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The No-Code Playbook for First-Time Founders · Do Small Business Like a Big Boss Podcast

• Aisha Massengill: Don't ever work another day in your life for someone else. Welcome to Do Small Business Like a Big Boss, where we explore the real stories, hard-earned lessons, and game-changing strategies of entrepreneurs who've moved beyond the side hustle and build businesses that scale with confidence. This show is proudly sponsored by Project Icon. I'm your host, Aisha Jorge Massingil, your small business legal guy. Let's dive in. Welcome to Do Small Business Like a Big Boss. I am your host, Aisha Jorge Massingil, your small business legal guide. And today I am really pleased to welcome Dan Hafner. Dan is the founder of Dapper No Code, a no-code app and software development firm based in Pittsburgh, PA. He helps coaches, experts, and small business owners turn their app and software ideas into real revenue generating products without that six-figure development invoice or a single line of code. His firm was recognized as best of no code development in USA for 2025. Welcome, Dan. Thank you for having me, Ash. It's awesome to be here. Well, I I was we were talking before the show about where you're from, but from my researchers says that you actually grew up on a farm riding tractors and playing football. And you specifically said to yourself, I'm not gonna work in front of a computer. So how on earth did you end up running? running a computer company, a software company. That's very good research. Yeah. I c I can still see myself saying that with them like on leaving high school, you know. ⁓ so yeah, I mean it's kind of just a basic story of one thing leads to another, you know? I ⁓ man, it it's it's kind of funny how life kind of gives you those ⁓ those different paths. You know, life gives you lemons, you make you figure out how to make lemonade out of it. man, I d I don't know. I I guess I I was always pretty open about the path I wanted to go, which kind of ⁓ made that a little bit easier of a transition to say, okay, I I think that there's potential in this direction that I want to go. ⁓ and one of the one of the big shifts that that happened for me was obviously when I when I moved and I I was moving to move closer to my then girlfriend, now wife, and it was like I just needed a job. To to move to someplace. And I got in with a very good company, which was Deloitte at the time. and basically moved up in there into a role where I got into like QA testing and and and I I wasn't developing software, but I was like a manual tester. And that was kind of my first introduction into ⁓ like software's pretty cool. You can do some really interesting things with it. and that was kind of how how I did it. But yeah, the transition was really, really tough. I I my first job when I switched into it, I was like a help desk support person. ⁓ and I was about two or three days away from being fired ⁓ because I just could not figure it out. They're like, hey man, like you've gotta figure out how to do this stuff or you're not gonna be here much. So I buckled down and figured it out. ⁓ so yeah, it was just kind of one of those one of those things. One thing led to another, you know? What was it that you I guess two part question, what was it that you couldn't figure out? And then how did you make it figure outable? Good questions. ⁓ I I know there's a book that doesn't like Marie Marie Farlio, or I don't know how to say her last name. She has a book about everything's figure outable. ⁓ well, what I what it was that was my first real ⁓ encounter with just like people would call in and say, Hey, like my password doesn't work, or I'm trying to do this in a browser and it wouldn't work. And and like there it could be anything, right? And me not having a wealth of knowledge in these things. I you know, I I got hired because I knew somebody. I didn't, it wasn't like I had experience, you know. So it was what's the difference between Chrome and Safari, between Windows and Macs, like basic stuff, you know? And I I I just I really had to like buckle down and figure it out and and do all that. ⁓ and then I think, you know, how I how I figured it out was just immersing myself in it. You know, and just ⁓ like, hey, my back was against the wall. I had I had limited time to figure it out. And it was just it was it was just reps, reps and reps and reps and just immersion in something for that, you know, short period of time. And you know, I they gave me longer than that. I think that was more just to kind of light a fire under my butt. But you know, over the next couple of weeks I turned it around and I started and I became really, really good at what I did. So ⁓ so yeah, it was just kind of put your head down and figure it out. kind of thing, you know? So you got the reps and I'm assuming that gave you more confidence. ⁓ what happened next after you kind of got your C legs underneath you about that particular job? Where did your career take you next? Because you just mentioned Deloitte. So where did your career take you next? Yeah. So that was that was kind of where they they had a a big ⁓ this the it was called the service desk. And that was kind of where like it was the entry level job for anyone at that ⁓ you know, subcontracting place. And they would basically take ⁓ that was kind of the farm team, so to speak, like b in baseball terms of hey, when what are you interested in? What do you want to get into? And then as other team positions would open up, they would present them with you. I actually really wanted to go the route of cybersecurity. I had a degree in that and that was kind of where I wanted to go. The problem was they were already s fully staffed and they really didn't have anyone else, ⁓ a need for anyone else. And there was ⁓ you know, We were all young guys. So it wasn't like anyone was going retire soon. ⁓ and then they approached me about this. Hey, there's this opening on the QA team. ⁓ and I was like, I had no idea. I was like, okay, what what what would I be doing? They're like, ⁓ we need you just kind of like do some testing and we can kind of learn about that stuff. And to be honest, like at the time, it was like a third shift job I was working with the service desk stuff, second shift even, and I was like, Yeah, sounds good to me. Like anything to not have to do that. It would be normal hours, right? They're like, Yeah. I'm like, all cool. ⁓ so then when I when then I took that and then that was kind of another phase of like figuring it out. And but it was different because I had to learn it wasn't just software I was learning, it was business practices, it was how developers work. That was a whole new world of I always feel like I can make fun of developers because You know, I'm I've I'm a developer now and I I wasn't at the time, but I was like, Man, these guys are weird. They're like super weird guys. ⁓ nice guys. They're not like, you know, terrible people, but like they were just quirky and like strange and they think so differently when it comes to different things. And their their humor can be so dry and like computer related, you know. and and it was just that was kind of like wow, like I didn't know that this kind of world existed. So ⁓ but then yeah, I got, you know, promoted to be a manager there. And ⁓ you know, the rest was was kind of history after that point. Yeah, I've I've worked at two organizations that were were laden with ⁓ scientists and engineers. ⁓ and they are a different breed of people. I'll just leave it at that. Well yeah, it's it's so different because like even when after I moved from there, I I got into sales and it was like a ⁓ Completely different world, you know. So, like developer, you can be just like like me most days of just like I would rather just shut the world out and just look at my computer for eight hours and just rock and roll. And and then being in sales is like, you know, being with people and learning how to read people and like learn like, you know, using my ex you know, extroverted skills was like a completely different world. ⁓ But yeah, so yeah, they they are it's a very different, different type of vibe, you know. But when we started talking, you said ⁓ you you know, we started out with the quote, like you would never want to sit in front of a computer. Now you say you could just lock in for eight hours. Where was that switch? What happened for you that gave you that love or interest that allowed you to kind of lock in on that side? That's a good question. ⁓ I mean, I don't know. Like when I when I was growing up, like I always, you know, like I said, I grew up on a farm. I always did, you know, all my jobs in high school is even as a kid and even through college, where I was working on the farm. So I was like doing hay, riding, you know, doing tractor stuff, whatever. ⁓ and then I did landscaping also for my cousin who has a business. So I was always moving, I was always sweating, I was always like that was that was work I felt like I was kind of brought up in like that. blue collar type of like mentality of like it's not really work unless you're using your hands and you're off your butt and you're moving stuff and you can you can look back at the end of the day and you can see what you actually accomplished. So when I, you know, ⁓ got into the like after I graduated school and I got these, you know, so to speak white collar jobs where I was just on a computer, I was talking to people, I was doing things, it was very difficult for me to be like at the end of the day, like, what did I actually do other than like I just You know what I mean? There wasn't like anything I could sit back and look at. ⁓ and I think the shift for me, like what when I was at that service desk job, they they taught the ITIL methodology. You had to get certified and ⁓ which I couldn't even tell you what it s stands for anymore, if anyone's interested in what that is. But it's it was kind of like the the life cycle of different, you know, of of software businesses, of service businesses, of like And I it opened my eyes like wow, there is a lot of different ⁓ ways that you can do work and you can actually there there's there's a need for these things ⁓ that doesn't involve busting your butt and and sweating in in July on a 95 degree day, you know? I was like, huh. Like I I mean I knew that these things existed, but I had never really like experienced it. So I think that was when I kind of was like, ⁓ this is a lot easier and I can actually make more money doing this. Like this is not not a bad gig, you know? Yeah, you know, there's there's ⁓ two things about that, one about sales and one about the completion. I've said a lot of times in this on this show and other places that as an attorney it can be frustrating sometimes because people come to you with a problem, you give them wonderful advice and they disappear. You don't know if it worked out, didn't work out, they're gone. And so one of the things that grounds me in my life is like I am fierce about a clean kitchen. ⁓ and part of that is there's a beginning, a middle and an end. I can see that it's a mess in the beginning and I clean it and in the end I can see the fruits of my work, much like you, you know, doing the the yard work and being a landscaper. It just is frustrating to me because people only come back like if it didn't work. But if it worked well, you just you just don't know. You've just you've just sent them off and then On the sales piece, I used to joke like one of my favorite movies of all times is this John Kuzack ⁓ Ioni Sky movie called Say Anything. And he's got this great scene where he's like, I don't want to sell anything, process anything, or buy anything. Like he just didn't want to sell. And for years, I was like, I don't ever want to be in sales. I don't want to be, I provide value. And if people don't understand my value, I don't care because I'm not selling. And it's like, if you want, you want to eat. You're gonna have to get comfortable selling. So, so I get that having to toggle that part of of your brain on. So help thank you for for sharing that. ⁓ so I want to transition now though, because you're working your way through, you're picking up certifications. At some point, at what point in your kind of work arc do you decide one that you wanna be a business owner on your own. And two, that you want to do it in the form of a software company. Yeah. So the a part of it was there was ⁓ my my when I met my girlfriend in in college, ⁓ she was in medical school in one side of Virginia and I was in I was working on the other side of Virginia. And then I moved to be there to work with her. ⁓ well, not work with her, but you know, be in the same place as her and stuff. And then being in the medical field, ⁓ she had to move. So she had med school. And she got into residency in a different place. And then she got into fellowship in another place. And now we're here where she has an actual attending job. ⁓ so we've moved all over the place, you know. and yeah, I mean, I liked I liked that that career path at Deloitte and I liked all that stuff. But I also realized like, you know, I if there's one thing I was never really good at and still am not terribly good at was being a networker. ⁓ I'm just not like a a social butterfly of like I know this person, I know this person. I like I just it's not it's not my strength. I just know that. ⁓ so it's like, well, I gotta I gotta figure out something. So ⁓ you know, and I was like, ⁓ let's let's try you know, it was kind of along the same lines of I was I was reading some books, I was meeting some people, I I you know, the the book that really started a lot of it for me, I think like most people was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. But then the next one was Dotcom Secrets. ⁓ I don't know where I got ⁓ a hold of that or somebody ⁓ no, it was it was either that or it was expert secrets. One of them. One of the per people I was I was talking with, I think recommended one of those. And then everything really shifted since then. I got in I I I this whole new world opened up to me of like, ⁓ this is the that you can do these kinds of it was kind of like that second awakening of like, ⁓ I could do like jobs that aren't, you know, manual labor. Like, ⁓ I could actually do what what I'm good and at the time I didn't even really know. ⁓ so I, you know, I I found this. ⁓ there's this idea for this this app idea I've I've always had. And I was very into apps. Like I was, you know, I found like I have an iPhone and I found one day that I had like 200 apps on my phone. Or like, ⁓ I don't have any memory left on my phone. Like I ⁓ it's because I have all of these apps I never use. I was like, I wonder if I could build these. I wonder if I could do this. ⁓ and then One thing led to another. Well, I don't know how to code. I don't have a lot of money. I don't have like, how do I build this idea I have? and lo and behold, Google was like, there are things called no code builders, Dan. And I was like, sweet. So I try it, I try this one, try that one, try that one, and got into this and was and actually built a skill of I could bring this idea, this vague idea that I had into an actual tangible thing. And then boom, I was like, this is this is cool. Like this is something that I could actually see myself doing. And then I ended up doing that. So ⁓ yeah, it kind of happened over the course of probably a couple of years, but there was like that that awakening of like, ⁓ this is this is cool. This is what I want to do, you know. And did you know that you wanted to do it as a full blown business or was it just something like, No, this is a cool skill to have? Yeah, it was it was like it like I said, there was the actual it was a it was a running in fitness app idea that I had. and it was kind of just kind of a side thing I was doing, but I was interested in seeing how far it could go. I actually did decently well with it for a while, and then ⁓ and then eventually that was kind of the shift. It was like, ⁓ I could go all in on that idea. Or I realized, you know, I was on my podcast and doing different things like that, and people were like, ⁓ could you do this? Could you build this? ⁓ I've had this idea for this. Excuse me. And I realized there was a market. I was like, ⁓ I have a skill that's marketable. And voila. I was like, ⁓ I could freelance. I could ⁓ charge people for this kind of thing. ⁓ and I never even knew what freelancing was. So as you can tell, ⁓ a lot of my path has been very self-taught. I really I didn't I didn't know what I didn't know, and I just was kind of like, if I don't know something, I'm just I'm the kind of guy that'll just be like, all right, let's figure it out. Now I have Claude and ChatGPT and all these things that I can just consult with and ask about. And ⁓ my chat history with those is just every which way. Cause I have these all these different ideas that pop in and boom, okay, let's go over here. Let's get some, you know, let's bounce some things off of of whatever. But but no, I had never really had the idea of of you know making it into a full time thing until one day I just realized like this is something I should. I really should make this. I finally started getting some traction, some some some ideas, some downloads of like, ⁓ I could see where this could go. So that's when I decided to like, let's let's actually make this let's try to make this work. And so what were when you realized you wanted to make it work as a official thing, what were some of the first steps you took to make it a real business? Man, you got some good questions. You're really testing my memory now. ⁓ Gosh, I think ⁓ you know, I I definitely did get the incorporation stuff done and got like an LLC set up. So I had some of those things. ⁓ I I remember posting. I remember just kind of like letting people know, like, hey, here's what I'm doing now. If, you know, you whether it was LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever, ⁓ it was able to kind of connect with some people, you know, just in my own friends' circle and ⁓ you know, acquaintan acquaintances circle via those those tools of, hey, here's what I could do. Here's what, you know, things things that could happen. ⁓ and then I think the biggest thing was I just kept reading a lot of stuff. ⁓ I I I'll admit I have fallen off of that the past the past few months. ⁓ but I would used to just read stuff every single day, try to implement it, whether it was a chapter of expert secrets or dot com secrets or ⁓ now he has like traffic secrets and all those different books, right? Or ⁓ and I'm a big audio book guy. So when I would go and walk my dog in the morning, I would be listening to something. And that's kind of how I trained myself to like it was it was iterative. It wasn't like I just boom, one day I had all this stuff working. It was it was really a how do I just how do I hit singles? How do I instead of going for the big home run? How do I just get on bass? How do I how do I just have a single? And ⁓ you know, it was ⁓ Then I would realize, ⁓ I'm missing this piece. I need to add this piece. I need to how do I get sales? ⁓ I should sign up for a Stripe account. Okay, now I got that. Now I have a way to get paid. ⁓ now I need this this account. How do I build something and deliver something for people? ⁓ now I have that piece. So it was kind of figuring out all of the different pieces that I needed to have this thing called a business and and a delivery system, you know. ⁓ so that was kind of how I pieced it all together. Was there a moment Where you thought like, Okay, this is a real business now, like I'm really doing this thing. ⁓ probably when I got my first sale, I think, was probably the it was I think it was it was something cheap. It was like two thousand dollars or a thousand dollars or or something something very cheap ⁓ for somebody, some small idea somebody had. And ⁓ that was pretty cool seeing like, ⁓ there's money in the account and Somebody hired me for something and I hadn't even delivered on anything yet. Like it was like, ⁓ somebody prepaid for this service that I'm now about to provide. ⁓ I was like, ⁓ that's pretty cool. That that's that's an interesting. Now I gotta figure out how to do this. Like I was I was saying that I could do this. Now I have to, you know, and I not that I hadn't done it, but I I'd done it for myself. There was now someone else counting on me to do this type of stuff. I'd say I'd say that was kind of like the freelancer stage of like, ⁓ I realized I could do this for hire. ⁓ I don't know if there was a moment where I realized that you know I could do it full time. I mean, I kind of forced myself into that when I've when I quit my job, you know. I was kind of like, ⁓ now I really need to figure this out. ⁓ but yeah. ⁓ so tell me about the decision to quit your job. When did like how did you get up to that point? I think every I know I have a story. So what's your story for when you finally said I'm going all in? Yeah. ⁓ There was a couple actually. There was there was two different moments. So the one I was working in that sales job and they basically had a like an onboarding phase where you would work under someone and then you would go off on your own. And there was called it was called like a proving ground of like you had to hit a certain level of sales to stay on at the company. And if you didn't, you were actually automatically fired. And ⁓ I was one day away from ⁓ the deadline. And I was like $10,000 short of the goal. ⁓ and it was the the day before I think my twenty ninth birthday. And I was like, nah, I'm done. I'm gonna do it's like it like it was just like I knew I went in that morning. I was like, this is my last day. I gotta go, I gotta make it work. Looking back on it, I should have just let them fire me. I could have got unemployment for a while. ⁓ that was a mistake I made, ⁓ for sure. But I I, you know, it felt good to like take matters into my own hands, you know. ⁓ so then fast forward about a year or so, I was still really struggling on like how I was gonna make this work. ⁓ and I did actually take like a part another part-time sales gig for ⁓ like a small, you know, a small company where we sold, ⁓ we actually worked it was it was a it was a marketing firm for law firms. ⁓ and I did some sales and some things here and there. ⁓ and Again, I was also trying to stand up this business, but also was like, I need some money. So I was doing that job. And I wasn't doing any either one of them very well. And as you can imagine, ⁓ the one day the guy called me, the owner called me. He's like, hey man, this isn't working out. ⁓ you know, and he said and he said this. He said, My old boss gave me this advice I'm gonna give to you, Dan. Don't ever work another day in your life for someone else. He's like, You you can do this. I know you've been doing these other things. Clearly more invested in that, because you're not really doing anything over here. So off you and and to that day, I have not. I have not worked for some for someone else. So ⁓ so I've been holding up ⁓ the advice that he that he gave me on the day he fired me. So I love that. ⁓ it's something that I I say to myself in the current season that I'm in, that I can't imagine working for someone else. After decades of working for other people, I just I can't imagine it despite the hustle and all the stuff that you have to do. But some of my listeners are scared to kind of embark on this for timing. So you talked about like, hey, if you'd have hung out a little bit longer and they fired you, you would have gotten unemployment. For me, if I would have hung out a little longer, I had this big stock grant that they had given me, a retention grant. And I was like, I don't want to be retained. You can have your money. I'm leaving. So what Advice would you give for folks who might be scared to start because of this timing issue where it doesn't feel like that everything's lined up perfectly? Well, the first piece of advice I would give is that if you are doing it because you don't want to work for anyone else, just consider that now I don't have one boss. I have like 50 bosses because all my clients are, in a way, kind of my boss, right? Like they're they're paying my bills. So There there is there is something like that to consider. just because you think you might not you might be the boss, you you know. I would I would just think about that a little bit ⁓ for your listeners there because I didn't realize that. I like, ⁓ and and I I have to take direction from from these other people. ⁓ so that's one piece. But then ⁓ I'd say, you know, and it's it's it's it's tough to like what level of of financial, you know, ⁓ risk are you willing to take? How uncomfortable are you willing to be? Are you willing? Are you what's your bottom number? It's like if if your accounts below this number, are you okay with that? Can you go all the way down to zero dollars? Or are you you have to have 10 grand and they're 100 grand and they're like you know what I mean? Like figure out like a bottom number for yourself. and you know I'm not a I'm not a ⁓ financial expert by any means, but I would say if if you have if you have some basic things in place of like a service you can provide or a product that you have, you have a way to get paid for it and you have a way to maybe not predictably, but like relatively predictably get it out in front of people, like that's really all you need as a basic way to to make sure that you can make some money with something, right? ⁓ you can all like all this other stuff that we have is kind of bells and whistles. Like I realized the other day, like I have so much freaking software and I have so many tools that really if I strip them away, I don't really need them. But I've gotten to a point where I can afford them, I can use them, and I can use them to go faster, right? But when I was if I had to like draw back and get really, really lean, I that's all I would need. It was a marketing channel. A service to provide or a product to sell and a way to get paid for it. And like that's it. That that that's really the basis of what you need, you know. So yeah, but just be ready to be uncomfortable and and for people to question what you're doing. ⁓ can you handle that? You know, I had I had issues with ⁓ family relationships that happen from all of this, ⁓ which is very, very difficult to deal with. We still deal with some of that to this day. but you know, it it Gotta believe in yourself. You gotta, you gotta have faith. You gotta have not you know, you gotta have you gotta have grit, man. Like you really gotta be like, you know what? I'm gonna figure this out no matter. And I remember, you know, thinking that to myself, like, I am going to make this work no matter what happens. And and I was lucky, like, so my wife and I were expecting our our first child here soon, like next month. Congratulations. ⁓ thank you. Thank you. So at the time, you know, like I didn't have little kids to worry about. Had my wife and I to worry about, which was which made it a lot easier, you know. ⁓ but if I had a a small family of kids like that would have been a whole different calculation for me, you know. So it really depends on your situation, what what all you got going on, what you're trying to do. but I would try I would say, like, make sure you charge enough money. Make sure you like you can't just go and be like, I'm gonna sell this five dollar book, and then hopefully I'm gonna be able to pay my my mortgage and all my bills and and all in and everything like that. And it's like, well. It's easier to sell an expensive thing to one person than it is to spell sell a cheap thing to many, many, many, many, many, many people. ⁓ that's at least in my experience what I've found. So ⁓ that's that's kind of all that's maybe scattered advice, but those are hopefully some good nuggets in the Yeah. No, they're very good because I think one of the things listen, I I struggle with it because ⁓ for years I was on the other side of being in a position to pay the bills, but you know, the idea of like Pricing and value and getting what you're worth, I think is really hard for early stage entrepreneurs because there's that ⁓ tug and pull that you want the business. But then if you get into delivery and you realize what it takes to deliver and the value that you're delivering, right, you realize at some point, man, I should have charged more. Because what I'm having to put in in order to produce the result. Like I'm basically giving it away. And at some point, you got you can't do that. It's not sustainable. Yeah. And I mean, I'll just for your listeners, ⁓ I you know, I still struggle with that at times. To be to be very honest, be very upfront. You know, there are still projects that will take on where I'm like, man, why did we agree to this? Like, you know, it was it's not like we needed this business or something. And maybe it's maybe maybe it's just I have too much of a heart sometimes for people. ⁓ but yeah, no, I I still even after doing this for six years professionally, like there's still times where I struggle with that. So yeah, I I I would just have a little I've I have I have some empathy for that, you know. Yeah, and I I do as well, especially in the space that I'm in, working with small business owners where I know they have to be scrappy and resilient. But if you're providing a quality service, as the kids say, you gotta stand on business. And sometimes when you make concessions on your pricing, those are the clients or customers who will burn they'll run you into the ground. Like they will abuse you. That happens all the time. Because they don't appreciate the value because you're you're you're giving it away. I just heard you say we and so at some point you started adding team members. Is that and and tell me about that process. Yeah, well, so it was kind of up and down. So actually Around like 2022, 2023. ⁓ it was up to like six or seven people. ⁓ and actually completely ⁓ went back down to one after that. So I was growing and we were actually I was getting bigger. ⁓ and I realized that wasn't really something that I wanted to keep pursuing, to be honest. ⁓ I didn't really know how to manage people at the time. I didn't really know how to Like I said, I had a little bit of managing experience in my old job, but ⁓ when I was the one, you know, cutting the checks and and like when I was at Deloitte, I was just managing people, but I was getting paid by the company. I wasn't paying the people working under me underneath me, you know. Now it was like I was responsible for all that and keeping new business coming in and managing what they were doing. And I and and I failed at it. Like I I really did. I I failed at continuing to bring in new business while also managing people. I kind of got stuck on managing people more. And then realized, like, ⁓ I didn't quite have all the money to to pay as many people as I thought we were gonna. ⁓ just didn't have ⁓ that great of sales systems in place. So ⁓ kind of started all over again. And now ⁓ the basically the way that I have it set up is ⁓ it it it it's still me and now I have a like an army of AI people, AI agents that are doing a lot of stuff, and I also have an army of ⁓ contractors, right? So I'm still actually the only full-time employee at my firm at at what I've done. And I kind of set it up that way on purpose was because I have very good con I you know, I say I was bad at networking, but I've met some people in my space that ⁓ I can trust and I've used a lot. And so I have ⁓ those people that I really rely on for, you know, additional build or specific things that are going on. ⁓ and then outsourcing a lot of that to our AI agents and our different tools that we're using. ⁓ so it's pretty cool that I can kind of have almost like I wouldn't call myself a one-man army. Like I definitely have some like people there and again, they're contractors, they're not full-time employees for me, ⁓ but they do, you know, work a good amount p for me per week and per month. ⁓ but it we can like it can look like a a very large firm and produce at a level that's wildly higher in large part thanks to the AI breakthroughs that have been happening. We can just produce just 10x what we used to be able to produce, you know? How do you ⁓ especially so I'm not a tech person and I don't play one on TV, but I am a a heavy user, particularly now more with Claude. ⁓ what I understand about your business is leaning heavily into Like the no code world now that, you know, ⁓ an entity like Claude is leaning more into that, right? And allow and then is the whole vibe coding thing. How has that impacted your business either by enhancing it or detracting from it, becoming like headwinds for you in your business? Yeah. So about about this time last year, about a year ago, ⁓ it was really when I started to pay attention to this stuff. And I kind of had a panic moment. I w I did. I was like, man, I'm gonna be out of business here soon. Like I gotta figure something else out. ⁓ and then the more I I realized the more I played with it, the more I paid attention to it, the more I tried things out. About Q four last year, I realized this is where I gotta be and where I gotta go. And since then, it's been like wheat. ⁓ it it it has been a massive net. positive. I I love to cover all these stories about ⁓ developers are are dead. There's no need for developers. Bull. Like straight up crap. It it it's never been a better time to be in this. And that was what I realized if I could position I had a window where I if I could position that hey we're AI enabled ⁓ you know and and really it like you said like you said it's If if vibe coding, if Claude, if these tools like lovable allow anyone to build, what is the need for someone like me? Right? Well, you know, try to build that and then put it on the app store. Try to make sure that it's all the security vulnerabilities are are not out there. Make sure that it's all tested. Make sure when you change one thing with a little prompt, it doesn't break things over here and break things over here. Like there's so many things that have been happening with these that are slowly getting better, but also just people just don't have the time for. You know what I mean? Like before we jumped on here, I had like three different agents running and I've been working on all of those this morning because they've been giving me nothing but errors all morning. ⁓ wow. Right. So it's like, yeah. So to answer your question, yes, it has impacted my business tremendously, ⁓ because we have just been blowing up. Like we've been there's never been ⁓ I I can't even handle some of the work. And that was kind of going back to your earlier ⁓ Point about value was it finally allowed me to kind of step away from like, hey, like this is what this costs, my time is limited. Here's what I can do for you, but I don't have to ⁓ you know, I always had to like fight for like, ⁓ I need I need the business this month. I need the business this month. Now it's I can pick and choose who I work with because there's just so many people out there that are are using these tools, but. They're using them successfully, but there's people that still aren't, you know. ⁓ so it's been it's been a great it's been and then the other thing about it was using the old tools, like a bubble or a flutter flow or something like that. If you ever, you know, used a no-code tool builder before, was you still had to be there and you had to figure out how it all works and you had to move and there was nothing got done by itself. Now I can literally kick things off and I can go. do the dishes and come back and it's done. Or I can go walk my dog and it's done. Or I can we have we're having friends over tonight for a a gathering. I can go out and clean up the deck and do whatever I gotta do and it's getting work done for me. And it is like a massive productivity booster. ⁓ so it's just been I I get I get very excited. It it's it's just really, really fun. All right. So a little side quest as between Chat GPT and ⁓ Claude, because you're talking very importantly about running an AI enabled company. And I excuse me, live with the same predictions of doom about the legal profession. And ⁓ and I but I love the tools and I think that they enable if I had to try to start a firm by myself ten years ago without AI, I wouldn't have been able to do it because it just there's so many things that it enables me to do. But I'm like supremely confident that I'm not replaceable. ⁓ but just as a as tools and seeing all the new developments, and I'm just picking those two. I mean, I know there's Gemini and all the other things. Like when I'm hearing is so many people more people now talking about Claude, but maybe I'm just swimming in that pond. What are you seeing as between those two where is one better for one versus the other? Like where are you seeing those two partic tools in particular go? Yeah, I mean, I think I was in that bubble too. ⁓ you know, luckily one one of our friends that's coming over later. He's he's been in the development world for a long time and his company uses Chat GPT, ⁓ almost exclusively in Codex, right? ⁓ which is their coding tool. And he swears by it. He swears that it's, you know, it's just it's the best thing out there. They have so much so much more s and and it was but and he's he's very big in the X in ⁓ community where This is really where all of all stuff happens. To be honest, I don't do anything on X. I don't pay attention to anything on X. I get some cool things off there. If like a newsletter, you know, shares like, ⁓ this, check out this prompt on I'm like, ⁓ okay, cool. I'll go over there. ⁓ but this is this was kind of my journey with it. So when I s I started using ChatGPT just like everyone else, realized how cool it was. ⁓ I could save memories, upgrade it to the pro account. And I think I had like the twenty dollar account. I never did more than that. But then ⁓ Claude came along and one of the big guys in the space that I followed was like, you gotta move to Claude. You gotta move to it. And I was like, well, why? I don't really want to do this. And he talked about this AI operating system, this way that you could take Claude and it could basically be an entire operating system for your business. And as soon as I heard that, I was sold. I was like, that's what I want. I want to be able to talk to this thing and have it do 90% of running my business for me. So I followed along. I went to a couple of classes with him and like saw how they were building this thing. And I was like, so I was like, okay, Claude is where it's at. This was six months ago, it's seven months ago, right? and then Claude did probably, I think, the most genius product feature thing that I've ever seen from anything ever. What did they do on the little settings page? They said, hey, moving over from ChatGPT, here's a prompt where you can export everything from ChatGPT and move it over. That was when I saw that, I was like, dude, that is the most genius way to steal customers. Like ⁓ great, great, gr just like Chef's Kiss move, you know. So I was like, ⁓ copy, went over to Chat GPT, had it export my stuff, copied it over, boom, I'm done. Like it was Like d ⁓ it just it was just it's just amazing. ⁓ so anyway, I I mean I still have the free chat GPT account. I use it when I I mean again, I use it for kind of some more personal things. Even this morning I was I was chatting and it's I I s I sent it like four messages and then it was like, Hey, you're done with messages till like this afternoon. I was like, hmm, that's pretty interesting. But ⁓ Claude, claw when I switched over to Claude, the the usage was something I was not used to of like, ⁓ I got capped. I was like, What do you mean? Like this is I now have I've things to do, you know? but then they signed that deal with SpaceX and like instantly overnight, I've never hit a a usage limit ever. Like not once since then. ⁓ so to be honest, I use it, you know, I use it for everything. ⁓ Except I will say the image generation is terrible. I use ChatGPT for that. Claude will give you bunch of crap about generating images or editing images or anything like that. It's really annoying, at least for me. So if I ever need that, I go over ChatGPT. I have a couple of other tools that have, you know, that embedded in it as well that I can just ask for that because Claude is garbage at that, I think. but other than that, I mean. with the code that it does. I mean, I'm diving more and more into cowork and that's really been helping a lot of what like our processes and stuff. ⁓ yeah, I think it's just amazing. It really is. Yeah. I I am in a in a group and they taught us how to do the skills and then how to do the age. And so even taught us how to ⁓ do lead generation and then have the database built in notion where you can like go through it every day. And that's what so it's just It's just been ⁓ fun. I be I'm I'm a mature woman of a certain age, and it it is actually something that excites me that they can make the technology accessible. Like that even and I know chat does this as well, but like even when you hit a wall, you just say, like, I don't understand why you're doing that. Can you explain it to me? Like I've hit a I've hit a block here. Can you you know, my favorite phrase in the real world, help me understand? ⁓ but for Small business owners who are trying to be more tech enabled, more AI enabled, how would you guide them on like assessing their tech stack? Because there are a million tools out there and as a small business owner, a limited budget. So how should we be thinking about where to place those bets so that we don't have twenty thousand tools that we barely touch? It's a very good question. Yeah. So I I have a a a a process. I'm I wouldn't say I'm fully done with it. I'm about 90% of the way done with it of kind of auditing this, aud auditing this. And I want to I actually do want to sell it as a product. So shameless plug there. ⁓ but ⁓ but yeah, it would go through and you would actually have a way of self-interviewing of okay, what do you use for this and this and go through your bookmarks because you probably got all those tools bookmarked somewhere, you know? and And then really just kind of s having it think through what can be what's dupli what's duplicated, what's unnecessary, ⁓ you know, what is a priority of must have, you know, critical mission critical of if I didn't have Stripe, for example, like I couldn't function as a business. ⁓ you know, things like that. So yeah, there's a whole could do a whole episode on on all of that. But I've I've done that with a couple of of people is actually go like. Do a almost like a Zoom kind of meeting like this where we can kind of audit what's going on, how what kind of tech you're using, and then figuring out from there how we could streamline things, how we could cut things out, ⁓ combine things or whatever. But again, stay focused on the the the mission critical things of what do you sell, how do you sell it, and where do you market it? ⁓ and anything else is is kind of falls into those buckets. And if you have three ways to get paid, like that's great. You do want to have multiple. you know, payment processors in case one goes down or has issues. ⁓ but for me, I realized that I had like three different website building tools at one point. And I was like, why, why do I need those? I don't I don't need that at all. Right. So I was able to cancel those things. yeah, another another good way to kind of do a quick and I call you know, the quick and dirty audit of this is just look at your bank statement or a credit card statement. And realize what actually is coming out either on an annual or monthly basis because you'll see what you're actually paying for. And then you can go through it and say, ⁓ list out all my subscriptions. What what am I paying for? ⁓ why I don't even use this thing that's going through. So that's a really quick and I call it the quick and dirty way of of going through and auditing what you're what you're actually paying for. Because when you get to a place like me, sometimes I I actually did that and I realized I it was almost like a like a you know, Experian has ways you can like cut out bills or sc cancel things. I was able to cut like four like four five subscriptions out of just doing that myself. Yeah, I am I'm already to do that. I have ⁓ I use Rocket Money, which I guess is an intuitive product. That's okay. And this is not a plug for them. But you know, but it helps you track and see like where the money is going and gives you like some good data so that you can unsubscribe, cancel, all those things. Another thing that I just do not always successfully is before you get that tool. Do you already have one that does that? Because I find like not the kind of financial redundancy that you talked about, like a payment system and making sure you can still get paid. I just mean like what if YouTube and Riverside can create thumbnails, why the heck do I still have thumbnail creator and it's freaking expensive? So like things like that. Like, do you does the does this capability already exist in a tool that I'm already paying for before I go out and buy something else? It's just Something that I challenge myself with, sometimes not successfully, but other times yes. Yeah. All right, Dan, I want to get you out of here on this. ⁓ I ask every one of my guests, when you hear the phrase do small business like a big boss, what does that mean to you? What does that mean to me? ⁓ yeah, I mean, I think ⁓ to me that means a mindset. To me, that means that even though Like someone like me, right? Who I is still, you know, I actually I I intentionally retracted. I didn't just keep on growing. I actually made the intentional decision to retract, but I I still have that I I never lost that mindset of how how how do I how do I continue to grow ⁓ my my revenue while, you know, producing my expenses, but You know, how do I how do I show up when I do my podcast, when I do podcast shows like this, how do I show up with like with that mindset of I'm not just like a guy doing this on his computer, but like someone that has experience, that has real world things to share, that has, you know, real world experience and and like failures to share, you know? ⁓ but how do you how do you operate? you know, you don't have to operate like you're the the CEO of a of a trillion dollar company. But how do you continue to max maximize efficiency and always improve? You know, to me, I think that that's that's just the mindset that that I go into that I go into a lot of these ⁓ you know, even just podcasts, but also just like my my weekly routine with ⁓ I think that's that's that's what it means to me. Awesome. And Dan, where can the people find you out in the interwebs and elsewhere in the world? Yeah, absolutely. So ⁓ I would say my podcast is actually one of the best places to ⁓ engage, engage with me, which you can find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere that that is. There's a link to it ⁓ at our website, DapperNocode.com. It's called the No Code Advantage. ⁓ and that is probably where I'm I'm most active, or you can check it out on ⁓ on LinkedIn as well. Awesome. Well, Dan, thank you so much for your time and just all the gems that you dropped. ⁓ for my listeners out there. If you got some value out of this episode, please ask that you go and you, you know, like and subscribe because it helps the show grow. But just remember, that's all I got for you today. But you gotta remember you can build the dream messy. You can build the dream scared. Just don't build it small. That's all we got for you today. And we'll see you next time. Thank you.