No Coding Skills, No Problem: Navigating AI Tech for Non-Techies with Max Haining

Have you ever felt overwhelmed in the process of trying to learn new tech skills? 

You’re not alone. 

Max Haining, founder at 100DaysOfNoCode, started the 100DaysOfNoCode community out of this sense of overwhelm and in hopes of empowering non-techies to arm themselves with the basic knowledge required to successfully navigate the world of tech and B2B SaaS. 

With over 20,000 professionals already empowered by his approach, Max is improving tech literacy one day at a time. In his conversation with Rachel Ann Kreis, VP of Marketing at Landbot, and Jiaqi Pan, CEO & Co-Founder at Landbot, Max dives into the challenges and rewards of upskilling, adaptability, and personal betterment without ever having to learn code. 

Turning “Dumb” Tech Questions Into a Fully-Fledged Business

Enduring his own painful tech skill-learning journey, including facing challenges in both marketing and sales, led Max Haining to establish and nurture the 100DaysOfNoCode community. 

“The level that I was coming into the professional landscape of marketing, sales, and business with was essentially growing up being able to save a file on Microsoft Word. I realized I actually needed to start learning tech skills if I was going to add value to anyone or any business,” says Max.

With his ability to use tech low on the spectrum compared to his colleagues, Max faced a bit of imposter syndrome. From there, he set out on his painful yet impactful path of developing his technical skill set. 

The process was incredibly unstructured. Max began by trying to piece together different articles, YouTube clips, Tweets, threads, and any other resources he felt might help him overcome imposter syndrome and increase his skillset along the way.

“The only thing guiding my acceleration along my learning journey was the ‘dumb’ questions that I was thinking in my head. Over time, I was able to unlock the answers to them,” Max says. 

He then turned those answers into courses and programs that other non-techies can take advantage of through 100DaysOfNoCode.

The Importance of Tech Literacy and Upskilling in the World of AI

Improving tech literacy and upskilling yourself is imperative for overcoming imposter syndrome and self-doubt in the world of tech. 

“It’s very important, especially in a startup, that we always keep improving and adapting to the new environment we’re facing,” Max says. 

This is especially true in the ever-evolving artificial intelligence landscape, where things are seemingly changing at the speed of light. A company that is unable to keep up with its competitors is sure to become outdated and will ultimately end up phased out. 

Leaders will benefit from encouraging their team members to learn new skills and concepts on a weekly basis. It might even be in your best interest to advise teams to carve out time in their daily working schedule for personal development, especially when it comes to adopting AI into sales and marketing procedures. 

Leveraging AI in Marketing and Sales through an Experimental Mindset

Adopting an experimental mindset for AI learning and implementation in marketing and sales leads to an increased ability to harness AI for tasks like crafting compelling messaging and streamlining sales processes. Furthermore, organizations can then leverage AI-driven data analysis to achieve personalized outreach strategies. 

But where does the process of leveraging AI in business really begin?

It begins with changing your mindset. 

“The thing that helped me learn generative AI more quickly was the idea of applying an AI-native mindset to everything I'm doing. Instead of simply sitting down to write a document, I approach it by considering how I can write the document with AI,” Max says. 

An AI-native approach naturally leads toward using and trying out a variety of tools to better understand what AI is and isn’t good for and which tools are best. Max highly encourages other professionals to use this approach, first applying it to low-risk problems or situations. 

The Evolving Relationship Between No-Code and AI

One way to recognize how no-code and AI are related is to think of AI as no-code on steroids. 

The premise of a no-code solution is to enable non-technical people to get access to technology and to be able to adopt those technologies to improve their work or their productivity. AI is one of those with no coding solutions.

“AI and no-code is a nice combination because when you're combining no-code and AI tools, you’re combining the customizability of the visual with the ease and speed of tech space prompting and creating solutions more easily and quickly,” Max says. 

The synergy between AI and no-code emphasizes intuitive design to enhance product usability and marketing effectiveness and better enables companies to create user-friendly conversational interfaces. 

Making No-Code and AI Solutions More Accessible to Non-Techies

Being aware of the benefits of no-code and AI solutions might be enough to gain the interest of non-techies. Still, the knowledge gap is often a seemingly insurmountable barrier to utilizing these solutions productively. 

So, how do Max and his team appeal to non-techie professionals and marketing and sales processes to get people to sign up for his 100DaysOfNoCoding courses?

They simply meet them where they are. 

“We put ourselves in their shoes and think about what they're feeling at any moment in time as well as what challenges they face when they're entering this new space. Then we can lead with reliability and authenticity.”

This approach allows Max and 100DaysOfNoCode to lower the barrier by creating a story that relates to exactly how a particular client has experienced entering into tech. 

Furthermore, he and his team ditch the jargon when interacting with tech newcomers by communicating in ways that are more accessible to beginners while also spotlighting stories that help people see themselves in relation to others who have gone through 100DaysOfNoCode programs.

“Even if a client is convinced they’re really bad at tech, when they see themselves in someone else or a collective of people that are or were like them, they are far more likely to believe it,” Max says. 

Those emotional selling points, messaging pieces, and positioning pieces help drive non-techie interest and lead them to adoption, which increases the opportunity to build and leverage a community. 

How to Leverage Community to Encourage Career Growth

Once non-techies have bought in and joined the no-code community, so how can you leverage that community to keep the momentum going?

The process starts with reframing views on what community is and shifting to a multi-platform approach. Often, community is seen as a sort of concept — think Slack channels and data points tracking engagement as a measurement of success.

The multi-platform approach is similar to the process of engaging non-techies in that the intent is to meet users where they currently are. 

“Often, we see more engagement on LinkedIn, Twitter and other platforms than we would in a brand-owned community. What we've done then is try to facilitate community on those platforms,” Max says. 

Max and his team garner engagement by utilizing hashtags related to 100DaysOfNoCode and 100DaysOfAI to encourage people to share their daily learning progress and get connected with the community. Then, Max hops on his own social media platforms and further engages by commenting on posts and tagging users to connect similar journeys. He explains: “We've blended the approach to learning that we believe is most powerful for learners with our own organic marketing, so the learning process also is our organic growth engine.”

He and his team firmly believe that learning in public — aka sharing your progress — makes you more accountable while simultaneously opening you up to more opportunities. 

Interested in learning more? Listen to our full conversation with Max on the latest episode of Ungated Conversations, where we dive into navigating tech as a non-techie through no code and AI and discuss the importance of tech literacy, upskilling, and leveraging community to support self-development. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player.