299. You don’t have to know how to code to start a tech company with Sophia Matveeva

This episode comes from Sophia's recent appearance on Scott Ritzheimer's Start, Scale and Succeed podcast — and it's one of the clearest walkthroughs of the Tech for Non-Techies methodology she has ever given on another show.

If you have a great idea but no technical background, this is where to start.

You'll learn:

• Why coding skills matter less than you think — especially in the age of AI
• How to build a five to seven screen test version of your product without a developer or a designer
• Why you only need five users to uncover 85% of the problems in your product — and how to find the right five
• What to do when your idea doesn't validate — and why that outcome is still a win

Sophia also shares the story of a student who discovered her venture wouldn't work in six weeks for $2,000 — saving herself hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of wasted effort.

And she also shares why entrepreneurship never really gets easier — even after an IPO.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Introduction: Even IPO founders struggle
• 02:26 - Is coding really the first thing to worry about?
• 05:17 - Where to start: Creating a test product with AI
• 08:51 - Defining your target customer through the problem
• 11:21 - Building in the AI age: Five to seven screens
• 14:19 - What happens when users don't like it?
• 17:25 - The biggest secret: Entrepreneurship is always hard
• 20:41 - Closing and resources

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Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Sophia Matveeva: I have a friend who literally IPO'd his company, and you would think, okay, IPO, that's it, he's made it. And we still have the same conversation. He's like, oh my God, this is terrible. Nobody knows how bad it is. I'm only telling you because you're a fellow founder.

[00:00:22] Hello and welcome to the Tech for Non-Techies podcast. I'm your host, Sophia Matveeva. If you're a non-technical founder building a tech product or adding AI to your business, you're in the right place. Each week, you'll get practical strategies, step-by-step playbooks and real-world case studies to help you launch and scale a tech business without learning to code. And this is not another startup show full of jargon, venture capital theater or tech-bro bravado.

[00:00:54] Here, we focus on building useful products that make money without hype 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. I've also helped hundreds of founders go from concept to scalable product. And now it's your turn. So let's dive in.

[00:01:22] Hello, smart people. How are you today? Today's episode is a little different. I was recently a guest on Scott Ritzheimer's podcast called Start, Scale and Succeed. And the conversation was so excellent that I wanted you to hear it too. And if you are newer to this podcast, this interview is actually a really good place to start because Scott asked me to walk through the exact process that I teach non-technical founders from scratch. So there's no assumed knowledge, there's no jargon, just the core framework explained clearly. And if you've been listening for a while, thank you. I love you too.

[00:02:00] This episode is going to be useful because you will hear the fundamentals explained afresh with new examples. You'll hear how to validate your idea before you spend anything. You'll hear how many users you need to know whether you're on the right track or whether you should pivot. And you'll learn why being an anthropologist rather than a salesperson in those early conversations is the difference between real data and expensive lies.

[00:02:26] And you'll also hear the story of a student who found out her venture wouldn't work in six weeks for $2,000 and why she actually saw this as a fantastic win. So now, let's get in.

Scott Ritzheimer: Hello and welcome once again to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a founder. I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and this episode is for every one of you out there listening who has a great idea for a product, an app or some other technology, but honestly has no idea how to turn it into a reality or even more than that, a thriving business. Well, today's guest, Sophia Matveeva, has built an education company trusted by Oxford University, Techstars, the Royal Bank of Canada, as well, specifically to help people like you go from idea to a launched product without having to learn to code. Her work has been featured in Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes. For those of you listening, welcome to the show. Sophia Matveeva, we're excited to have you here.

[00:03:30] Is coding really the first thing to worry about?

First question out of the gate is, so it's how we set it up, but so many founders out there, there's so many opportunities for great ideas and being able to bring them to life. But in some ways it's a lot harder to find the right ideas. So for those who are worried about whether or not they can code, is that really the first thing that they should be worried about or is there something even before that?

[00:03:46] Sophia Matveeva: I actually think it really isn't and especially it wasn't even before the age of AI, but in the age of AI, it's even less important. So the most important thing is, is there an actual opportunity in the thing that you want to create? By which I mean, are there people who have the problem that you want to solve and are they willing to pay to solve the problem? And do they have the money? So are they willing and able to pay to solve the problem? Once you've figured that out, and then you've also figured out is the market big enough? Because you know, if there are only 10 people and they're all willing and able to pay, well, your price better be, you know, really, really impressive. Once you've figured that out, the how, it's actually becoming much, much more easy to solve. But even before the age of AI, frankly, if there was a really good commercial opportunity, you could always convince investors to back you. You could always convince technical people to join you.

[00:04:44] Because frankly, you know, we are living in a capitalist society. So if you see a genuinely, genuinely big opportunity to make a lot of money, you can get people to help you to figure out how to create it.

[00:04:59] Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, yeah. So take us through then, let's kind of look at this from a process standpoint, the very beginning, someone's sitting there, they're in their day job, bored out of their mind, daydreaming about what could be, and they're like, there's just gotta be a better way to do this. I've got an idea. Where do you go from there?

[00:05:17] Where to start: Creating a test product with AI

Sophia Matveeva: So actually this is a fair amount of our students who are corporate high flyers who got to a certain level and now they're thinking, okay, I really don't want to do this for the rest of my life. So then what we say to them is that we can't tell you if your idea is good or not. The only people who can tell you, the only real bosses, that's actually the market. So this is where founders start, aspiring founders start thinking, I need to do research. I need to send out surveys or I need to read the McKinsey quarterly to find out, you know, the market sentiment. That's actually not what you need to do. The thing that you need to do is to create the thing that you want to create and get it out to your target market. So get it out to your target users. So previously, before the age of AI, creating this, if you had no experience with technology, no experience with software would have required at least working with a designer.

[00:06:12] Not working with developers, but at least working with a professional who knows how to create, how to create the design of an app or how to create the design of a platform. And that still costs money. So you would still need to make an investment of maybe like 20 to $40,000 and a couple of weeks of just that professional working. The good news now is that actually that skillset has at some level, not completely, but at some level been replaced by AI. So you can create a very simple test version of your product using AI. This is not the thing that you'll sell. This is literally just a mock-up. With that, you go to your target customers and you have to be really careful that your target customers are not your mom, they're not your friends. They're actual people who would be willing to say, no, this is terrible. I would never use this. So go to your target customers, get feedback from them,

[00:07:08] and really listen to that feedback and don't just hear what you want to hear. And essentially from this process, you can start figuring out are you on the right track? Is this worth pursuing? Because if it's worth pursuing, then it makes sense to invest more of your time and it makes sense to take this AI mockup and turn it into a real thing, which does require hiring professionals. But the only way you get going is by creating something that people can see and feel and interact with. So for anybody listening, if you're going around and saying, I've got this idea and I'm working on a pitch deck. My advice to you is stop the pitch deck. Unless somebody with money has said to you, I want to see a pitch deck and if the pitch deck is good, I'll give you money. Like that's the only, that's the only time the pitch deck is worth your time. If otherwise, make a thing, show it to people and go from there.

[00:08:05] Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. So I think this is wonderful, wonderful, because starting a business isn't about creating a product, it's finding a profitable, sustainable market. It's something we go on and on about all the time. And I love this focus that you have on it because there are so many good things that really are a distraction. There's so many normal things that really don't move you forward, especially if you haven't figured this out in the first place. But the question that I have for you, so someone's got an idea. Here's this problem that I can solve. How do you think about defining who the target customer is? Because it's easy to go to the person who's sitting in the cubicle next to you or to your mom, like you said, or to your friends or to some business guy that you know. How do you go about actually defining that target customer in the first place?

[00:08:51] Defining your target customer through the problem

Sophia Matveeva: So it's all about the problem that you're solving. So is this person the ideal person who has that problem? You know, and this is where you really need to drill down. And frankly, it's also testing because, you know, maybe you're solving a problem for sleep deprived mothers. I am one of those. So if anybody's got that solution, then yes, please tell me. But, you know, a sleep deprived mother entrepreneur is going to be different to say, a stay at home mom. There's going to be a different target market. And even when you choose the target market and you think you're right in your experimentation, in your user interviews, you will start seeing that actually my product appeals to this subsection. And then you niche down further and further and further. And this is what's so great about having a product to show to people and then going to them because you first need a hypothesis and the hypothesis is basically a guess. It's your best guess. So.

[00:09:52] You think that, you know, I'm solving this problem for, I don't know, cat owners who want to go on vacation and don't know what to do with their cats in my city. And so you basically start looking for anybody who has a cat. And then you realize that actually you need people who go on very long vacations. So maybe they're going to be in a certain wealth bracket or they go on very long business trips. So they're going to be people within a certain profession, but you are only going to find this out by speaking to people and by realizing that actually, oh, you know, the people who are going away for three days are not going to need my service. It's only a three week thing. Who goes away for three weeks? This is why at the beginning, yes, you're sitting by yourself basically, and you're taking a guess, but you only take the guess once. You're only allowed guesswork once. After that, you base your decision making on data. You speak to people, you see where you're resonating. You find more people like that. Where you're not resonating, you don't keep on finding more people and basically just hearing more nos.

[00:10:55] Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. So we've got this idea. We've kind of, we've talked to folks that we think are in the target market. We've realized it's a little more subtle than that, a little more specific than that. We're drilling in. They're like they're showing some interest, but they're like, we want to see it. And you talked about this used to be a process with a designer, 20, 30, 40 thousand dollars. It's a big investment before you know if it's going to work. What does that look like now in the AI age?

[00:11:21] Building in the AI age: Five to seven screens

Sophia Matveeva: So in the age of AI, what you need to do, and you actually needed to do exactly the same thing, but with a professional. So the thing that you need to do is to create a very simple version of your product. And I'll talk about an app because we can all imagine what an app is like. So your app version, your app test version needs to be five to seven screens. So literally just showing the core functionality. So let's imagine that you were, let's say, creating Tinder. You would just need to show the swipe, you know, swipe left, swipe right and matching, chat functionality and a profile screen. That's it. You wouldn't need to have login screens, forgot password screens because you know, they don't prove anything. So you just need five to seven screens that show your idea. Previously, a designer would have had to do this. Now there's a whole host of tools that can help you learn how to do that. And if you go on our website, if you go on techfornon-techies.com

[00:12:22] You'll see a free AI class that helps you to create this test version. With this test version, you then go to only five people and you interview five people. You show them the thing and you do your best not to sell. So when you go to five people, your mindset is I'm an anthropologist. I'm not a salesperson. And this is super, super important because as founders, everything in us, basically it's like, this is my creation. And especially if it's your first one, you know, I've now created so many things. I'm kind of used to things not working. So when they do, I'm quite happy. But you know, as you get further in your journey, you release so many different things. You're kind of less wedded to the first one. But for the early stage people, like your first idea, it's literally like, here is my offering to God.

[00:13:22] And you have to do your best to make sure that your target users are not feeling that because people want to be nice and they want to people please. And if you basically, if you're too obvious about how keen you are on your thing, people will say, yeah, yeah, I'll definitely use this. This is great. I'll definitely pay for it. And then what you end up doing is you end up hiring developers and actually paying for people to code your thing, which is, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially. And then you realize that all your users lied to you just because you were essentially too keen. So be an anthropologist, not a salesperson. And last thing, I want to make sure that the audience knows that I mentioned speak to five users. You don't need big data. You don't need hundreds of people. You just need five target users because Google Ventures research shows that the first four users uncover 85% of the problems in your product.

[00:14:19] So they always say, get four people, but get the fifth one because we live in a culture where people bail.

Scott Ritzheimer: Wow, that's really cool. So here's, I think the biggest challenge with this and that is what happens when those folks don't like it. Because I think for you and I, and I might be speaking out of turn here, but just from some of your work and what you focused on, I think this would be true of you as well. So correct me if it's not, but a lot of things just aren't going to work, right? So most ideas fail and some of that can be improved. Like some good ideas fail and we don't want that to happen. And so there's some right and wrong ways to get an idea to market the right idea. But a lot of this is actually finding the cheapest way to get the bad ideas to fail so that we don't waste as much money. When you put that out in front of five people and you're real disciplined to not sell and they highlight some really significant problems like, it's just not something that I would pay for. Let's assume that they were willing to go that far. How do you walk away from that idea?

[00:15:17] What happens when users don't like it?

Sophia Matveeva: Well, you know, I literally just recorded a podcast episode that just came out literally this week because this happened to one of our students. So what happened to her was that she had an idea for an enterprise software product, which solved a genuine problem, but that problem was felt by junior staff that basically weren't paid very well. And so they didn't have any budget responsibility and the senior people basically didn't really care about the junior people suffering. And they didn't, you know, they weren't willing to pay to solve this problem.

[00:15:54] And so she found this out and I remember catching up with her and she was so grateful for this process because she said, I found this out in six weeks, just, you know, for the small price of your program, which is just $2,000. And she had previously actually created tech products before, so she knows how extensive it is to actually get a team and get it done. And so, you know, she was yes, kind of disappointed because we're human. Her emotional side was disappointed because she was quite excited about this idea, but her sensible side, you know, the side that pays for things was really, really glad that actually she found this out so quickly. And what happens when you go through this process properly is no matter what happens, you're set to win because product innovation, especially using AI is a 21st century skill set.

[00:16:50] So if you want to be an entrepreneur, you will at some point create something that works. But in order to get to the thing that works, you probably have to go through loads and loads of iterations of things that don't. Sometimes they'll be completely different industries. Like you just need to experiment. And the product innovation process that we teach, which is really inspired by Google Ventures, but now adapted to the current technological landscape, is the process that is going to keep on helping you to innovate. So yeah, of course it's disappointing, but focus on the long-term, not on the short-term.

[00:17:25] The biggest secret: Entrepreneurship is always hard

Scott Ritzheimer: It's so good. Sophia, there's another question that I have for you that, it's the same question I ask all my guests. I'm very interested to see what you'd have to say, but the question is this. What is the biggest secret you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?

[00:17:40] Sophia Matveeva: Well, you know, Scott, it's not a secret, but every time I hear it, I still get surprised that entrepreneurship is just so hard. It's just so hard. And I think that even when you're an entrepreneur and you're having your hard time and you're seeing everybody else, like seeing all these other founders succeeding on Instagram, on LinkedIn, and you're like, oh no, you know, why? Everybody's figured it out and I am the only loser.

[00:18:14] Everybody, I just want people to know that every single entrepreneur thinks this at every single stage. I used to think that, okay, this is only a thing that you go through in the early stages, but then, you know, when you're really successful, actually you don't feel it. I have a friend who literally IPO'd his company. Like, you would think, okay, IPO, like that's, you know, that's it. He's made it. And we still have the same conversation. He's like, oh my God, you know, this is terrible. Nobody knows, like nobody knows how bad it is. I'm only telling you because you're a fellow founder. And when you're having that hard time and you hear that from a fellow founder, I think it helps to know that, okay, this is supposed to be difficult. And it never really gets easier, but I think you just get used to it.

[00:19:00] Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, yeah, it's so true. So true. It's, we, every founder I know wants to graduate from it being hard. And, and there are seasons where, where things are wonderful. It's not that it's all bad, but it's a lot hard. And, and I think you're totally on with that. And, and, and I also think the other thing I love about what you said is we can find each other in that space as founders. I think that's really important. So reaching out to others, knowing you're not alone, such a big deal. Sophia, there's some folks who, that's just right message, right moment. They've got an idea, they want to bring it to market. They don't know if it's going to work. Where can they reach out to you? Where can they find out more about you and the training that you offer?

[00:19:44] Sophia Matveeva: So the best thing for free learning is go to the Tech for Non-Techies podcast. And there are lots and lots of free lessons that's been running for about six years now. And if you want to join our Tech for Non-Technical Founders program, that's an accelerator program, especially for non-technical founders. And one of the people that we have actually coaching on your product is the guy who launched Instagram filters to 600 million people. He's only, he's doing that with us now. I don't know if we'll manage to keep him. But essentially, if you are listening to this when it comes out, go to techfornon-techies.co and you will see information about the program and you can join us there.

[00:20:24] Scott Ritzheimer: Fantastic, fantastic. Highly recommend it. Excellent site. Lots of great stuff on there. The podcast is fantastic as well. I would highly recommend that. And Sophia, thanks for being on the show. It was really a privilege having you here. It was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.

[00:20:41] Closing and resources

Sophia Matveeva: I hope you found that useful. Whether you're at the very beginning of your founder journey or somewhere in the middle of it. The thing I most want you to take away is this. The process matters more than the idea because the idea is going to change. I mean, I think I've told you that YouTube started off as a dating site. Anyway, a good process will tell you when to go ahead and when to pivot. It will save you months and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lot of headaches.

[00:21:16] So if you want to go deeper into any of this, there are hundreds of episodes in this feed that cover every part of the journey from idea to validated product to scale. And if today's episode resonated with you, the best thing that you can do is share it with one person who needs to hear it. Just one friend, a friend with an idea that they've been sitting on or a colleague thinking about getting out on their own or somebody who thinks that they can't build a tech venture because they haven't yet got a CTO co-founder. You and I know that that's rubbish. So send them this episode because it might change their trajectory and it will make you look great and very clever. And finally, if you haven't yet subscribed, what are you doing? Hit subscribe if you haven't already and leave us a rating and review wherever you get your podcast. It literally just takes a few seconds and it really makes a difference to other people who need content like this and to me and my team. Anyway, thank you very much for listening. And I shall be back in your delightful smart ears next week. Ciao.