The following interview is a conversation we had with Prakash Chandran, Co-Founder and CEO of Xano.com, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: $5.4 Million Raised to Build the Next Generation of No-Code Backend Development.

Prakash Chandran
Hey, thank you so much, Brett. I’m happy to be here. 

Brett
No problem. Super excited to chat. So to kick things off, could we just start with a quick summary of who you are and maybe just a bit more about your background? 

Prakash Chandran
Sure. So yeah, I grew up in Southern California. I have been in tech in some flavor or some form for most of my life. Most notably, I spent a bunch of years at Google. I came over from a Picasso acquisition. I don’t know if you remember Picassa photo organization software. It eventually became Google Photos and then did ux at Google for a while. And then after that some startup experience. And that led us today, a. 

Brett
Few questions we like to ask. And the goal here is really just to better understand what makes you tick. First one is what Founder do you admire the most and what do you admire about them? 

Prakash Chandran
So I personally really like Brian Cheske of Airbnb. I know that it might be a pretty common choice, but I just admire that he had a design background because I’m formerly a designer and I really like his systems way of thinking, how he sees the world and how he’s a very horizontal thinker. I think he has really improved himself from traditional just form design and now understands all the different systems and the designs of organizational structure and he thinks about running the company in that way. 

Brett
Nice. Yeah. He’s such a fascinating entrepreneur. And because he worked at Google there in, what was it, I think 2004. Can you just tell us what Google was like back then? Yeah. 

Prakash Chandran
So that was the most crazy time to be at Google. It was like the number one company in the world, bar none. It was a very exciting time to be there and it was really just kind of a time where a lot of amazing products that we all use today was being born, really. So when I was know Gmail was just coming out of invitation only. Google Calendar was being designed and a lot of these properties around basically what was forming and shaping our tech ecosystem were being built. So it was really amazing. I joined the company when it was like 1400 people, so much smaller than it is today. 

Brett
Was it clear back in 2004 how big Google was going to be? 

Prakash Chandran
Man, I’d like to think that I knew it was going to have a very big impact and that’s frankly because even at 1400 people it was having a global impact. But I don’t think anyone could have anticipated how big the company could get and the number of verticals that it could enter into. 

Brett
What was like the highlight, would you say, of working at Google and your time? 

Prakash Chandran
Know, I just think it’s always the people I got to work with, some amazing people that really just inspired me. I was very lucky. Google was effectively my first job out of school and so I came in with a lot of imposter syndrome. I didn’t really know much about anything, I was just a visual designer. But I think I really was able to grow up there and be mentored by just a lot of amazing leaders. And Google just facilitated such an amazing work environment and all the benefits and things that you read about. So it was just like really getting paid to learn under really intelligent people. 

Brett
Another question that we like to ask, and this one is about books. And we took this from Ryan Holiday, who’s an author that I really like and he calls him quake books. So he defined a quickbook as a book that rocks you to your core and just really influences how you think about the world and how you approach life. Do any quake books come to mind for you? 

Prakash Chandran
Well, sorry, since you are mentioning Ryan Holiday, I know one of the books know he talks a lot about is atomic habits. Right? And that’s by James clear. And I think the thing I like so much about it and I know a lot of people reference this book, is there’s a quote that says every action that you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become. So I would say that’s number one. And I think the second is extreme ownership by Jocko Willink. And of course the quote that I like there is that discipline equals, you know, those two books, it’s really just around how to be more productive, how to really execute and shape your life through action. 

Brett
Sounds like you and I read the same stuff and follow a lot of the same people. Those are two of my favorites as well. Have you read the latest book from Jocko Willock? It’s actually called Discipline equals freedom. 

Prakash Chandran
No, I actually have not read that book. So he actually wrote a book with that quote. That’s so funny. But, yeah, I just absolutely love it, and I just really live by that. I think in such a simple statement, you kind of just embodies everything that you need to really be successful in life, in your finances, in your physical health, et cetera. 

Brett
Yeah, totally agree. You have to check out that other book from him. It’s more of like a coffee table book. It’s more of like, kind of like a daily reader, I guess, is how I would describe it, where it’s not this long story. It’s essentially just like the best jocko quotes and mini rants on a specific topic, and then you just do the next. So if you’re into the first book, you’ll love this one. 

Prakash Chandran
Oh, absolutely. I can’t wait. I’ll definitely get it. 

Brett
Nice. Now let’s switch gears and let’s dive a bit deeper into the company. So how we like to start this is just really focused on the problem. So how do you articulate the problem that you solve? 

Prakash Chandran
Yeah, so the problem that we solve, if you think about the industry at large today in tech, there’s really a constraint on engineering resources. They’re either too expensive, they’re not available, or the engineers that you have are focused on the core roadmap. But what ends up happening is stakeholders and product owners. They have their own projects, and this causes a backlog because the engineers just can’t get to them. So they need tools to basically build the software that they need themselves, but they need those tools to be enterprise ready. And so there’s lots of no code tools that they’ve previously used, like Zabi or an airtable, et cetera. But they may not necessarily scale to what their organization needs. And that’s kind of where Xano has been born. 

Prakash Chandran
And the problem that it solves is just basically unblocking these product owners to be able to build without limitation. 

Brett
And take me back to 2018, when you were first starting. What was it about this problem specifically that made you say, yes, that’s it. I’m going to build a company around this, because I’m sure you had different options. There are probably a lot of different problems you could have gone after. What was it about this problem? 

Prakash Chandran
Well, I kind of mentioned the organizational problem, but just broadly speaking, I think software development, especially around engineering, has always just been opaque. Right. You have to learn how to code to really get a piece of software off the ground, which obviously makes sense, but as a failed startup Founder, my first startup, the constraint was the engineering resource, and I spent a lot of time and money in trying to build my own product. So over time, after that kind of went into the ground, I saw this cresting and growing no code space to help solve this problem. But there was always kind of this stigma where no code could only do so much. You should only build your mvp. You have to hire custom developers when you want to build something of consequence. 

Prakash Chandran
And so when I realized that there was an opportunity to create something alongside a friend of mine to address the scalability, security, and compliance areas of no code, I thought we could have, and we are proving that we have something special. 

Brett
How have you seen no code evolve? I feel like 2018 was that kind of the early days of that term being used. No. 

Prakash Chandran
So no code has existed even far before that, even going back to Dreamweaver and your WYSIWYG editors. Right? So no code has been around for quite a while, and it’s really just an abstracted layer on top of code to help you get things done and build simple things. So over time, these prototypes have turned into more and more consequential things that people could end up building. So we serve a market called, I’ll just broadly umbrella them. It’s called the Citizen developer. You can think of them as like a product owner of some sort that is a systems thinker, but doesn’t know the syntax of software creation. So over time, they’ve basically been able to build more and more on their own. And in today’s word, we’re part of this next generation of no code tools, where you can build anything without limits. 

Brett
Do you find it hard to stand out in this space? I know I see no code everywhere these days. So maybe that was my reference there in 2018. There’s some time around there. It seemed to be like TechCrunch was just full with every company using this phrase and using this terminology. Do you ever find it hard to stand out and separate yourself from all the others who are also talking about no code? 

Prakash Chandran
I mean, kind of. I think that no code using that term is a way to get attention, but I believe, and we believe at Xano and the broader kind of next generation no code community, that these will just be the tools that people use to build software. And for us specifically, we’re focused 100% on the back end, right? So we’re not trying to boil the ocean and build a complete product. But in this new world, just like today, people have custom development stacks. They’re going to have no code stacks because they’re going to be opinionated on what tools they want to use, and we want to be the best possible back end for people to build on. So we’ve really been able to separate ourselves and be taken more seriously, even by traditional developers by doing that. 

Brett
I had a guest on the other week, and he was telling me that marketing to developers is very difficult because I think in his words, he defined it as they’re allergic to marketing and they can kind of see through fluff and see through bullshit. What’s that like, marketing to developers? And what types of tactics and strategies do you see work? 

Prakash Chandran
Yeah, so I think just basically, number one, having a freemium product where they can sign up, kick the tires, and actually get value themselves, I think that’s the first piece of it, just allowing them to have the most frictionless way to try your product. I think the second thing is just being really content and community heavy so developers trust one another, and if they’re trying to solve a problem right in your product, having a community of other developers, whether that be allowing them to showcase videos or having content to speak to their needs, is very important. So we kind of believe in kind of community or content led growth, which has really helped us speak to developers. 

Brett
I feel like that’s become another trend I’m seeing a lot, at least on LinkedIn, is this idea of community led growth. Everyone wants to have a community, it seems. What have you learned from building out this community? 

Prakash Chandran
Yeah, so I don’t think every product should kind of have this community growth lever. But you have to understand for a tool like Xano that is a horizontal tool, just like when you think about JavaScript or a framework like react, there’s no ICP for that, right? You can be served and used for any different thing. But when you have a horizontal tool like that programming language or like airtable or like a tool like Xano, you need to have a community of people to help one another and help one another, not only to be successful in the product, but also to kind of highlight their accomplishments as well in what they’re building. And so for us specifically, horizontal platform tool community makes a lot of sense. I think not everyone can have the luxury of doing that if they’re more of a point solution. 

Brett
And I read online that it’s being used by 30,000 developers today. Is that right? 

Prakash Chandran
Yeah, over 40,000 now, but yes. 

Brett
Wow, that’s incredible. I’m sure founders listening in want to see that type of growth and achieve that type of growth. What do you think as an organization, you’ve gotten right again. 

Prakash Chandran
I think that very early on we have, especially being the type of tool that we are, we’ve made it really easy and accessible for people to find us and find success using the product by producing YouTube content, like very early on. So you’ll see my face on a lot of videos. And we just kind of kept up this cadence of hosting one, two, three videos a week. And over time, we launched officially in January of 21 after some development. It’s just grown into this honeypot of value where developers can find it even if they’re using ancillary tools and then come to onboard onto the product. So I think that we got that piece of it right. 

Brett
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Brett
I was playing around with your website last week, and I did notice just how crisp, clear, and really clean the messaging is. Was it always that way? Did you always have messaging like this? Or what did it take to get to this point? 

Prakash Chandran
No, not at all. I think we initially just said we’re a fast, no code backend building tool, which obviously has hints of what we do and what we’ve got. Right. But over time, as it’s no surprise to you, it’s just a lot of customer conversations. And we also ran the kind of traditional, superhuman Sean Ellis like product market fit survey. Like, if you couldn’t live without this product, or what would you do if this product went away? Very disappointed. Somewhat disappointed, or not disappointed at all. We also used the tool to basically collate and aggregate all of those answers. And then you see what the users are saying about your product. Where is the value right, and more, or time and time again, it was around scalability primarily, and then security and compliance. So we shifted our messaging around that. 

Brett
And what are your views when it comes to category and subcategories? The primary category, back end development, and then the subcategory is no code or what are your thoughts there in general on category? 

Prakash Chandran
Yeah, so I would say the broader category sure is kind of, you could say back end development. I would just say software creation in general, but I think there’s a subcategory. Know, this is obviously still being formed by us, but it’s citizen developer led software creation. Right? Where Twilio, for example, when they first started, it was non consensus that developer led would be a thing. I think that we live in a world today where we are saying citizen developer led is going to be a thing. And a lot of people are like, what are you talking about? And so we’re trying to really bolster this new category of product owners that will build the software they need at scale. 

Brett
I see on the website also there’s a lot of g two banners. Can you talk to us about your strategy there with g two and generating reviews? Yeah. 

Prakash Chandran
So for better or for worse, I’m not like a huge g two subscriber, but there’s a lot of organizations that go there to basically compare one tool against the other. And so we found that in the beginning, you kind of do the shotgun approach. You try all the different acquisition channels and marketing strategies. And we found that getting some of our customers to post their reviews, good or bad, on g two was very helpful. And we see even in Google Analytics that being a strong acquisition channel for us. And even larger enterprise organizations that have more potentially legacy CIOs will use that as a tool to just verify that you are liked in the market. 

Brett
And what about Gartner and Forrester? Is that also relevant? Or do you see g two in these kind of more peer review marketplaces are where your customers are spending their time? 

Prakash Chandran
I think Gartner and Forrester are definitely relevant, especially as we start going more upmarket. But I don’t necessarily think that we’ve earned a place there yet, or kind of like earned our place in one of the quadrants. I think that over time we will start to, and then these higher level CIOs will take us seriously. But for right now, these peer review ones seem to be working well for us. 

Brett
As you move further up market, what’s top of mind of challenges that you’re prepared for? 

Prakash Chandran
I think, first of all, it’s like a cultural objection that I think we have to overcome in that some CIOs and people within it will say no code, no way. It doesn’t really matter what they do. So how do you get them to see a new world of possibilities in enabling their stakeholders or their product owners to build software under their supervision? And I think the second thing that will be kind of a challenge for us to overcome is that software creation, especially if you think about all the nuances that software requires. It’s just difficult. You have to understand what it is to build a back end, an API, a database, all of those things. And it is our view that it is our responsibility to educate the next generation of software builders. And that’s not necessarily easy. 

Prakash Chandran
So those are the two things that I see. 

Brett
As I mentioned there in the intro, you’ve raised 5.4 million to date. What have you learned about fundraising throughout this journey? 

Prakash Chandran
I mean, there’s a lot that I could say about fundraising. I think first and foremost, we kind of had to ask ourselves like, hey, is this a problem that is venture scale? Is this something a company that we really feel like could change a category and change the world? And once we came to that decision as co-founders, we then decided, hey, we want to take on venture money. And I just think that alone is maybe a conversation that a lot of founders don’t have. They just think it’s the natural path of building a company. I think moving forward from there, just around fundraising, is that not all money is created equal. That the partner that is going to sit on your board, that is going to be contributing value between rounds, is very important. 

Prakash Chandran
And I think that we did a really good job of having a lot of conversations. And I think oftentimes founders put money or a VC on a pedestal and not realizing that they’re the ones that are going to be doing the hard work and that they should be also, in many ways, interviewing the VC around. Hey, is this the right fit for what we’re looking for? Not just the money, but what are you going to contribute? What value are you going to contribute to help me get to the next stage of growth or the next stage of fundraising? 

Brett
Now, let’s imagine that you were starting the company again today from scratch. What would be the number one piece of advice that you’d give to yourself? 

Prakash Chandran
I was thinking about this, and I actually am very happy with the decisions that we’ve made. I’m sure that someone that is smarter than me could come through and evaluate and said, hey, you did all of these things wrong, but I’m very happy that we’ve kind of approached things in a very measured way. We’ve been really capital efficient. We’ve really been engaged with our customers, and we’ve taken things slow. Right. And we kind of always sought the truth in whatever decisions that we made. 

Brett
Final question for you. Let’s zoom out three to five years into the future. What’s the big picture vision that you’re building. Yeah. 

Prakash Chandran
So depending on who you ask, there are effectively 27 million developers in the world today of 8 billion people. That’s less than half a percent of people to create software that all of use. And everything that we touch today has some sort of software component. So we believe the more people you empower to build software, it’s a boon for humanity. So our mission is to empower the world to create scalable, world class software. And scalable and world class is kind of highlighted because we want people to build without limits, build without constraints, and kind of let their creativity run free. 

Brett
Amazing. I love the vision and I love the approach that you’re taking to building. Now we are up on time, so we’ll have to wrap here. If there’s any founders that are listening in and just want to follow along with your journey as you build and execute on this vision, where should they go? 

Prakash Chandran
Yeah, so I would say follow no code backend on Twitter and you can also find us on LinkedIn. 

Brett
Awesome. Prakash, thanks so much for taking the time to chat. Really enjoyed this and really appreciate you taking the time. 

Prakash Chandran
Thank you, Brett. 

Brett
Keep in touch. 

Brett
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Brett
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Brett
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