How A No Code Mindset Can Help Your Business – Zapier’s Mike Knoop
Programmers are often thought to be the darlings of our economy. They create the software we all use. They’re the “Thomas Edisons” of our time. However, most small business owners are not programmers, not coders, we’re not developers. Most of us create, non-technical solutions for our customers. If we need to enhance our productivity and take advantage of automation what do we do? Having a no code mindset can help!
Mike Knoop, cofounder of Zapier explained that the history of automation has been something done TO people, he wants to make it something done FOR people.
No code software is a mindset, a principle, which means that you don’t have to learn to program, nor write lines of code late at night to create something powerful.
No code software is a mindset, a principle
Zapier’s not quite 10 years old and exists to democratize software for all, in particular small business owners.
Instead, with no-code software, like Zapier, you can connect one or more applications to do something even more powerful
(Have you found this kind of thinking to be useful in your business? Let’s talk about it in the Smart Hustle Nation community – comment on my post – here)
For example, maybe you use Shopify, you can use Zapier to send orders to a spreadsheet and get deeper insights into your customers’ buying habits.
The uses for connecting software to do even more are limitless.
Or, as Mike explained, oftentimes the challenge is not just “getting data” but then how to take action on that data and do more with it. Maybe you need to better manage incoming leads from one software and send those leads to another software – Zapier can help.
In 2020, because of the pandemic restrictions, so many businesses had to have a FAST digital transformation.
In 2020, because of the pandemic restrictions, so many businesses had to have a FAST digital transformation
Zapier’s use increased so much as many small business owners had to scale their companies by better using the software they had OR leveraging new software, in my opinion.
Mike’s vision is to enable small business owners to get more done with less.
In closing, I asked Mike what his advice was to startups and founders.
He expressed Daymond John’s advice in his book “The Power of Broke”.
Mike explained that one thing Zapier has done very well is to be very capital efficient. This means they’ve been very judicious with their funds and have only raised one round of funds, right at the beginning stage of their growth.
Zapier has been fully remote for years (saving money on office space).
Mike said many startups scale before they’re ready.
Having too much capital can be a problem because you spend more than you need to.
As expected, Mike and his team ask themselves, as we scale how can we use software smarter to scale.