In this verified episode, Sophia Matveeva, Founder and CEO of Tech for Non-Techies, shares how to turn your idea into a validated product without coding in stage 1. If you struggle with shiny ideas that never launch or fear wasting time and money on unproven concepts, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What to do when feedback shows your idea won’t work so you can move on fast
– Why validating demand matters far more than learning to code or building the perfect product
– How to quickly test your idea with a simple AI mockup and real target users
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the Start scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a founder, I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and this episode is for every one of you out there listening who has a great idea for a product, an app or some other technology, but honestly, has no idea how to turn it into a reality, or, even more than that, a thriving business. Well, today’s guest, Soviet matveyeva has built an education company trusted by Oxford University, TechStars, the Royal Bank of Canada as well, specifically to help people like you go from idea to a launched product without having to learn to code. Her work has been featured in Financial Times, Harvard Business Review and Forbes. For those of you listening, welcome to the show. Sophia Matveeva, we’re excited to have you here. First question out of the gate is, it’s how we set it up, but so many founders out there, there’s so many opportunities for for great ideas and being able to bring them to life. But in some ways, it’s a lot harder to find the right ideas. So for those who are who are worried about, you know, whether or not they can code, is that really the first thing that they should be worried about, or is there something even before that?
Sophia Matveeva
I actually think it really isn’t, and especially it wasn’t even before the age of AI. But in the age of AI, it’s even less important. So the most important thing is, is there an actual opportunity in the thing that you want to create? By which I mean, are there people who have the problem that you want to solve, and are they willing to pay to solve the problem, and do they have the money? So are they willing and able to pay to solve the problem? Once you’ve figured that out, and then you’ve also figured out, is the market big enough? Because, you know, if there are, there are only 10 people and they’re all willing and able to pay, well, your price would be better be, you know, really, really impressive, once you’ve figured that out, the how it’s actually becoming much, much more easy to solve, but even before the age of AI, frankly, if there was a really good commercial opportunity, you could always convince investors to back you. You could always convince technical people to join you. Because, frankly, you know, we are living in a capitalist society. So if you see a genuinely, genuinely big opportunity to make a lot of money, you can get people to help you to figure out how to create it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so take us through then let’s kind of look at this from a process standpoint. The very beginning, someone’s sitting there, they’re in their day job, bored out of their mind, daydreaming about what could be, and they’re like, there’s got to be a better way to do this. I’ve got an idea. Where do you go from there?
Sophia Matveeva
So actually, this is a fair amount of our students who are corporate High Flyers, who got to a certain level, and now they’re thinking, Okay, I really don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. So then what we say to them is that we can’t tell you if your idea is good or not. The only people who can tell you the only real bosses that’s actually the market. So this is where founders start, or aspiring founders start thinking, oh, I need to do research. I need to send out surveys, or I need to read the McKinsey Quarterly to find out, you know, the market sentiment, that’s actually not what you need to do. The thing that you need to do is to create the thing that you want to create and get it out to your target market. So get it out to your target users. So previously, before the age of AI, creating this, if you had no experience with technology, no experience with software, would have required at least working with a designer, not working with developers, but at least working with a professional who knows how to create, how to create the design of an app, or how to create the design of a platform.
And that still cost money, so you would still need to make an investment of maybe, like 20 to $40,000 and a couple of weeks of just that professional working. The good news now is that actually that skill set has, at some level, not completely, but at some level, been replaced by by AI. So you can create a very simple test version of your product using AI. This is not the thing that you’ll sell. This is literally just a mock up with that you go to your target customers, and you have to be really careful that your target customers are not your mom, they’re not your friends, they’re actual people who would be willing to say, No, this is terrible. I would never use this. So go to your target customers, get feedback from them, and really listen to that feedback, and don’t just hear what you want to hear. And essentially, from this process, you can start figuring out, are you on the right track? Is this worth pursuing? Because if it’s worth pursuing, then it makes sense to invest more of your time, and it makes sense to take this AI mock up and. Turn it into a real thing, which does require hiring professionals, but yeah, the only way you get going is by creating something that people can see and feel and interact with. So for anybody listening, if you’re if you’re going around and saying, Oh, I’ve got this idea, and I’m working on a pitch deck, my advice to you is, stop the pitch deck, unless somebody with money has said to you, I want to see a pitch deck in the pitch deck. If the pitch deck is good, I’ll give you money like that’s the only, that’s the only time the pitch deck is worth your time, yeah. If otherwise, make a thing, show it to people and go from there.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So I think this is wonderful, wonderful because starting a business isn’t about creating a product, it’s finding a profitable, sustainable market, something we go on and on about all the time. And I love this focus that you have on it, because there are so many good things that really are a distraction. There’s so many normal things that really don’t move you forward, especially if you haven’t figured this out in the first place. But the question that I have for you. So someone’s got an idea. Here’s this problem that I can solve. How do you how do you think about defining who the target customer is? Because it’s easy to go to the person who’s sitting in the cubicle next to you, or to your mom, like you said, or to your friends or or to some business guy that you know, how do you go about actually defining that target customer in the first place.
Sophia Matveeva
So it’s all about the problem that you’re solving. So is this person the ideal person who has that problem? So, you know, and this is where you really need to drill down. And frankly, it’s also testing, because, you know, maybe you’re solving a problem for sleep deprived mothers. I am one of those. So if anybody’s got that solution, then, yes, please tell me. But you know, one asleep, deprived mother, entrepreneur is going to be different. To say, a state a stay at home mom, there’s going to be a different target market. So even when you choose the target market, and you think you’re right in your experimentation, in your user interviews, you will start seeing that actually my product appeals to this subsection, and then you niche down further and further and further. And this is what’s so great about having a product to show to people and then going to them, because you first need a hypothesis. And the hypothesis is basically a guess. It’s your best guess.
So you think that, you know, I’m solving this problem for I don’t know, cat owners who want to go on vacation and don’t know what to do with their cats in my city. And so you basically start looking for anybody who has a cat, and then you realize that actually you need people who go on very long vacation. So maybe they’re going to be a certain wealth bracket, or they go on very long business trips. So they’re going to be people within a certain profession. But you’re only going to find this out by speaking to people and by realizing that actually, oh, you know, the people who are going away for three days are not going to need my service. It’s only a three week thing who goes away for three weeks. This is why, at the beginning, yes, you’re sitting by yourself basically, and you you’re taking a guess, but you only take the guess once. You only let guess work once. After that, you base your decision making on data. You speak to people. You see where are you resonating? You you find more people like that where you’re not resonating. You don’t keep on finding more people to basically just hearing more notes.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so we’ve got this idea. We’ve kind of, we’ve talked to folks that we think are in the target market. We’ve realized it’s a little more subtle than that, a little more specific than that. We’re drilling in and they’re like, they’re showing some interest, but they’re like, We want to see it. And you talked about this used to be a process with a designer, 2030, $40,000, it’s a big investment before you know if it’s going to work. What does that look like now in the AI age?
Sophia Matveeva
So in the age of AI, what you need to do, and you actually needed to do exactly the same thing, but with a professional. So the thing that you need to do is to create a very simple version of your product. And I’ll talk about an app, because we all, we can all imagine what an app is like. So your app version, your app test version, needs to be five to seven screens, so literally, just showing the core functionality. So let’s imagine that you were, let’s say, creating Tinder. You would just need to show the swipe, you know, swipe left, swipe right, and matching chat functionality and and a profile shot. That’s it. You wouldn’t need to have login screens, forgot password screens, because, you know, they don’t prove anything. So you just need five to seven screens that show your idea. Previously, a designer would have had to do this. Now there’s a whole host of tools that can help you learn how to do that. And if you go on our website, if you go in tech for non techies.co, you’ll see a free AI class that helps you to create this test version. With this test version, you then go to only five people, and you interview five. Five people, you show them the thing, and you do your best not to sell. So when you go to five people, your mindset is, I’m an anthropologist.
I’m not a salesperson. And this is super, super important, because as founders, everything in us basically is like, here is my creation, and especially if it’s your first one. You know, I’ve now created so many things. I’m kind of used to things not working, so when they do, I’m quite happy. But you know, as you get further in your journey, you release so many different things. You’re kind of less wedded to the first one. But for the early stage, people like your first idea, it’s literally like, here is my work, like offering to God, and you have to do your best to make sure that your target users are not feeling that. Because people want to be nice and they want to people please. And if you basically, if you’re too obvious about how keen you are on your thing, people will say, yeah, yeah, I’ll definitely use this. This is great. I’ll definitely pay for it. And then what you end up doing is you end up hiring developers and actually paying for people to code your thing, which is, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars, potentially. And then you realize that all your users lied to you just because you were essentially too keen, so be an anthropologist, not a salesperson. And last thing so good, I want to make sure that the audience knows that I mentioned. Speak to five users. You don’t need big data, you don’t need hundreds of people. You just need five target users, because Google Ventures research shows that the first four users uncover 85% of the problems in your product. So they always say, get four people, but get the fifth one, because we live in a culture where people bail.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, that’s, that’s really cool. So here’s, here’s, I think, the biggest challenge with this, and that is what happens when those folks don’t like it. Because for, I think for you and I, and I might be speaking out of turn here, but just from some of your work and what you focused on, I think this would be true of you as well. So correct me, if it’s not, but a lot of things just aren’t going to work, right? So most ideas fail and and some of that can be improved, like some good ideas fail, and we don’t want that to happen. And so there’s, there’s, you know, some right and wrong ways to get an idea to market the right idea, but a lot of this is actually finding the cheapest way to get the bad ideas to fail, so that we don’t waste as much money when you put that out in front of five people, and you’re real disciplined to not sell and they highlight some really significant problems, like it’s just not something that I would pay for. Let’s assume that they were willing to go that far. How do you walk away from that idea?
Sophia Matveeva
Well, you know, I literally just recorded a podcast episode that just just came out, literally this week, because this happened to one of our students. So what happened to her was that she had an idea for an enterprise software product which solved a genuine problem, but that problem was felt by junior staff that basically weren’t paid very well, and so they didn’t have any budget responsibility, and the senior people basically didn’t really care about the junior people suffering, and they didn’t, you know, they weren’t willing to pay to solve this problem. And so she found this out, and I remember catching up with her, and she was so grateful for this process, because she said, Well, I found this out in six weeks. Just, you know, for for the small price of your program, which is just $2,000 and she had previously actually created tech products before, so she knows how expensive it is to actually get a team and get it done. And so, you know, she was, yes, kind of disappointed, because we’re human.
Her emotional side was disappointed because she was quite excited about this idea. But her sensible side, you know, this, the side that pays for things, was really, really glad that actually, she found this out so quickly. And, yeah, what? What happens when you go through this process properly? Is no matter what happens, you’re set to win, because product innovation, especially using AI, is a 21st Century skill set. So if you want to be an entrepreneur, you will at some point create something that works. But in order to get to the thing that works, you probably have to go through loads and loads of iterations of things that don’t sometimes they’ll be completely different industries like you just need to experiment. And the product innovation process that we teach, which is really inspired by Google Ventures, but now adapted to the current technological landscape, that is the process that is going to keep on teaching, that’s going to keep on helping you to innovate. So, yeah, yeah, of course, it’s disappointing, but focus on the long term, not on the short term.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s so good. Sophia, there’s another question that I have for you that it’s same question I ask all my guests. I’m very interested to see what you’d have to say. But the question is this, what is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Sophia Matveeva
Well, you know, Scott, it’s not a secret, but every time I hear it, I still get surprised, is that entrepreneurship is just so hard. It’s just so hard. And I think that even when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re having your hard time, and you’re seeing everybody else, like seeing all these other founders succeeding on Instagram, on LinkedIn, and you’re like, oh, no, you know why? Everybody’s figured it out. And I am the only loser everybody. I just want people to know that every single entrepreneur thinks this at every single stage. I used to think that, okay, this is only a thing that you go through in the early stages. But then, you know, when you’re really successful, actually, you don’t feel it. I have a friend who literally, ipoed his company, like, and you would think, okay, IPO like, that’s, you know, that that’s it. He’s made it. And we still have the same conversation. He’s like, Oh, my God. You know this is terrible. Nobody knows, like, nobody knows how bad it is. I’m only telling you because you’re a fellow founder, and when, when you’re having that hard time, and you hear that from a fellow founder, I think it helps to know that, okay, this is supposed to be difficult, and it never really gets easier, but I think you just get used to it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so true, so true. It’s yeah, we, every founder I know, wants to graduate from it being hard, and there are seasons where, where things are wonderful. It’s not that it’s all bad, but it’s a it’s a lot hard, and I think you’re totally on with that, and, and, and I also think the other thing I love about what you said is we can find each other in that space as founders. I think that’s really important. So reaching out to others, knowing you’re not alone, such a big deal. Sophia, there’s some folks who that’s just right message, right moment. They’ve got an idea, they want to bring it to market. They don’t know if it’s going to work. Where can they reach out to you? Where can they find out more about you and the training that you offer?
Sophia Matveeva
So the best thing for free learning is go to the Tech Funnel Techies Podcast, and there are lots and lots of free lessons that’s been running for about six years now. And if you want to join our tech, fun and technical founders program, that’s an accelerator program, especially for non technical founders. And one of the people that we have actually coaching on your product is the guy who launched Instagram filters to 600 million people, and he’s only he’s doing that with us. Now I don’t know if we I don’t know if we’ll manage to keep him, but essentially, if you are listening to this, when it comes out, go to tech phone, tech phone on techies.co and you will see information about the program, and you can join us there.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Highly recommend it. Excellent site. Lots of great stuff on there. The podcast is fantastic as well. I would highly recommend that. And Sophia, thanks for being on the show. It was really a privilege having you here. Great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. And for those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Sophia Matveeva
Sophia Matveeva helps smart people without engineering backgrounds build, lead, and grow tech-enabled businesses. She is the founder and CEO of Tech for Non-Techies, an education company trusted by Oxford University, Techstars, Tamkeen, and global brands such as the Royal Bank of Canada. Through executive education, advisory, and workforce transformation programs, Sophia equips organizations to scale innovation, upskill non-technical leaders, and drive success in the AI economy. The Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes have featured her work, and she has delivered programs at Oxford University, London Business School, and Chicago Booth.
Want to learn more about Sophia Matveeva’s work at Tech for Non-Techies? Check out her website at https://www.techfornontechies.co/
Connect with Sophia through her LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophia-matveeva-556365a/