285: From idea to revenue in 7 months: how this non-technical founder did it

Most people assume turning an idea into revenue takes years. Turns out, that belief slows more projects down than tech ever does.

In just seven months, Noor Alderazi, founder of Tamam Technologies, went from idea to a live product with paying customers.

No technical background. No bloated development team. No guesswork.

This episode of Tech for Non-Techies breaks down what actually made the speed possible:

• Using AI to prototype before spending real money.
• Starting with a painfully specific B2B problem.
• Letting customers—not opinions—decide what got built.

Sophia walks through how Noor treated tech as a business tool, not a science experiment, and why that approach helped her secure $65,000 in equity-free funding along the way.

If you’re sitting on an idea and wondering what “doing it right” really looks like, this is the playbook.

In this episode, you will hear:

• AI used for rapid prototyping without locking into the wrong build
• A niche B2B pain point that made early revenue easier, not harder
• The cost of building too soon and how to avoid it
• What helped Tamam Technologies secure $65,000 in equity-free funding

Resources from this Episode

FREE class: From Business Owner to Tech Founder, without the $100,000 developer disaster

Join this class to learn:

• The 2-step framework to go from idea to scalable tech product
• Why smart business owners waste $100k+ on their first tech venture—and how to avoid it
• When AI helps vs. when it destroys products (and your ROI)

Sign up here: https://www.techfornontechies.co/january

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Sophia Matveeva: Noor you went from having literally just an idea to a live product with revenue in just seven months. This is incredible. So if you had to pick one reason for this extremely rapid rise, what would that reason be? 

[00:00:17] Noor Alderazi: Uh, I would say ai, AI helped me first make the prototype itself and then help a lot when it came to deployment and basically getting it up and ready.

[00:00:34] Sophia Matveeva: Hello and welcome to the Techon Techie Podcast. I'm your host, Sophia Matava. If you're a non-technical founder building a tech product or adding AI to your business, you are in the right base. Each week you'll get practical strategies, step-by-step playbooks and real world case studies to you launch and scale a tech business without learning to code.

[00:00:58] And this is not another startup show full of jargon, venture capital, theater or tech bro bravado. Here we focus on building useful products that make money without height and without code. I've written for the Harvard Business Review and lectured at Oxford London Business School and Chicago Booth, so you are in safe hands.

[00:01:18] I've also helped hundreds of founders, both from concept to. Scalable product and now it's your turn. So let's dive in. This episode is sponsored by Tech for Non-Technical Founders. The program that helps non-technical entrepreneurs go from idea to market ready product without wasting $100,000 on avoidable mistakes.

[00:01:40] And if you're a non-technical founder who has already spent thousands of dollars and. Month of time on development only turned up with nothing. Release ready to show for it while you're not alone. And if you haven't hired developers yet and you're wondering where to start, well that's even better because the biggest mistake I see after coaching hundreds of non-technical founders is not hiring the wrong people.

[00:02:04] It's actually hiring before you know what you're doing. And that's exactly why I'm hosting a free life class on January the 13th, 2026. Called from business owner to tech founder without the 100 K developer disaster. I'll walk you through the exact two-step framework that I've taught at Oxford, London Business School and Techstars, so you can finally understand why smart, capable business owners blow $100,000 on their first tech venture.

[00:02:33] We'll cover when AI actually helps versus when it destroys your product. And we'll cover how to think like a tech founder instead of a developer client with a credit card. I'll also give you the behind the scenes preview of the Tech Nontechnical Founders program so you can see what's possible with the right guidance and the right process.

[00:02:52] So. Make sure to sign up to the free class on January the 13th. That's text non techies slash January, and the link is also in the show notes because the next 100 K you spend. It should go toward growth and not towards painful lessons.

[00:03:15] Hello, smart people. If you are listening to this when this episode comes out, then happy New Year. I think 2026 is going to be awesome. What do you think? I love making a big fuss over New Year. I don't like standing in line for taxis, so this is something that I'm avoiding. But New Year's Eve, it's something that definitely should be celebrated, even if you're at home or with your family with a lot of champagne.

[00:03:41] Anyway, let's get back to tech. This episode is one I'm genuinely excited about because it is a real story. Of what's possible when a business owner approaches tech the right way. You'll hear from Noor Alderazi, one of our tech non-technical founders, alumni, and when no joined the program, she didn't have a product.

[00:04:02] She didn't have a tech team, she didn't have any funding, but she had an idea. She did see a gap in the market. So literally seven months later. Noor had a fully working tech product paying customers for that tech product, and she had managed to win $65,000 in equity free funding in startup competitions.

[00:04:26] So what makes the story especially powerful is that this isn't some Silicon Valley fantasy nor didn't start as a technical founder. She started as a brick and mortar retail business owner. Solving a very real, very specific problem that she knew inside out. And so in this conversation we talk about how nor used AI to prototype before spending any real money.

[00:04:51] Why starting with a boring B2B problem turned out to be a massive advantage. How customer feedback shaped the product, not her assumptions and what actually helped her win pitch competitions and get cash. So if you are a traditional business owner thinking, okay, 2026 is the year that I finally turn my idea into a tech product.

[00:05:14] This episode is for you, so let's get into it.

[00:05:22] Noor, you went from having literally just an idea to a live product with revenue in just seven months. This is incredible. So if you had to pick one reason for this extremely rapid rise, what would that reason be? 

[00:05:39] Noor Alderazi: Uh, I would say ai.

[00:05:44] AI helped me first make the prototype itself and then help a lot when it came to deployment and basically getting it up and ready. 

[00:05:54] Sophia Matveeva: That's so interesting. 'cause I remember when you learned how to make a prototype in our class and then you shared your prototype with everybody and, and you were one of the first people in the class to get it done.

[00:06:07] And I think that made other people go like, oh, okay, I should actually do my homework and, and make the prototype. So when. You look at your product now and what customers are paying you for and that first ever AI prototype, how different or how similar are these two products? 

[00:06:25] Noor Alderazi: I would say the idea itself, it's the same or the purpose of the product, it's the same, but the, the features, how it looks like the user experience, everything is so different than the the prototype.

[00:06:40] And why is that? It started with the, what I thought I needed for my businesses, but then because I introduced it to other businesses as well, everyone had their inputs and their thoughts and their feedback, and so we built the actual product around the feedback of the clients basically. 

[00:07:00] Sophia Matveeva: So your story, would it be fair to say that you started basically with your own need thinking, okay, I'm a retailer, I'm getting all of these Instagram orders, it's a mess.

[00:07:11] If I were to create a solution for me, what would that look like? 

[00:07:15] Noor Alderazi: Yes, exactly. So I always tell people that, uh, Tam Mom started as a solution to our own businesses and then mature support other businesses as well. We started with the idea of, uh, handling social media orders, but then we received a lot of interest from businesses that want management when it came to also complaints, managing leads, and then, uh, not only orders, so it, it, it keeps growing.

[00:07:45] The features keep on piling as well. 

[00:07:49] Sophia Matveeva: So that's interesting. So do you think that if you weren't a business owner in the first place, that you wouldn't have been able to come up with this? 

[00:07:58] Noor Alderazi: Yes, I would say it would've been very difficult to come up with this idea. Even now when I explain to people who don't have, uh, retail businesses, they, they struggle to understand the idea.

[00:08:12] But those who have businesses or small businesses, they understand it. Really fast. So our, uh, solution is very, very specific, uh, to a very specific problem. So I would say would be hard to come up with this idea if you are not somebody who, who is facing this problem. 

[00:08:32] Sophia Matveeva: So basically you need real business expertise to understand the problem of that particular niche and then you can find a way to solve it.

[00:08:41] And also you need to have the contact in the first place, like the people that you tested your prototype with, where you know people that you've probably have been kind of working, other retailers that you've known for ages. Is that right? 

[00:08:55] Noor Alderazi: Yes, exactly. And for the research I utilized our own platform, which is our Instagram platform.

[00:09:01] I asked, I know that a lot of, uh, business owners, 

[00:09:04] Sophia Matveeva: so do you think that without knowing the industry and without knowing the peers in the first place, like the people to do your prototype testing with that, essentially you wouldn't have been able to launch such a successful product in a really remarkably short amount of time.

[00:09:20] Noor Alderazi: Yes, I would say, uh, the main reason why we, why our, uh, journey was fast is that because we have already contacted business owners, so I utilize our own Instagram platform. We have over 30,000 followers there, and many of them are business small business owners that face the same problem. So even the survey I did was through Instagram, which is the channel that they received the orders, and so their feedback really helped us in shaping the product to make it not only basically good for our own businesses, but also for theirs as well.

[00:09:56] I remember in class I told you that the idea is speed two B and it's a boring idea, and you told me that it's one of the one of the ideas that make a lot of money because it's B2B and it's a boring idea. Yes, 

[00:10:11] Sophia Matveeva: exactly. Well, it's the, basically, it's the boring ideas that tend to be to be the most successful.

[00:10:16] Partly because you actually have to really have a lot of deep knowledge, deep industry knowledge to, to have this idea in the first place. Whereas if it's a consumer idea, everybody can have a consumer idea, which means everybody goes on to have a consumer idea. So. We have quite a lot of listeners who are traditional business owners who want to become tech founders, and this episode is coming out at the beginning of of January, and so when you are speaking to these people and they're thinking, oh my God, it's 2026, the year I'm actually going to do it, what would be your advice to people who want to have the same journey from business owner to tech founder in 2026?

[00:11:00] Noor Alderazi: My first advice would be to first take this course that you're providing. Great. Yes. And the second advice is to get to know AI better, because before joining this course, I did not really understand the capabilities of ai, what AI can help with. And then the third one, the third advice would be to spend more time understanding the problem that you wanna fix.

[00:11:27] Rather than trying to develop the product. So the, the more time you spend on the problem, the better the product you'll come up with. 

[00:11:36] Sophia Matveeva: And I guess AI prototyping really helps with that because you can basically create something within half a day. 

[00:11:43] Noor Alderazi: Yeah. And 

[00:11:44] Sophia Matveeva: then test it. 

[00:11:45] Noor Alderazi: Yeah. And then once, once you have the prototype, you'll understand that is this product or is this.

[00:11:56] Again, once you get introduced to the AI capabilities, then you would assume that AI can do everything for you. And, uh, which is not the case because with low-code or no-code tools, they have their own limitations as well. So you might think that the idea coming up with is very simple and it's easy to implement, but uh, you start exploring and experimenting with these tools and find out that.

[00:12:24] You first assumed. 

[00:12:27] Sophia Matveeva: Yeah. And also, you know, these tools have very good PR departments that basically tell you that yeah, you can do anything. You know, like with a touch of a button. Like I literally saw an advert recently that says, imagine if you could build an app just by thinking about it. And I'm like, what?

[00:12:41] I don't even have to use my hands. Like this is ridiculous. 

[00:12:46] Noor Alderazi: Yeah, and they can get costly as well. They start with the freight air and then you, you end up. Paying a lot of money just to come up with a prototype that might not work. And then, so 

[00:12:58] Sophia Matveeva: that's interesting. Tell us your journey. So after you had finished your first AI prototype, you tested it with a few people, then.

[00:13:07] What happened next in order for you to basically bring this product out seven months later and 

[00:13:14] Noor Alderazi: charge for it? Yes. So after we developed the prototype, we participated in a program here in Bahrain called LA and, and the pitch we won 50,000. So that was a great boost for our, uh, business, uh, financially, and it gave us a lot of good PR as well.

[00:13:33] And then, uh, participated in a business accelerator program and then followed by a program called Future Makers Women in Tech, funded by Standard Chartered Bank. We also won the third place there and were granted thousand. So in total we were granted 65,000 equity free. So that was very great for our business.

[00:13:56] It helped us also then exhibit in, um, money 2020 in Riyadh. A lot of potential investors and leads and 2026 and February and will be in um, Qatar as well. 

[00:14:14] Sophia Matveeva: And I'm wondering what do you think? Meant that you won these competitions? Because I, I think I have an answer, but I'm curious what you think. 

[00:14:25] Noor Alderazi: I think it gave us the validation we needed, that our product is, uh, not only needed in the market, but also scalable because scalability is a key, uh, element in these programs and competition.

[00:14:41] Sophia Matveeva: 'cause my question is, why did they give you the money as opposed to one of the other people? Like why did they. Let you win. 

[00:14:49] Noor Alderazi: Yeah, I think they saw the potential, uh, and the product being very beneficial for businesses not only in Bahrain and in the region. Our product is highly customizable and, uh, because it, uh, language is a key element to it.

[00:15:06] That's why we have the generative ai, uh, in it because it can understand not only different languages, but also different dialects, which is very important when we're taking the product from the Bahrain market to other markets and regions. 

[00:15:21] Sophia Matveeva: So in your explanation, you were talking about what the product is and that it really solves a problem, that it's scalable.

[00:15:28] And I think you only really get that from proper product testing because what I'm seeing in a lot of startup competitions, you know, because I'm a mentor and a judge and a lot of them, is that people are either still coming with a PowerPoint pitch deck, which I'm like, guys, you can't get away with this now.

[00:15:45] So they're either coming with a slide deck or a very. Basic product, a very basic prototype. They, they haven't even tested because nobody taught them how to do that. And so I wonder if the fact that not only did you have something that Yes looked good, but that had actual feedback from real customers that said, yes, we have this problem.

[00:16:08] Yes, we will pay for it when it's out. That that was basically a far more convincing argument than some dude with a PowerPoint. 

[00:16:17] Noor Alderazi: Yes, exactly. So having the, the prototype ready and then also getting traction was a great factor. 

[00:16:26] Sophia Matveeva: And then what did you do with the money? No, 

[00:16:30] Noor Alderazi: yeah, I mean, the money is still there.

[00:16:31] We did not spend it all, but we basically used it, used some of it for, uh, product development. And then, uh, we are also in the hiring process. So we're expanding the team for us to also expand in the region. 

[00:16:49] Sophia Matveeva: So you're hiring, because I've seen on LinkedIn that you were hiring developers and was that some of your first hires?

[00:16:56] Noor Alderazi: Yes. So the ones we hired before are all part-timers and then, um, remote workers. But now we're looking at, uh, local talents as well. So we're allocating, uh, the budget for the hiring as well. 

[00:17:10] Sophia Matveeva: Yeah, I think, I mean, that's a very kind of normal journey is that at the beginning when your product is very new, it is often better to get somebody part-time remote to just build something decent, and then when.

[00:17:28] You really see people using it, especially when you see people paying for it. Then you're like, okay, now I really know that this is it. Because I find that with tech products we're always testing and unfortunately there isn't such a time when. You do one test and it gives you all of the answers for the next three years.

[00:17:48] It's like it, it gives you answers maybe for the next two months. So you do the prototype testing, it gives you the answer that, okay, hiring somebody to help you build a simple version is a good idea. Yeah. Then you build that thing. And what are results did you see from your first ever version? 

[00:18:07] Noor Alderazi: So now, uh, the, this, I would say the, the hiring was done in phases.

[00:18:13] So like we talked about the first phase, which is the hiring, the remote workers and the part-timers. Now in the second phase, which is hiring, uh, local talents, we're focusing more on the integrations that we, we are planning for and are in our pipeline. So we have integration with a payment company and also integration with the delivery company.

[00:18:38] To add the more features to the product for our, um, clients. 

[00:18:43] Sophia Matveeva: Awesome. And so my last question is that now that you have seen both aspects of the business world, so you've seen traditional business, you know that really well and because, you know, brick and mortar is like. A super, super traditional and you also see the tech world 'cause like building a FinTech app with AI at its core that's really kind of future focused.

[00:19:07] What are the biggest differences and biggest, and also what are the similarities of, you know, you being a CEO? Like what, what was different about working as a retail CEO versus FinTech and what was, what was different and what was similar? 

[00:19:24] Noor Alderazi: Okay. I would say the biggest difference is scalability. So, and, and your regular type of business, a scalability would be very limited when you compare it to a tech product where you can literally go globally within a year.

[00:19:41] That's something that cannot be done easily with the regular type of business. And then the, the similarities. And both type of businesses, you really need to solve a problem. If your product or service is not solving a real problem, then customers will not purchase it to begin with or will not continue, uh, using it.

[00:20:03] So it 

[00:20:03] Sophia Matveeva: seems that, okay, if you have all of these business skills, which is you need to solve a problem, you need to know how to sell, you need to know how to deal with customer complaints, 'cause every single business has that. You might as well build something big and scalable because then that gives you the biggest opportunity.

[00:20:21] Like if you're gonna work hard, you might as well work hard to make a lot of money as opposed to work hard to just 

[00:20:29] Noor Alderazi: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I would say if you already gained the skills and knowledge, you might as well uh, invest your time, money, energy in doing something that is can more rewarding both. In terms, uh, having an impact and financially, of course.

[00:20:47] Sophia Matveeva: Awesome. Well, thank you. That is a wonderful note to, to end on and congratulations on. Thank you. Your suc, your very rapid success. I love watching it. I love seeing your LinkedIn updates. Thank 

[00:20:59] Noor Alderazi: you so much. 

[00:21:00] Sophia Matveeva: Thank you for having me.

[00:21:05] Wasn't that interesting? Noor's story is just a brilliant example of what happens when you do not rush at the beginning, when you don't rush into building and instead spend time deeply understanding the problem testing and using AI as a smart tool rather than a crutch that you don't really understand.

[00:21:24] And if you are listening and thinking. I want these results, but I don't know where to start. Then join my free class on the 13th of January, 2026, and you can sign up when this episode is out. The class is called From Business Owner to Tech Founder Without the $100,000 Developer Disaster. I think that sounds very tempting.

[00:21:45] So sign up at tech fanon techies dot slash january. That's tech fanon techies dot slash january or register via the link in the show notes. And on that note, have a delightful day and I shall be back in your wonderful, smartest ears next week. Ciao.