is all about relationships. It's about having a good relationship with, you know, who it is, like the CIO. It is about really understanding that business's problem. It is really about understanding the business's vision and knowing how to build relationships, not with just one person. But, you know, if it's an enterprise sale, knowing how to build relationships with a whole bunch of people.

[00:11:34] And also keep on delivering the product. And this is what business people, this is what business founders are really, really good at. Because, you know, if you are working in sales, if you're working in law, if you're working in HR, whatever you are doing, you fundamentally have to have good relationships with your colleagues. You know, if you're a developer, you, especially if you're like a back-end developer, you can basically sit by yourself, write code and not really interact with other people.

[00:12:01] Maybe you interact with a couple of other developers, but like you can really be cut off. If you're a business person, you can't be. And so this skill set, this exactly this skill set is what is allowing non-technical founders to see opportunity and to pursue it. And this was before generative AI tools. So now with generative AI tools, they can actually build a lot of that idea themselves.

[00:12:29] I'm not one of these people who thinks that you can build the entire thing yourself. I actually do not believe that is true. But you can get much, much further than you were able to before. So we're recording this in July 2026. And the barriers have officially been lowered. So for someone listening anywhere in the world, they have a great business idea, but they don't have any technical background. And they've been getting in their own way and saying, well, I can't bring this to life, which isn't true.

[00:12:58] So where should they be using AI to accelerate their journey, bring their idea to life? And where should they maybe resist the temptation to over-rely on it too? Because that is equally bad. So what should they be doing for that person listening today? So I'll quickly summarize right now, but we have lots of really extensive lessons on this on the Tech for Non-Techies podcast. So if that's you, definitely have a listen. So generally, if you have an idea, the first thing you need to do is to test it.

[00:13:27] So even if you think, yes, I know it's going to be amazing. I'm sure it is. It's going to be great. However, you still need to test it to understand exactly where you need to start. Because, you know, ideas are usually very big and you need to start with a small step, right? So what you need to do is first, you need to create a test product using AI. Now, what I mean is the whole point of a test product is that you create something very simple just to test the basic concept using something like Lovable.

[00:13:56] You know, Lovable is a tool that we like using, but there are, you know, there's Replayed. There are lots of other similar tools. So you can literally write into the chatbot what it is that you want. What it is that you want to build. I would recommend learning a little bit more about how to do it, which is why, you know, don't just jump in. Listen to our show first if that's what you're going to do to really understand how to do it. But essentially, you can create a product on Lovable literally within a morning. Within a couple of hours, you can create something decent.

[00:14:26] Then you go and you test it amongst your target market. When your target market says, this is great, I love it, I would use it and I would pay for it. Or they say I would pay, they say I love it. And then you find businesses who would pay for it. Basically, once you've got some idea of what the usage is going to be like and who's going to pay for it, then you need to work with developers.

[00:14:51] So when you are going from the testing and idea phase into production and scaling, you need to work with developers. And this is what a lot of non-technical founders are missing. Because things like Lovable, like if you're not technical, you can create something that looks and feels real. And it's really, really exciting. Like it's really cool. If you've never done anything before, you can create something and like it looks like it stores data.

[00:15:21] It looks like it does all of the stuff. The problem is if you're not technical, what you're seeing is the top of the iceberg. You know how like the bottom of the iceberg, like that's the dangerous bit, like that's the Titanic. That's literally going to happen to your product. So there was a study done of 5,000 apps built by no-code tools like Lovable. And each one of those 5,000 apps had major security issues.

[00:15:48] Because that bottom of the iceberg was usually not looked at by developers. So that means that, you know, your customer puts in their customer data. Maybe they put in their credit card. Maybe they put in some sensitive information like their address. Maybe some information about their children. Often that ends up online, on the internet. But if you do, and this is the kind of stuff that non-technical founders don't know how to fix.

[00:16:18] Because if you don't know what the problem is, you don't know how to fix it. Like you're just completely blind. That's why I really, really sternly recommend that if you've done the testing bit and that's gone well, and you want to create something that you are going to charge for, something that's going to be a real company, you need to have developers looking at it.

[00:16:41] But the good thing about the age of AI is that you can have a developer create something ready for production much earlier than before. That developer themselves can use AI. So a developer can use clawed code to either write code or check code. So they can definitely use AI tools themselves. But the reason why I really don't recommend that non-technical founders use clawed code is that you don't know what good code looks like.

[00:17:10] So it's like editing, right? Like I use AI to edit some of the content and some of the emails that I write. But I know what I want to say. I know what a good podcast copy looks like. Like I know what good looks like. I know what I want to say. So it can give me something that's like 80% finished and then I will do the rest. If you can't do that with code, you shouldn't be using clawed code. So this is the thing about the age of AI.

[00:17:39] You still need developers, but you need them at a later stage than before. And also they can create a product much more quickly than before and for much less money. So instead of maybe having a full-time developer only working just on your thing, you could have a part-time developer who still creates something for you. And they're also working for a bunch of other companies. So basically it's good for the developer because they're making more money. And it's good for you because you're paying less. Wow. So much gold in your advice there.

[00:18:07] And I can almost sense developers all around the world stood up applauding saying at last somebody gets it. So kudos there. I completely agree with you. And even better news, as you said a few moments ago, investors are becoming more and more willing to back non-technical founders. So it's win-win for everybody right now. But what's driving that shift and what qualities are those investors looking for today so that person with the idea can start appearing on radars too?

[00:18:35] Well, you know, investors in theory should want to get a return on their investment. The reason why I say in theory is because we've recently just had the SpaceX IPO. And I think that is, you know, a lot of the claims they're making are at best questionable. And yet people are still piling in and buying their shares because Elon, right?

[00:18:58] So, but basically, unless you are Elon Musk, you know, because normal rules don't apply to him. Unless you're Elon Musk, investors are going to literally say, okay, if I invest, I don't know, $100 in your thing, when am I going to get $1,000 back? Basically, like investors in early stage companies essentially are looking for a 10 times return.

[00:19:22] So that means that you need to not only be able to create a great product, which now is not that difficult. You actually need to have a credible path to not only monetization, but actually to profitability. And it doesn't mean that you need to be profitable straight away. Like, you know, there are companies that literally list on the stock exchange that are not profitable. So you can put off profitability for a decade. That's going to be fine. But it needs to be visible.

[00:19:48] Like, there needs to be some sort of plan about what that's going to look like. And the era of let's just build this thing and then people will come and we'll figure it out. That frankly applies to the big AI companies. So OpenAI is kind of doing that. Anthropic is kind of doing that. But unless you're one of these very few companies, you need to have a clearer path to money.

[00:20:17] And this is where non-technical founders really shine. Because if you're not technical, what else are you doing? Right? Like, you're not building the product. What's your contribution? And the contribution as a non-technical person is fundamentally money. Right? So the tech people, the developers are going to be building the product. The non-technical person is bringing in the money. That could mean they bring in money from investors. They're bringing in money from customers.

[00:20:47] So this is where relationships, where marketing new, where having your own personal brand really, really matter. So this is why actually, you know, in some of our programs we have, for example, we have a personal branding program for people who want to be seen as tech leaders. Because what we have seen is that, you know, I'm actually thinking of one non-technical founder. There was a non-technical founder who is a fund manager.

[00:21:16] So he has a successful fund management business in South Africa. He then wanted to launch an app for his fund management business. So he's got people already kind of trading with him. He wanted to create a trading app. So he took a non-technical founder's course. So he created the app. People were using it. Things were looking good. Then he thought, okay, well, this is really good. Now I want to scale it across Africa. Because, you know, there's Nutmeg, there's Wealthfront.

[00:21:43] They're not tailored for the African market. So he decided, okay, well, I want to go and scale that. In order to scale, he needed more money. So one of the best things that you can do if you want to raise funding is to, as you said, actually get on the radars of investors. But don't just get on the radar basically being saying, like saying, hey, I exist. Because that's boring. You need to have some sort of message.

[00:22:10] You need, and especially if you're not technical, you need to answer the question of, well, you know, if you're not technical, you're essentially a more risky investment. So what are you doing to make sure that I get my money back? What are you doing to make sure that this is going to be a success? Since you can't build the product, what are you doing about the commerce? So my advice to non-technical founders is focus on the money and show investors that you're focused on the money.

[00:22:37] Because fundamentally, again, unless you're Elon Musk, that's what investors are looking for. Well, again, fantastic advice. And for that person that is listening, they've gone from idea to building a prototype, testing, and then working with developers. One of the things that I caught on your podcast there was focusing on managing developers and non-technical founder. Another huge topic. So I urge people to listen to go check that out.

[00:23:03] But what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see leaders making when they very first start working with technical teams, maybe feel a little bit out of their depth and trying to compensate in some way? But any mistakes you see them making when they're working with those technical teams? Well, I can tell you about my mistakes because I feel very comfortable talking about them on air, even though they were really, really embarrassing. I remember when I ran my first tech company straight out of business school, I previously worked in private equity, so I knew how to raise money.

[00:23:32] I went to a very prestigious U.S. business school, so I kind of had the contacts and the gravitas to do that. So I raised money, hired developers. Then I realized I had no idea what these people were talking about and what I was supposed to do with them. But I thought, well, I'm the boss, so I need to go and give them direction. I have no idea what they do. How am I going to do that? And so I took this online course from Stanford on computer science 101,

[00:24:00] which I literally spent three hours coding a little blue square into a little black square. Now, needless to say, this did not turn me into a great developer. And because I was feeling very insecure, I didn't really know what I was doing at all, I would attempt to kind of get involved with the developers and kind of attempt to micromanage, but I didn't know what they were doing. So I would just be like, well, why isn't this thing working?

[00:24:29] Why isn't like, why aren't you doing this? What are you like, what is this? What is that? Just basically coming in and annoying everybody by asking them questions that they would take ages to answer. I still didn't understand the answers. It was all a complete disaster. And this, you know, I'm actually really surprised that nobody left because I probably would have done. So this is actually very typical behavior because you're paying a lot for these people.

[00:24:57] You can't see what they're doing, especially in the early stages. You know, when they're building that bot on the iceberg, you can't see it. You know, if they are like working on security protocols for your app, that's something you can't see. But if they don't get it right, you could literally be sued for losing your customers' data. So is this invisible, expensive, difficult thing which you can't see?

[00:25:23] So my advice to people is, first of all, don't go in and interrupt developers every single day. Because in the business world, you know, I could be working, I'm talking to you, then I'm going to have an hour of kind of a deep work, working on some strategy, then I have a client call. And so our day is kind of more varied. With developers, they essentially do deep work most of the time. So this is why I always recommend it to people.

[00:25:52] Start with a Monday morning meeting where you discuss what it is they're going to build. And you don't direct. You tell them, these are the features that our customers have wanted. And these are the features that they say are the most important. And so this is why I think these are the features that we need to have built. Ask them, what do you think? How long would this take? Which are which, you know, other features that are low hanging fruit?

[00:26:19] You know, because maybe there's a feature that people really want that we can easily monetize. That is actually super simple to build. Maybe there's a feature that actually people want, but it's going to take six months to build. So have that trade-off conversation with the developers when they look at your list and they say, yeah, we can do this. We should do this. But like, it's going to take longer. And also ask them, what's going on with the product? Is there stuff that you need to do?

[00:26:46] Is there stuff that you need to clean up that you need time for? Because there's something called technical debt. And it's essentially, imagine like when you're cooking, you know, when we cook, we always make a mess. Even if you're making toast, there's going to be crumbs, right? So imagine if you never cleaned your kitchen. Imagine if you were a teenage boy and you've never cleaned your kitchen, right? It's going to get pretty nasty, right? Your mom comes around and she's like, what the hell?

[00:27:13] So this is what technical debt is. Technical debt is basically kind of the mess left over when people are writing code. So just like you need to clean up your kitchen after cooking, developers need some time to clean up technical debt. If you're not technical, you don't necessarily need to exactly understand what it is, but you just need to ask them, do you need some buffer time to clean up after, you know, if you've just released a bunch of features very quickly, do you need some time to tidy up?

[00:27:43] So have that conversation with them. Either they say, you know what, actually the kitchen's clean. Like give us your hardest tasks. We can go for it. Ask them, how long do you think that's going to take? And why is it going to take that long? And this is a question that you can really like, that's not a technical question. If they said to you, it's going to take us one month to do. We're going to have to work on it both full time. It is because we need to make some changes to the back end.

[00:28:11] And are you happy that we're only going to work on this thing for the next month, which means that you cannot give us any other requests. And basically, when you have that conversation, you come to a decision about what you're going to do together. So if you say, you know what, I can't have you working on only one thing for a month because there's a bunch of other stuff that I think is going to come in when we have onboarding without like with a new client.

[00:28:37] So have that conversation on Monday morning where you're talking to them from a business perspective and you're asking them how long things will take and what the trade-offs are. Agree on what is going to be delivered over the next two weeks. And then, and this is really, really difficult, leave them alone. Like that's it. Leave them alone. Obviously, like, you know, ask on Friday, like, are you on track? Do you need anything from me?

[00:29:06] They'll probably say no. But don't be that, you know, like the kid at the back of the car who's like, oh, we're there yet? We're there yet? It's so annoying. You just keep on constantly being like, are you on track? Is everything okay? You're actually going to disturb them and you're not going to be on track and that's going to be your fault. Absolutely love it. And one final thing I'd love to bring up here as well. I think technology fluency has become increasingly valuable, an increasingly valuable leadership skill.

[00:29:36] So what practical steps could a business leader listening take to become more confident when discussing technology without trying to fake it or trying to become a software engineer themselves? Just appear more confident when having these conversations. Any tips there? So we actually cover this on the show a lot as well, because what I say is that if you try to become technical and it's really not your talent, you're going to hate it. Like, I think I'm much more of a right-brained person than a left-brained person.

[00:30:05] So when I've taken, when I forced myself to take coding courses, I really didn't enjoy it. It wasn't a good use of my time. But a good way to achieve this kind of tech leadership is, A, when you are working on something. So if you can get involved with an actual initiative, do that. And it doesn't mean that you need to lead it. Like, can you go and sit in on some meetings? Can you offer some insight?

[00:30:31] Like, basically, can you go and bring customer insight about how customers are using an app or a platform that your company has created? Can you get some feedback and bring it to the product team? Because that means you are bringing something that you understand that is useful. And also, if they see you as useful, they'll basically, you know, allow you to sit in on their meetings. So if you can, get involved even in a kind of light, passive way in building something.

[00:30:58] Because it's a bit like, you know, I could give you all of these tools and I can give you all of this language. And that's kind of like learning in a classroom. But you need to go to the country to practice the language. It's the same thing, right? So get involved in initiative. Another thing is make friends with a tech person. So is there a tech person that you could take to lunch? You know, be friendly with the developer and literally ask them what they're working on and why they're working on it.

[00:31:28] And you could even be honest about it. You know, if there's a developer in your work, you could say, you know what? I really want to understand more about what you guys are doing. And if you want, I can tell you about what we're doing. And first of all, developers rarely get asked by business people about what they're doing. And so if you ask, they're absolutely like most people are going to love it because like most people just try to run away. Like when a developer starts talking about what they're doing, most people are just like, oh, my God, please stop.

[00:31:58] So if you actively reach out with curiosity and interest, they're going to be very flattered. A lot, not every developer, but there are developers who want to become CTOs, right? So there are developers who just want to be individual contributors and they love writing code and that's what they want to do. You know, those developers are probably going to be less helpful to you as friends. And there are developers who want to get into the top management.

[00:32:25] Those people actually want to understand the business side because when you're a CTO, you're a chief technology officer, you're working with a CEO, you're working with a CFO, you're working with a CFO, you're working with a CFO, you're working with a CFO. You know, you're working with all of these people who are on the business side. So it is in your interest to understand what they do and it is in your interest to basically help them see what you do so you can get more budget.

[00:32:52] Basically, the CTO who knows how to explain what they're doing and why it matters is the CTO who gets more budget allocated to like get the best tools and hire the best people. So it's very, they're a developer, like if there's a developer who's ambitious, they want to know the business side. So basically when you're inviting them out to lunch, you could say, I want to know about what you're doing.

[00:33:17] And if you want, I can tell you about what we're doing on the business side because it might help you understand the context of what you're building. If you find that person, you can essentially have this mutually beneficial relationship where you're both teaching each other. And, you know, maybe you'll get to the point where they are the SVP of technology, you're the SVP of marketing. And like that's this beautiful symbiosis. And then you reach the C-suite together.

[00:33:45] So, you know, you don't need to make them your best friend and see them every day. But if you have a monthly check in, this is going to be, you know, you might make a friend, but also it's going to be a really, really useful and like very easy, fundamentally really easy thing to do. And obviously if you want to go deeper, then take one of our programs because literally this is what we teach. Or get us into your company and we'll create a custom program for you. So you almost answered my question there.

[00:34:12] I was going to say for that person listening who had convinced themselves that they cannot bring their tech business idea to life because they believe they weren't technical enough. I think today we've shattered that myth. We've removed every excuse they've been using. So let's give them an actionable takeaway. What's that first step you would encourage them to take this week? Having listened to this podcast to move an idea closer to reality and where they can find you and continue this journey. But what would you say to that person listening?

[00:34:43] Actually, there is a perfect free class that we have on our website. So just go to techfornontechies.co and you will see it pop up in front of you or it's just called free AI class. You'll see it there. And it's 27 minutes long. So you're not signing up to some long thing. Basically, it is going to teach you how to create your test product on an app like Lovable. My recommendation is don't go straight to Lovable. Don't go straight to ReapIt.

[00:35:10] Take this class because it's a bit like, you know, when you learn how to write good prompts for ChatGPT or Gemini, you basically started getting better answers. It's the same thing with these no-code tools. If you know how to prompt them properly, you're going to create a better product. So it's really going to like, it's a free class and it's 27 minutes long. You have no excuse not to do it. Basically, do that and then go to one of these tools.

[00:35:40] You can even use a free tier and, you know, or splash out $20 for the subscription and then create your product. Like you can go from nothing to having watched the class and having a live product to test literally in two hours. So if you have an idea, I've told you how to start working on it for free in literally less than one morning, less than one afternoon. There we go.

[00:36:09] No excuse for every single person listening there. That knowledge gap between the business and tech economy is ultimately costing people clients, capital and competitive advantage. And I love how you're helping close that. And I think there's a big call to action for everybody listening there. Whether you are a business leader, a tech venture or an organization that needs to think and operate differently in the AI economy, build the tech, the fluency, the innovation, the capability and strategic confidence.

[00:36:39] You're the person to go to. I'm going to include links to everything that you mentioned. And if anything, if you walk away with one takeaway, go take that 20, 23, 27 minute class there and report back. Let me know your thoughts. But as always, big thank you for coming on here and helping everybody listening. Really appreciate your time. Thank you very much, Neil. It has been a pleasure. And let's not leave it for five years next time.

[00:37:02] For me, today's conversation was an inspiring reminder that great technology businesses are not built just by coders alone. They're built by people who understand customers, who recognize opportunities and dare to ask better questions and then bring together the right mix of skills. And Sophia has showed today that AI hasn't removed the need for technical expertise.

[00:37:28] Instead, it has actually changed the when and where the expertise creates the most value. And I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you've been holding back on a business idea because you don't come from a technical background, today's conversation hopefully has changed the way you think about what is possible. And I would absolutely love if this episode today inspires you to go and bring that idea to life. So if you do that, please let me know.

[00:37:56] I will get you on this podcast when you're ready and we will share that story. How's that sound? Well, you can find me at techtalksnetwork.com. Connect me on LinkedIn or socials just at Neil C. Hughes. Let's see what we can all create together. But that's it for today. So off you go. Go bring that idea to life. And I'll be back in your podcast feed tomorrow with another guest. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.