Futureproof by Xano
Futureproof by Xano is a podcast for technical builders, entrepreneurs, and engineering leaders who want to stay ahead of what’s next.
Hosted by Xano’s CEO & Co-Founder Prakash Chandran, each episode features conversations with innovators and industry experts who are shaping the future of technology, business, and product development.
Futureproof by Xano
The New Builder Mindset — JJ Englert, NoCode Alliance
What does it mean to be a builder in a time when AI can build all on its own?
In this episode of Futureproof, Xano CEO Prakash Chandran sits down with JJ Englert, founder of NoCode Alliance and community and education lead at Softr, creator, teacher, filmmaker-turned-builder, and a major voice in the no-code movement. JJ shares the unlikely journey from roofing to becoming a filmmaker, to finally discovering no-code — and now AI-powered coding. Together, they explore how AI is reshaping what it means to create software, why curiosity is becoming the most important developer skill, and how even seasoned engineers must adapt to avoid “legacy doubt.”
Topics covered include:
- The rise of the AI-literate builder: Why today’s advantage isn’t syntax — it’s understanding architecture, knowing what to ask, and working fluidly with AI as a coding partner.
- From no-code to full-stack with AI: How JJ went from “I don’t think I’m smart enough for this” to building full applications with real code in weeks, powered by no-code and, eventually, AI IDEs.
- The adoption gap inside companies: Why C-suites got excited, then cautious — and how organizations are slowly figuring out their AI-first vs. AI-layered strategies.
- Curiosity as survival skill: How both new makers and veteran engineers need the same thing: the willingness to experiment, learn, and challenge long-held assumptions.
- The future of multimodal computing: From personalized software that builds itself to real-time AR copilots — why the next leap goes far beyond chat.
Episode ID: 18356341-the-new-builder-mindset-jj-englert-nocode-alliance
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AI has kind of forced our hand to be learners again in the best way because it's really changing how we operate in every capacity of business. Automation, efficiency, communication, everything has never been a better time to be a builder, to think about, you know, where we're going in the future and to leverage the technology to really build something. Uh that it's more accessible than ever before.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome to Future Proof. My name is Prakash Chandran, the CEO of Xano. Today I'm joined by JJ Englert, a filmmaker turn technologist who's built a career in helping others create with AI and no code. Before entering tech, JJ spent seven years in the film industry as a producer and director, creating work that reached over a hundred million viewers and earned recognition from the Producers Guild of America and the college Emmys. In 2017, he made the leap into startups, building and selling several SaaS products, leading product and engineering teams, and learning what it really takes to bring ideas to life quickly. Today, JJ leads community and education at Software. Awesome. I love our friends at Software, supporting more than 900,000 users through programs like Software Academy and the expert network helping builders learn, launch, and scale. Finally, he's also the founder of No Code Alliance and the host of This Week in No Code Plus AI, Spotify's top-rated No Code podcast, where he talks with founders and innovators about how AI is changing the way we build and create. JJ, so happy to have you here, man. We've been uh friends and kind of in each other's space for a lot of years now. And it's great to be. Yeah, man. It's been, it's, it's great. And I've I've watched you grow. I've uh watched you had so much impact from a distance and always admired uh what you've done for the community. So I'm just very grateful uh not only to know you, but that you would make the time to do this.
SPEAKER_01:Oh man, that says so much. Thank you. There's a very kind intro. It's the the the pleasure is mine, honestly. I could say the same thing right back at you. We've been riding in the same circles for the last three to four years. Uh, really admire the way you've been building this company and what it's grown into. I mean, I remember when you first launched and and kind of where we're at now with Zeno and all that it could do. It's what an exciting journey. And also we think back three to four years ago. I mean, I wouldn't have really predicted we would be here today, but where we are today is really awesome and really fun. And I'm sure we're gonna get into it, but what a time.
SPEAKER_00:What a time indeed. Well, you know, I think for those that don't know you, obviously I I read the introduction. You know, what the time I met you, you were already kind of on your tech journey. But maybe tell us a little bit about kind of the beginnings, uh, you know, kind of the storytelling in your kind of background and your career and what led you up to what you're doing today.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thanks. I'll I'll try and keep it short. But um, so I grew up in Rochester, New York. I was always an athlete, et cetera. And then when everybody was getting their college admissions letter, I never, I never did. And I was just like one of those people that never really focused on my studies. I was a jock. And then like senior year, everyone was going away to college and like, what am I gonna do? And I just didn't know. And uh one afternoon I was watching this movie, and the movie really just spoke to me and really gave me true emotions. And I was like, well, I'm not smart enough to be an engineer, I'm not smart enough to be an inventor or whatever, but I want to bring things to life. Like I want to create things that make uh people have feelings or emotions and create impact, right? And for me, that was just like, well, if I if I do this through filmmaking, I can write a script, I can film it, I can bring it to life. That could be the mechanism for me. And so um I worked up, I uh I was a roofer uh and I saved up some money and I got in my car and I drove to California. And I had arrived in California, I didn't know a single person in the entire state. My roommates were off a Craigslist. Uh, and then a year later, I was the student body president of that college and was uh starting to have really good grades. I ended up getting to a really good film school. Uh my senior portfolio project won a College Academy Award with the uh Emmy Foundation. I quickly joined the Producers' Guild of America and then went on to make uh commercials, feature films, music videos, et cetera, in Los Angeles for like seven years. And then eventually I was a producer hiring and making films all over the world. And every time I'd go to a new location, I'd need to find local film crew. And it was really hard for me to do that. Uh, and I wanted to find like local good talent. And so that's when my first idea for a tech startup was like, maybe I could just have a very simple marketplace, a directory that could help find local film crew in each area. And I had no idea about tech at the time. I had like, and I was like, maybe I could just do like a WordPress site or whatever. And I quickly learned that I'm gonna need something a little bit more. Uh, and I got connected with this really, really superior engineer. He used to work at Microsoft, and he's like, well, we could build a.NET and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, I have no idea, but it sounds great. Let's do it. And what had what that was 2017, and that led me into my first journey of let's create something. Oh, wait, we need more money, let's raise some money. Went through the San Francisco Venture Circuit, went uh Angel Investors, all that kind of stuff, and just really was learning and failing and learning and failing. And uh that cycle until eventually in like 2019, when we literally ran out of money. And I was like, listen, I love being able to create, I love being a founder, but I can't always be the one having to pay to like make something. Like, I gotta be the one building this stuff. If I'm gonna do it, I need to know how to learn how to build it. But I honestly I didn't think I was smart enough to be able to build it myself. And I was just like, I just don't think I could do it. And um it I'm until I eventually got to a dark place, I was like, I've got to shut down this company or else I'm gonna have to learn to build it myself. And I was like, that was the thing that pushed me off. And at that time, in like 20 uh 18, oh it's 2019, I saw Gregory John's Udemy course of how to learn how to build and bubble. And it was just like one platform, you could build this MVP like Airbnb. And I was just like, it's a$12 Udemy course. I gotta give it a try. And I had quickly got through one lesson. I was like, I'll try another one. And I'll try, and then I was like, I had already been working with the product team for a while. I knew how stuff started coming together, and now I could just drag it on the screen and start doing stuff, and everything just unlocked for me. And at that point on 2019, I had become unhealthily addicted to building with no code, uh, and had formed my whole identity around building, learning, and creating community about building uh, you know, software with no code. And it led me on to this last four or five years of just building as much as I can, learning as much as I can, and then just sharing it with other people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the uh it's it that is such a fascinating journey, just kind of like with uh foundational mission of kind of bringing things to life. Um, you know, in 2019, when you started working uh with Bubble, and again, the context which I met you, I think was around 2021. Um, I just saw you as kind of like a mentor and a teacher to the space, enabling others. Where do you feel like that came from? Was that always an innate part of um just like who you are as a like growing up as a kid, or did that come later?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that, you know, that that was a really nice part of the journey that I never planned for. Early on when I was learning, it was very clear that I kept getting stuck. And I was, I knew nobody that knew any of these skills. And so I was just poking around online, trying to find people to help me. I was on the forums and whatnot. And I found this one person on the forum, and I was asking him so many questions, like, can you just join a Slack group with me? And he did. And then I started to find other people on the forums. I was like, Can you come join my Slack group? And then we just started helping each other. And it just organically grew into this beautiful thing. And now that Slack group is like 900 of the best kind of makers in that way. But it kind of grew into that way. And as I kept building things, I just kept sharing what I was building. And other people would ask how I built it. And I was still learning along the way, but I'm happy to share what I was doing and just got so much joy in building, sharing, and helping others that it created that really nice synergy for me. And I still have that today.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's amazing. And I think that's actually uh a foundational piece to software creation, self-improvement, how we learn and upskill that community aspect. Because I think no matter what people are starting or trying to create in the world, it's very rarely like a solo mission. Like you inevitably have to figure something out. And even if you're a pure developer, remember the days of Stack Overflow? You go there and you try to figure out uh uh your problems or solutions to your problems. And I feel like with no code, you were kind of a foundational piece in the no-code community, creating that community. And that kind of I think led you to create like a no code alliance. Can you share a little bit more around that? What was the in impetus in creating that and um and what had it has become today?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so so remember this was 2019, 2020. We were early days when this was when you were trying to like build everything in bubble and just throw it at the wall, even if it wasn't good. It was a terrible responsive editor where you kind of had to like count the pixels and it was so early. Uh, but I had started to figure out how to do these things, and other people kept asking me how to do it. And I was like, well, I used to be a filmmaker, I can create a course and just share it with people. And so then uh using my new talents, I built this uh platform called No Code Alliance to upload my courses to for others to do it, but to also add some more like recognition to the industry because it was a very early industry. Nobody knew what like what a good no-code developer was, what kind of skills they needed to learn, where to hire them. And so this was kind of like my subtle nod of like maybe I could help to like uh standardize some of these things and bring some more kind of not regulations, but like you know, uh standards to this industry with like here are some certifications, here's uh portfolios and listings and courses uh to kind of help people hopefully find more success with this industry because I really wanted it to succeed. And so there was like a really early nod of that. Today it's really just a place where I kind of keep my courses. We do have like 3,000 members signed up there, no co developers all over the world that have the portfolios, have either taken one of my courses, one of my certifications, or something like that. So it's a small community. I I still leverage it on the side, but uh yeah, that that whole uh community and education has just been with me since I think, yeah, 2020.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And it obviously is with you today as kind of the community and education lead at software. Tell us a little bit about what you do there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So Software, we like to think it's the easiest to use no code platform, uh, the Canva for app development. And so Software, when I joined it, it was just about two years ago. Uh we were at about 400,000 users and it was just an interface. And I really wanted to be able to make a bigger impact. I would I taught two to three thousand people how to build, and I wanted to teach like hundreds of thousands of people, right? And I saw software as the easiest-to-access no-code platform, meaning I could help more people because it's more accessible. And so when I joined them a couple of years ago, yeah, it was small, still doing really good on this, on the on their own. Um, and over the last two years, we've grown to just about a million builders and now our full stack platform offering the whole suite for entry-level builders looking to build an AI app, uh, but not necessarily needing to access the code or needing the very advanced permissions that an enterprise builder might need. But I want to ship like a simple business tool for like an HR portal or something for my community or something like that, where I don't need to manage the whole infrastructure. I just need to get this tool out that will solve a uh a problem for that that I'm facing. Uh, and software does that really well.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. So I think the reason why all of that framing is important is because if, you know, bringing us to today and a lot of your experience and career has been around like enabling and educating the community, we're entering into a new era, this AI era that people are talking about. Um, and you know, one of the you host this uh this week in No Code Plus AI. You've interviewed some of the best founders, including the founder of Bolt and people that are really making nuclear in the space. Yes, it might be as well. Um, but you know, I think uh one thing that I would love to maybe hear a little bit about is when did you first become aware of AI? And at what point were you like, this is going to be important? I need to start talking about this and enabling more people to understand the pivotal the pivotal moment we're in right now.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's funny because I think I was late. And in the perspective of things, I'm I'm still pretty early, right? Uh and I say I think I was late because I think it wasn't until like a year ago that I had really found AI and the potential of it. Uh it I think, you know, at that point it was just GPT four. So it was late. I wasn't, you know, in the GPT-3 crowd or anything like that. And so it was about a year ago. Before that, I was entirely no code. And then a year ago, just started using GPT and everything, started using their API and everything. Uh, and then things really started to click and just move in that direction in the last year. Um, and so it's funny because yeah, I mean, in in some ways, I mean, people still aren't using GPT. We're very, very early adopters, right? So, you know, we're maybe in the first 1%, but uh yeah, in this last year alone, it's just been insane to think about. I remember doing a podcast clipping of when NAN came out with their agent builder. I was like, man, this is pretty cool. And then to see where they've gone in the last year and a half alone has been absurd, right? And so things like that, um, it's just been a really crazy journey in the last year alone. I I've been looking back on some of my predictions from podcast uh articles or episodes that you know, predated vibe coding and whatnot, and just looking of like what has happened in the last year, and to think that now the technology is even better, even more powerful, which may allow us to accelerate even faster than before, it's like, wow, there's a lot of amazing stuff ahead, but there's a lot of stuff we got to figure out too, you know, and so it's it's entering a definitely a new period of extreme innovation and extreme caution as well, as everyone kind of figures out all right, what is next, what that means for us, and how do we want to leverage that for our business? And it's really hard because the answer is different for everybody. Yeah. And the technology that is is it's really good in certain areas like coding, but in some other areas it's not as good. And so maybe they're still kind of waiting for that technology to reach them, but it's still a lot of like translation. What does this mean for us?
SPEAKER_00:So, you know, you like I mentioned, you are talking to users and the builders of uh, you know, of software in this new era. You talk to the makers of those platforms. What are some common themes or takeaways or just insights that you've been able to distill in all of the conversations that you're having that you might be able to share with our audience?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so there's some common themes. Uh, you know, the entrepreneur, the maker, the MVP builder, that crowd has always been very vibrant and um loud and exciting, and they continue to be. And I think we've seen that with the vibe coding tools. Uh people that have an idea that want to build something, you know, they used to turn the no-code for that, uh, but they're finding even more success with quick wins with vibe coding tools that allow them to see the idea for the first time within the first 30 minutes. Now there's some stuff to be said about getting it to production, etc. But still, what that has uh ignited in that population continues to really propel a lot of these companies. And so that maker audience um is very loud and growing and um has a lot of uh uh enthusiasm around it. I think we're continuing to see a lot of innovation with software development. I think it's a very clear uh medium and win. Uh, you know, we have a ton of libraries and everything documented well online. So it's a it's easier for AIs to tap into. But as we go to look towards more things like robotics and doing human movements and whatnot, I think we're we're starting to find that we don't quite have the data that we need to really propel fast in those areas. And now we're starting to see a lot of other kind of companies pop up that are literally just paying you to fold your laundry or to do your house chores or whatever to capture that data needed for these new uh AI LLMs to, you know, be implemented into other areas outside of software development and whatnot. Uh and then we have the, you know, this big this last year was like, I felt like every CEO was saying, how do we implement AI? How do we implement AI? And everyone was kind of asking that question in the boardrooms, and there was no clear answers, but there was a lot of pay betas and pilots. And I think there was a lot of hype. And I don't think that hype necessarily met the expectations of uh C-suite in some ways, and and has since been tabled in some situations because it's like, well, we we tried it, we piloted it, it didn't quite hit what we were thought you know, the hype was meeting, and so we're gonna table it for now as we kind of figure out what's next. I think we have some of that cautionary tales too. And I think we're starting to see that in some of the the search history uh trending down in other ways, some of the big, you know, hype for AI agent builders kind of trending down in other ways. It's kind of like normalizing as standardizing as everyone's like, okay, we know what AI is. We have tried it a little bit, we're still open to experiments, but we're not gonna shift our entire business overnight to do this. But how do we, you know, implement this going forward? And I think every company right now is figuring out a different way to do it, depending on their risk thresholds. We have some companies that are like, hey, we built a good 10-year-old business on this infrastructure and we're just gonna try to add AI on top of it. And then we have other companies that said, you know, we we've been doing something really well for four or five years, but AI just doesn't work with the way that this needs to work. It needs to be an AI first, not a X first kind of thing, and completely change everything that they're doing to be AI first. And I think a lot of people are struggling with what is that balance for them and their company and what makes the most sense. Uh, and it's a hard conversation and those it's uh it's hard to find the right answers right now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think uh the way you framed it was very good, just kind of around like that balance of the adoption to risk threshold and also kind of really being clear on like, okay, well, what are the business processes that I can even use AI to true uh truly and properly leverage? Um, you know, in all the conversations that you've had or kind of use cases that you've heard, does one or two use cases stick out as very impressive where a company or an individual has implemented AI in a way that has just blown you away?
SPEAKER_01:Um, you know, I think that the ones that have blown me away are the most popular ones. I think we're continuing to see AI work really well in a customer service environment where they have access to lots of documentation, they can respond quickly in a highly personalized way and get them answers much faster than waiting for a live support, but also queue up that live support for when a human is needed, it's there. I think also virtual receptionists or people answering the phone and helping you do basic scheduling and whatnot is also another clear win. We have access to that data. We're able to do this in a good way. There is a lot of labor, it's busy work that goes into that. We can find efficiencies and automate that. So I think those are clear wins. And then, of course, software development. You know, I think. Cursors making a living on uh not only the tab feature, but their agent development. You know, these libraries are well documented. It's kind of obvious what comes next in many ways. And so they can tap into that and really help software developers move a lot faster. And so those are the three use cases that immediately come to mind. But we're continuing to see it everywhere across the board. I think every single sector is gonna be influenced by this. I've talked to deans of universities that are implementing AI into their education, the curriculum, the conversations they're having are like are is the curriculum we're building right now gonna be relevant in four years still? Yeah. I don't know, right? Like how we onboard users, uh, is this still the best way or how do we do that? Like, there's there's a conversation to be had in almost every different industry and aspect of business for how AI can now help you improve that I think those are happening. And I think that's also why we've seen uh if I sit about a macro standpoint for like a lot of companies not really hiring right now, uh, because they're kind of trying to figure out what is next. What are these next moves that we're gonna make? What are these next big bets that we're gonna take? And I think there's a lot of uncertainty right now, and it's kind of like froze everybody among some other economic stuff, but froze everybody of like the technology isn't quite there yet. It's very close, but it's not quite there yet. I can't quite see, you know, the ROI right here yet. But like we're we we're incentivizing these people inside of our companies to the figure it out, people, the do it yourself, that kind of go out there and and make it happen. But we still need to make sure that they're not exposing company data. We're doing it in a safe way. So they they're still in that first step of we have a couple people that are interested that we trust, they're kind of scouting, they're on the front lines, trying to figure stuff out, report back, and then trying to put some systems around this for the company to do this in a safe manner. And then maybe when they get back and they have initial good results, maybe they'll start to hire and scale from there, but still in the very early stages of that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and definitely seeing the same things as well. Um, I had a question for you. You know, you you kind of talked about the uh the makers and the builders um of today. In your opinion, like what do you think a developer is? Like the term developer, what does that mean today?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's changing every day, right? Um, because people that weren't developers yesterday are now building with real code and real applications today. I think that's definitely changing. I think uh we're kind of going a little bit like uh how um back in the day when you know a filmmaker really had like a big camera and only they could operate that camera. And then all of a sudden the technology got into the phone and then everyone started making videos and whatnot. And while everyone could make videos, not every video was good or had good editing and all this proper, you know, distribution and everything. And so we're kind of in that day of software creation where because we have that camera in our pocket, we can take those videos and those photos and it and they're actually quite good, but maybe they don't, you know, go on to be as successful as maybe a seasoned uh content creator or filmmaker could do. Uh it's not as polished, it the distribution isn't there, uh, you know, all those kind of things that might be lacking from that new software developer, I think we're starting to see as you know, this technology has become very accessible. So I still think that developer is someone that you know knows uh how to set up an environment, knows the different uh um security protocols, knows about auth and all those important terminology that make up the core infrastructure of the application, like that is stuff that you absolutely need to know. And even though you could tell AI to start coding, if you don't tell them that if you don't know where to look, sometimes you don't know it's not there or it's broken or how to fix it. And so right now it's it's less about do you know the syntax and everything of being a developer? It's more about do you know the infrastructure? Do you know the strategy? Do you know how all this works and comes together? And do you know what questions to ask? If you do, you can get really, really far. I am personally not a traditional developer. I don't know how to code nearly anything, but I have built four applications in the last two months fully with code using AI to help me, uh, to the point now where if I come across a problem in a couple hours, I can build a personal software to solve that problem on the side for me that I don't even distribute to anyone else. I just keep it for me. And it's really, really exciting that we're there and still have a long way to go, too.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. So I want to like expand on something. So there's a couple things there. So the first is I think what I'm hearing, and this is also what uh we believe as well, like if you do not understand it, then you don't own it. And if you don't own it, then it's it's hard to really, again, ship and make something meaningful, make a business out of it. And I think that AI has really widened the aperture in terms of the amount of builders that can come into the scene and to start creating, which I think is amazing. Like we need more, uh, more software in the world. Um, but there is, there are levels, right? There's a gradient to anything. And like you said, that understanding of what is happening from an infrastructure standpoint, from a security standpoint, is critical. That being said, I think that another piece that I want to uh pick up on is, you know, the fact that you're a builder, even though you are not a software engineer. Um to be someone that is enabling and creating in this space, you have to be native. You have to be experimenting, you have to be building for yourself. So I wonder if you could share, you know, you said you had a couple projects, maybe one of the things that you've built to help you, and then talk a little bit about the journey as well. Because I think a lot of people that may want to experiment don't necessarily know what to begin. And you might inspire them uh around based on kind of what you've been able to create.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So my experience building with code started the same way that my experience building with no code started, which was I'm not smart enough, I can't do this. That uh initial self-doubt of like, yeah, I'm really good with no code, I know how to build, but like I'm not good enough for code. I felt that for a while. And for some, and that was what led me to not trying it earlier, right? And as soon as I tried it, uh, and in this case, I was uh using an AI coding IDE to help me with my vision. I knew the structure, I knew everything, and I had a very clear problem to solve. And that's the big part is knowing to get very specific about what you're trying to do. And so uh on the side, I've been building this application called My Insider Pass. It allows you to send push notifications without the need for a mobile application. So you can spin up a mobile pass, they add that to the mobile wallets, and then we can send them push notifications. And for that technology, I needed to integrate with the iOS and Android SDKs to access the wall of technology. And so I was like, I need to work with those SDKs using code in a very specific way. And I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I had never coded before. And so I went to my AI IDE and I was like, this is what we need to do. Let's create a plan and let's work at it. And by the end of the weekend, I had a prototype locally that I was able to test, and that was the addiction point, you know, and that just got me going. And then all of a sudden I felt the confidence start to come back and I started to, you know, of course there's dips in in and um as everything when you're learning, but once that confidence kicks in, that's when you really get powerful as like a learner and a builder. Yeah. But there's a lot of self-doubt that comes before that that you need to get past. And my biggest suggestion to you is just to try it and to constantly be curious, right? There's a lot of people that, me included, that doubt ourselves that we can even do it. So we don't even get there. But you don't know if you can't do it unless you try, right? And so be curious about these things. And so one of the things I love about my podcast is I get to listen to the latest leaders that are building the latest products, yourself included, each week, and share and get to hear how they're building things, but the technology that they're building that gives me kind of insight into, oh, this stuff is possible now. Oh, I didn't even know we could do that. And then it helps me figure out, okay, if I'm gonna do this, that I was showing how to do it this way. So I'm gonna go this way. And it's just with the accessibility that we have to YouTube and everything else these days, there's a million videos out there that are willing to help you get started. It's just having that mindset of being a learner again. I think so many of us for so long didn't need to learn. You know, like if you think about your career, you've been in 10, 15 years, you're kind of you're learning, but like not at the level that you need to learn right now. AI has kind of forced our hand to be learners again in the best way because it's really changing how we operate in every capacity of business, automation, efficiency, communication, everything. And so if you leverage it now and learn how to leverage it, it's a skill that you're building for a future. And it's an it's an inevitable and very valuable skill that you need. Just like it is to be able to know your way around the internet and be able to use your Slack and all your teams and all that kind of stuff. That AI is gonna be that in the near future of you need to be able to use these tools and you need to be able to use these systems to find more success. And so um, I'm just trying to enable as much confidence as I can out there to let other people know like you can do this. It's just a matter of you sitting down, taking the time, being curious, trying it out, keep at it, holding your head up high, and we'll make friends along the way and we can keep each other encouraged.
SPEAKER_00:That is awesome. Well, like what uh great feedback and words of encouragement to people that um yeah, might have some kind of anxiety around like, hey, is is this possible? Like, oh yeah, those that the news that I'm hearing, that's not for me to do. I think it is critical that every individual, even your, you know, our audience is technical builders and application development leaders, especially for the application development leader crowd. You know, the the definition of a CIO is changing. Like you're not a Gartner Lemming anymore that's just choosing the top right quadrant. You need to be a builder yourself. And then you can help evaluate and make the best decision for your organizations and whether you're an individual startup as well. Like you all you have to be kind of native in the space and it comes with that confidence.
SPEAKER_01:Can I add one more point to that? Please do. So, on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, the first side is self-doubt. I don't think I could do it. And then the other side of the spectrum is I've been doing this for 20 years. There's no way that this new technology can do this, and I'm just gonna ignore it because this is the right way. That's also not the right thing. You need to be curious, you need to experiment, you need to see what's available. You can make whatever choice you would make after you see that, but you have to stay agile to these new technologies because they're incredible. And if you just brush them off because you're a seasoned engineer in the last 20 years, you're not gonna find success in that way either. You're gonna be legacied out in a way, you know? And so it's it's up to you to also stay curious, stay put that learning hat back on, even though you're top your craft in one way. There are new ways to do things, and there's young, eager people trying these latest tools, finding a lot of success. And yes, they might not do it every way that you're doing it or the best ways, but there's a lot of promise and new opportunities too that you should look at to see if it could benefit you.
SPEAKER_00:Totally. Um, I want to take a moment to talk about like literacy and leveraging AI as a tool uh to learn, because you know, kind of very poignant in what you just said was um that being curious and that hunger to learn. And the beautiful thing about AI is that I mean, I'm speaking for myself, I can be like, hey, I don't understand this concept. You know, I need you to break it down for me like I'm eight years old. And I I don't feel embarrassed about doing that with the AI. But when you understand it at that level, it gives you the ownership of what you're creating. So if, for example, when you were creating the push notification app, maybe like you're using SDKs and maybe you didn't understand what an SDK was. And you're like, okay, well, like explain to me what this SDK is. What is an SDK? How does this actually loop into everything? So then you can learn to co-create with the AI better. Because the more you understand it, the more it can like help you create better. Would you kind of agree with that?
SPEAKER_01:100%. I I it's in my pocket all the time. I am constantly taking pictures of something out in the wild. It's like, what is this? Explain this to me. And when I was trying to learn more about the develop ecosystem, I was just like, I know what all these tools are, but I don't really know how they connect together. Help me fill in this picture of like how this ecosystem works, how these all connect together. What's the importance of it? And just I just was asking questions for like an hour to AI, and it was just helping me out. It's just like, now I get it. Now I'm ready to start learning more on this subject on YouTube videos and whatnot because AI helped me fill in those gaps, right? And like another thing is uh my family and I, we've been uh repairing an old boat over the summer. And so the motor had issues, and I know nothing about any of this stuff. But I was just taking pictures of the motor with ChatGPT, and I was like, here's what's going on, X, Y, and Z. And it helped troubleshoot this whole thing. And now I'm very familiar with that motor. And we went through everything and and we didn't quite solve it, but we got so close and it was very relevant, and it gave me confidence that I had never had before with this new tool in my pocket that is just so easy to use, and everybody should be using it to get more knowledge, more, you know, and answer those questions. It's just, it's just never been a better time. It is so great.
SPEAKER_00:On the other side of that, I do want to recognize that a lot of people, I've said this in a couple of the conversations uh that I've seen are are they they're kind of sacrificing um speed or sorry, skill development for speed, meaning that AI is so good. And you know, of course, you the one thing that we just talked about is you can learn alongside of it, but you can also just have it do things for you. And um, you don't get to develop the muscle of what it means to like think through things, think through problems. And I also think that that's dangerous. And it's just funny. Uh maybe Miriam and Archer will be watching this. There was this moment where I was literally using AI for everything, even if I knew like how to structure emails, et cetera, I'd just be like, okay, make this better, make everything that I'm doing better. And I remember like copying and pasting to Miriam and Archer, like just a hello message. And it included the here's a more polished version in your. So that's that's an another piece that I think is important to recognize. And I'm wondering for you, for your audience, for what you've seen in terms of people like that are upskilling or leveraging the AI, what have you witnessed and seen?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I and I I do a lot of this and I'm figuring it out myself, and I'm teaching a lot of it too. You know, we all have seen the AI writing on LinkedIn, right? Um, and and I there I still use AI to help me with my writing a lot, but there was also real value in not using it to or using it in ways that make sure that your voice and your integrity is still there and that you're not just outsourcing your opinions, which no one wants to see, by the way. No one wants to see your AI outsource opinions. They want to see your opinions, right? And so finding that balance and keeping the intent of being authentic and um transparent and just uh yeah, I think authentic is the real word I'm looking searching for here. Find ways to use it, but keep your authentic in intact. I explained, I think I shared this example with you as well, but I've been really big into building agents over the last year. And so I had built an agent to help me with my communications for my podcast scheduling, et cetera. And the agent would follow up and email the guests coming on and kind of take care of all that for me. And it was working to the point where it was literally like working, emailing back and forth, and it was fine. But for me, podcast is about building relationships, it's about meeting these guests that are coming on and building relationships with them. And that can only happen if I'm a part of that, right? And I was like, why am I letting AI take me out of this picture that it's the most valuable part of it for me? I need to be back into this. And so that's where the intent of AI comes in of like, what is your intent here? And let's have AI assist you, but not replace you. And to make sure that you're keeping that really top of mind in everything you do as AI becomes very prevalent in every aspect of life.
SPEAKER_00:Totally. Um, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about how you see the future playing out in terms of how people are going to use software, what the front end looks like, what behavior looks like in the world of AI. I know none of us can really tell, but you have a lot of conversations with the builders of tomorrow. Um, based on what you're hearing, based on what you're seeing, how do you see that unfolding?
SPEAKER_01:So I got a lot of thoughts here. I'll try to make it in a clear, coherent message, but there are a lot of different things. I think on the software side, uh, you know, we're already starting to see websites that automatically build themselves based on the visitor that is appearing or visiting that web page. I think that kind of dynamic behavior, I think, you know, we're gonna start to get a lot more information from cookies uh about you know where they've been visited, et cetera. And we can start to build a lot more things dynamically on the fly for that user to really, you know, drive home that that conversion cycle. So I think we're gonna see a lot more dynamic things created for users on the internet and a lot more personalized experiences. I mean this with also like, you know, instead of just Google search results, it's Google responding, AI responding to you in a very personalized way, knowing exactly what you want with the information you need. And so personalization is gonna continue to be a very important part. I think also we're in uh our area of AI where multimodality. And in right now, we're just in chat. We're just in text, right? But we're soon gonna take a next big leap. We kind of already done it with voice, but with vision and with hearing that we're gonna start to see in many, many aspects of the product. I think one example of this is you're gonna start to have uh real like AI counterparts joining meetings with you and giving real-time suggestions to you or real-time data fetching for you, assisting you in the meeting of as if, say, someone brought up, you know, what were the figures for this last campaign? It's gonna fetch it for you automatically in the background and give it to you to mention in the next sentence you speak. That kind of real-time interaction. And then that's gonna continue to play out in life and multimodality with, you know, the Ray Band glasses and all this other AIR stuff that's coming to life. I think we're gonna start to experience LLMs in different multimodalities in the next five years, 10 years, that's really gonna take a huge leap forward. Right now we're still in that like that text leap. And but with the new modalities, we're gonna big uh a big leap. You know, and then we're still gonna get, you know, the the self-driving cars. Like we're very close to there. This is Waymo and Tesla, like in the next 10 years, are we gonna be driving our kids to soccer practice? I don't know. You know, I think that's gonna be your preference at that point. Are you still gonna have a gas vehicle or an EV vehicle? That's what you could do today. Both are fine, both work. And I think in the future, it's gonna be do you have a self-driving or a manual driving car? That's gonna be your preference. Either one could work and could do your preference. And so we have a lot of big decisions coming. And I think there's a lot of um things that are gonna be moving too fast for humanity where the technology is gonna be there, but the humans just don't want that yet. Or the adoption for that is gonna be slower because of risks and other certain things. Or perceptions of that. And so there, you know, we're, I think, you know, AI is similar to the inventation of electricity or the internet. And with each of those, you know, invent and innovations came huge shifts around every uh the way we use everything. And AI is just getting started there. And so it has never been a great better time to be a maker. It has never been a better time to be a builder, to think about, you know, where we're going in the future and to leverage the technology to really build something. Uh that it's more accessible than ever before. The technology is better than ever before. Um, and you can do it, quite frankly. It's just you figuring out, you know, what is that plan? What does that look like for me? Where does my value lie? Where, what, where is my desire bringing me? Finding something that is a win-win for you. You know, I think if the more the more synergy you can create in life around your desires, what you want to do, the value that you can add, find a way to get that flywheel going. Uh, and there's a million different ways to do that right now. And I think you'll find uh, you know, real big success doing something you love in that way.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. Um, I mean, around that, I would be curious as to what your personal vision is in terms of kind of educating and empowering the next generation of developers. Because in some ways, you've been doing this right since I've known you with No Code Alliance, uh, the tutorials that you put out, like the one-off stuff. Like we've even done some videos together, just educating the community on how they should be thinking about things as they're building. Do you have a vision around what is next? Like, what do the next three to five years look like for JJ?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I, you know, I I just I still want to be that person. I want to be that builder. I want to be the uh a person that can inspire others to build, and I want to be the person that can help others build. Uh, I I love those three things. It starts with building, though, and being a really good builder, and which is what I love to do. And then by being a really good builder, I'm a lot I'm able to share my knowledge and my my love, my motivation, my inspiration with others around this. And so I'm lucky to say that like I'm just I'm still just as enthralled with the technology as I was five years ago as I am today. The technology has changed a little bit, but the ability to create has never been better and the magic to create has never been more. And so uh I'm on the same mission, luckily. I still really value that and I really love that. Uh, I think the mediums have changed a little bit, uh, but it's it's just never been a better time, I think, to build stuff and to teach others to build it. Whether it's MVPs or tools or productivity stuff for your own stuff, I think that that differs. And I think that depends. But generally, I just want to give people the confidence and the skills to go off and do it because I know what those have given me, and that makes me so happy. And I hope I can give that to other people as well.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. So, just as we wrap up, some more rapid fire uh questions. Um, but the first would be kind of what's in your toolbox? And this can be AI-related tools or not that you are using today that you're excited about and you want to share with the uh with the audience.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I'm a big cursor lover. I really love cursor. It's it's been my technical co-partner uh for a while now. And then, of course, I have my software toolbox. Our recent AI agents and databases have been really great. Uh, we just launched our workflows builders and then our interface builder, and I'm in there daily. Uh, I still use bubble for like the MVPs I do on the side, uh, that I need like custom development, but I want to be able to do pixel perfect and I control at everything. I still use that heavily. Um, I'm using a ton of different APIs. I really love Claude's Heroku 4.5. It's really fast and really smart, and I've been using that in a lot of my systems. Um, and so with kind of this stack, I'm able to build nearly anything I want and in record time, and it's been really, really impactful for me. And so um, yeah, I I don't, yeah, it's it's never been a better time to be a builder, honestly.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Um tell me a little bit about um in the next let's say five years, what is a bold prediction that you hold that might be counter to like what other people are saying, just about where we're going to be as a society in a world with AI. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think uh it's it's maybe not as bold, um, but I think um we're in the very early stages of adoption. I think in five years from now, we're still gonna be in adoption. I think we'll be in later phases, but still a long way to go. I think everybody thinks that because the technology is here, it's just gonna be adopted and then we're gonna be in a whole new phase. But I think what we've seen already is the technology's been here and adoption has been very slow and will continue to be slow. There's a big population of humanity that needs to first get access to this, and then second, learn how to use it, and then third, apply it to their business. And and that's just not gonna happen overnight. And so I think over the next five years, we're gonna continue to adopt it, but we'll soon get to get to a point where AI is just like the internet, like everybody needs it, everyone has it, interacts with it every single day, has a ton of different ways to use it and finds their own sense of life in there. I also think that, you know, VR is gonna be really big. And I know it hasn't hit its stride yet, but I think we're we're closely getting to a point where VR and AR are gonna be able to spin up different worlds that people are gonna be able to live in. And I think with AI being able to take over eventually in the long run, a lot of skills and labors and basic entry levels things, there's gonna be some decisions that we need to make as humanity of like, you know, how are people still getting jobs and all this kind of stuff? And I think that's gonna lead to a lot of people experiencing worlds digitally in some kind of VR AR capacity that, you know, just we haven't seen yet before.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, I guess the final question is, you know, we spoke earlier about the importance of just building, right? Having getting the confidence to just start trying things out. So let's say a builder uh comes over to you and says, okay, you've convinced me I want to get started. What recommendation would you have around what they should start experimenting with or building? And uh yeah, just where do they begin? Sure.
SPEAKER_01:It's a good question. I think it differs for everybody. But the way that I would begin is, all right, what do you want to build? And let's put that in the Chat GPT and just have a conversation with it over like, this is what I want to build, these are the problems I want to solve. And then at the end of it, say, or even in the beginning, of like, I've never done this before. Maybe help put out together a plan and outline for someone that is learning this for the first time, put together like maybe a learning path for me and then an execution path. And just really start to use Chat GPT as like your partner in that way where you can kind of work through these things together. And at any step of the process, if you have questions or you come across errors, bring that back into ChatGPT and that shared project that you create, that shared context to help you through these steps. I think that will help you just figure out, like, all right, what's the outline? What's the plan? From here, these are the some of the things I need to learn. Then I go on YouTube and I start learning those, right? And then one, once I start to feel like, all right, I got a plan, I've done some basic knowledge. Then I would spin up an AI coding tool like a Claude Anthropic and a cursor and see what it could do for me, or even a vibe coding tool uh to see what it could do for me to start bringing this together and just start experimenting. Don't this is about doing something small and doing and completing it, right? Uh so don't go so big where it's like I want to do X, Y, and Z on your first one. Just do something like I just want to create a to-do list app, right? Something very simple that I could just see live for the first time. Help me work through that, right? And just start to get your feet under you of the this terminology. There's a lot of terminology you need to learn. But once you learn the terminology, then you've learned it and then you can communicate to AI to use it in that way. And so it's just about getting your reps in. It's about flexing those muscles of a builder, being curious, asking those questions, uh, and being willing to like, hey, I've been hit with this error. It's okay. I can work with AI, we'll figure it out, and then we'll go on to the next one because there's always gonna be an error in coding, in life, or whatever, that's normal. But it's how you respond to that error and how you get past it and how you grow from it that's gonna establish who you are. And so uh, you know, you have these tools available. Once you hit those points, that's okay. Take a breath, work with these tools, and then we'll take the next step, we'll get past it, and we'll keep going up.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Life lessons through coding metaphors and AI. Um, JJ, this has been a great conversation. Where can people follow you or subscribe to to learn more and hear more, JJ?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I have a weekly podcast. It's called This Week in No Code Plus AI. I put all my latest learnings there. I I interview the best people in the world uh there each week. Uh, so that's a very active place. Also, LinkedIn is more popular now for me than X. I never thought I'd say that, but LinkedIn for JJ Angler, that's where I am most days. Uh, and then I have my own YouTube channel where I do uh AI tutorials uh on uh and JJ Angler on YouTube as well. So find me on one of those three platforms uh and just always feel free to reach out. Uh, send me a message, anything. I'm I'm again looking to make friends. I'm looking to share my knowledge and add value as I can along the way. Uh so let me know if I could be of assistance.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Well, JJ, really appreciate um you, everything that you've done for the community, and everything that you will continue to do as well. So thank you so much, my friend.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure to share the stage with you again. Again, I really love what you guys are doing over at Zeno. Uh, I love the latest update you did as well. The direction is clear. I can't wait to see you guys continue to execute on it and find even more success. Appreciate it, buddy.
