Build In Public (Special Edition about On Deck No-Code Fellowship)

Hey everyone, hope you are well. I’m in the middle of interviewing hundreds of applicants for our 2nd cohort of the On Deck No-Code fellowship that’ll start soon in July.

Since this is what’s top of mind for me this lately, I figured I’d share some thoughts on this theme today:

Here’s something I reflect on often.

Millions of really talented people are telling themselves they are NOT capable of becoming founders or building businesses.

Yet we are in unprecedented times. Probably the greatest era for entrepreneurship due to the dramatic decrease in costs to start an online business (thanks to no-code!)

We have this insanely powerful tool called “The Internet” in our pockets and yet many are succumbed by their limiting beliefs of what’s possible for them.

Up until 2018, I was one of those people too. You may know this story but for about 8 years, I hopped from one “safe company” to another working in product teams (as a PM) and accumulated a grand total of 80+ ideas on my Notion idea journal. I eventually became frustrated of sitting on the sidelines and watching other founders take shots on the goal. I knew I had it in me but one limiting belief prevented me from taking action.

After becoming active on Twitter, I realized this was more of an excuse than a true handicap. Knowing how to code is no longer necessary in a world that has an abundance of no-code tools.

On one random Sunday evening in 2018, I decided to become a builder who would NOT dwell on ideas but actually ship something small to the world.

I taught myself Airtable in a day and shipped my 1st ever no-code project called “Do Things That Don’t Scale” in 5 days. It changed my life. Despite having less than 300 followers at the time, when I shared this on Twitter, I got an overwhelmingly positive response. Later that week, it was hunted on Product Hunt and became the #1 Product Of The Day with over 1400 upvotes. In many ways, it was the precursor to my success as a no-coder and eventually to many other inflection points in my career. To becoming a founder. To getting an acquisition. To getting hired at On Deck to lead their No-Code Fellowship. To building a passionate audience like you and a #buildinpublic community. And to becoming an angel investor and advisor now.

One tiny decision to act. That’s all it took.

But why am I sharing this story today?

Ever since I started working at On Deck, I had one singular goal. 10x the number of ambitious no-coders in the world.

No, not the founders or operators or indie hackers.

No-coders.

Why?

Because I believe no-code is a superpower and can be used to create value in millions of ways that can’t be bucketed into one group.

The diversity of ideas, applications, and backgrounds of people is what makes is so unique.

Product managers (like me) building tiny apps like this to test ideas

Designers (like Shiku) building apps to solve their own problems

Founders (like Marcus) building platforms to help other no-coders test their ideas using no-code

As we roll out acceptance offers to the next cohort of ODNC, I wanted to share this personal note with the builders among you and encourage you to apply to join an ambitious supportive community.

The fellows who joined had a fabulous time and many of them went on to land attractive jobs at high-growth startups, get into YC, became full time founders and more. Hear about their experience in their own words.

If you’re tinkering with no-code and want to level-up and take shots on your dreams/ideas, apply here. Thanks for reading!