Interview With Landbot Co-Founder, Jiaqi Pan
Interview with Landbot Co-Founder Jiaqi Pan on no-code industry, business growth, market trends, and entrepreneurial insights
TABLE OF CONTENTS
💼 Business questions
Can you describe what it is about the no-code industry that you like?
- Value-driven: Unlike AI or blockchain, which are hype or even BS-driven, the no-code industry has very solid fundamentals where it focuses more on providing value to customers.
- Open community: People in the no-code space are building some of the most helpful and open communities to welcome new members as well as sharing experiences to help the industry progress faster.
- Huge market potential: With cloud solutions, we have 20M developers building all sorts of software; and with no-code solutions, we could have 300M Citizen developers/makers building even more solutions which will be a huge paradigm change.
Can you describe your company/platform in the length of a tweet? (140 characters)
Landbot helps makers to automate business workflows across multiple communication channels in an easy, flexible and fun way. - Jiaqi Pan
Can you share any exciting updates or developments that are planned for Landbot in the next 12 months?
We are planning on launching solutions to help non-technical users manage highly complex processes like user authentication, payment data processing, etc.
What do you believe will be the biggest trend in no-code in the next 5 years?
We believe that the distribution of no-code solutions will be very challenging as the entry barrier to create software will be significantly lower over time. Therefore, one or several meta-platforms will emerge to help makers distribute their solutions to end-users.
Any advice for non-technical entrepreneurs with an idea for an online business who are put off by limited technical skills?
The key to doing any kind of business is to think first about the customer. I think no-code solutions only solve the problem of building products (the what), but we still have to figure out why customers are going to use our product, and how we can deliver more value than existing alternatives.
🧔 Personal questions
Did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
Not always. Growing up, my dream was to become Ironman, which is why I studied Electronic and Automation Engineering. However, there was one book that changed my life, it’s called “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. It has a magic power to brainwash my mind and drag me into the “dark side” of the business world.
What are some of the obstacles you have faced growing your company and how did you overcome them?
The number one problem I think every business faces is how to go from 0 to 1, aka finding our product-market fit. We started actually as a consumer tech company offering personal assistance to consumers with a conversational experience. But we couldn’t find the product-market fit with that model, so we had to pivot our business into a B2B SaaS like we are today.
The key for us was to try to understand the fundamentals of the business and be honest with ourselves about whether our initial hypothesis was right or wrong. Once we realized that the initial business model didn’t work, we had to change and define the hypothesis around the new model.
What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
Working alone makes you go faster, but working with a team makes you go further.
🤪 Fun questions - quickfire
12 start-ups in 12 months vs 1 start-up in 1 year?
I would do 12 startups in the first 6 months to figure out which one works and focus on the winner after that.
Investment vs bootstrapping?
Depends largely on your background and ambitions. I would go bootstrapping in the beginning to validate the business and leverage investment to scale it.
Zoom vs Google Meets?
I am a huge fan of Zoom in the early days, but lately, it’s becoming quite a frustrating experience to use it. I would say for longer sessions (+40 min) and quality is key, go for Zoom, and for shorter sessions (less than 10-20 min), go for GM.
Ideation stage vs Development stage?
Same as before.