No-code for creators and how regular folks can build an online business

Today, we’re bringing you another conversation from TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, when Alex sat down with Serhii Bohoslovskyi, the founder of no-code app-builder Trible. Trible is a no-code software product that helps folks construct online courses. We love Disrupt because it gives us lots of room to chat with founders that we might otherwise have missed. We even had a dedicated podcasting area! Expect even more of this sort of chat in the future. Here’s what we got into with Bohoslovskyi: The state of the creator economy now that the hype has somewhat worn off the product category. How are creators doing today? The use of no-code tooling today, and how it is received by non-technical creators. And the state of startups that have roots in Ukraine, given that the nation is currently defending itself from external invasion. Talking to founders never, ever gets boring. That’s all for us today, and we’ll be back on Friday! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and the nuance behind the headlines. This is Alex and I have a special little treat for you today. Back at Disrupt, I met a whole bunch of founders, folks from all around the world, including one particular person who is building a startup in Ukraine today. So I really wanted to learn more about how he was building stuff and also what he was working on. So please listen on for my chat with Sergey from Tribal, that's T R I B L E dot com. We talked about no-code app building, the concept of being an entrepreneur, the creator economy, and of course, building in Ukraine during its difficult time at the moment. I'll see you on the other side.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  We're here today talking to one another because you have a Google company called Tribal.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 0:56Speaker 00

  It's spelled T R I B L E, not T R I A B L. There you go.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Anyways, Tribal, it's a no-code app builder. And I was just kind of hoping you could tell us where the idea came from and how far along you are.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  So yeah, we are a no-code builder for knowledge creators. So basically, if you sell online courses or manage a community or provide coaching services, for example, we are a go-to platform to create your own branded app in App Store or Google Play Market. So why do creators need their own app? So right now, if you, for example, sell your online courses, most certainly you use websites, right?

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  That's why you see little to no retention rates and low completion rates, because everyone forgets about the websites they're on, you know? How many online courses did you really pass to the end?

• 1:41Speaker 00

  I mean, I just, I feel conflicted about this because I love the desktop internet.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  And I feel like everything has turned into an app, but... You're probably dead on that everyone else prefers apps because they're so popular. And the mobile web never really got good. So you want to interact with people when they're on the move, certainly.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. Of course, not all online courses are suitable for the apps. So for example, if you learn programming, you better do it on desktop, right? But for example, if you do like wellness courses, management courses, marketing courses, fitness courses.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  It's much, much more comfortable to consume this knowledge through the app, not through the desktop that you do not carry on all day long.

• 2:22Speaker 00

  Well, this is why I just never leave my desk. Cause then my desktop is essentially a mobile device because it's right where I am.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  But you were here, you got here somehow.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  Rare exception, but I'm curious about the people who are teaching these courses because one thing we talked a lot about on the show in 2021, 2022 was the creator economy and the idea of empowering more people that are either making digital content, courses or what have it, or kind of like micro entrepreneurs. And then the hype seemed to kind of slowly fade in that area. So I'm very curious, how is the supply side of creators and people that might use your service? Are they doing well?

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. So speaking about our target audience, right now we work mostly with people who already have their online business on. So they already earn online. Speaking about like this fading trend for creator economy. In my opinion, there were lots of people who thought it was easy to make an online business. Yeah. And they thought like, well, anyone has an online course right now. I should have my own. But then they sit on their desktop, for example, they see the blank screen and they are like, whoa, it's hard. Okay, I won't do it. And they procrastinated. And of course, so many people they got from the creator economy. But the concept of being a micro entrepreneur is still alive. There are so many of them and the trend is still growing.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  Well, I'm excited to hear that because the idea of more individuals sharing knowledge and learning with one another across different categories they're experts in. Sounds great. Like, it's a great use of the internet as a way to avoiding buzzwords, I guess, but democratize information so we can all share it better with one another. So, no-code, though. I'm very curious about this because there's been a no-code, low-code moment. And then it seemed like no-code tooling has become just almost like the standard in a lot of different places. But has it become simple enough now for the average fitness coach to actually build their own app from start to finish?

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Well, speaking about no-code, there are different segments and different products out there. So, for example, you have Bubble.io, great, great product. It's like an enterprise level. There are so many things you can do. It gives you so much freedom, but you should learn first how to use it. What is... Our aim is to give you a tool that you should not learn how to use it. Basically, what we want you to do, we want you to focus on what content you want to give to your consumers. And that's all. Of course, you can choose colors. You can choose what screens do you want, what features do you want, but they are all pre-built for you. So, basically, it's like lots of templates that you choose from, and then your app is up and ready.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  So, from start to finish, let's say that I am an expert in push-ups, and I want to take my push-up course to the masses on a mobile app, and I go from day one to my app in the App Store with Tribal. How long does that take?

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Well, if you have your course ready, then, on average, you get your own app in like two to three weeks. So, basically, the bottleneck there is Apple guidelines. So, they review the apps really thoroughly, so it takes time, basically. So, what we advise to our clients is that you should first start with your website. We also provide websites as well. So, you can have your own website in a matter of a few clicks, basically. And then, you can start earning from the website while your app is going through the review cycles. And all the app publishing is on our site, so our creators do not bother with it.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Oh, great. Good, because I've heard from other developers that working with Apple can occasionally be... Frustrating.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Sometimes.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, slow, irksome, random, opaque. These are words that I've I've just heard. I'm only saying what I heard. And then I'm curious about where the customers are coming from. I looked at your slide deck before we chatted and you guys have seen some pretty impressive growth. For those who care out there, they've reached just over thirty six thousand dollars of MRR, putting them well on the way to a half million in ARR. So where are the customers around the world? Are they American? Are they in Ukraine?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  So right now, like ninety nine percent of all the customers are located in United States.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  And some of them are located in the UK, Australia. So basically English speaking countries. There are some of them in Ukraine as well, where we started. But right now we focus on US as our main geography.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  And is your team all based in Ukraine or just part of you guys?

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Just part of us. So there are some employees who are based in Canada and Poland as well, because of the war, of course.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. So you've you've become a micro multinational, essentially.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, essentially, yes, definitely.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  And how big is the team total in terms of people?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  So right now, the core team is fifteen people. Right now, there are also some contractors that we work with and they help us with some of the developments, some of the design for marketing purposes. But core team is fifteen people right now.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  And I was just realized, I didn't ask you this before we started talking, but I was looking through your seed deck, pitch deck. Is this a round that you've closed or is this a round that you're currently raising?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so right now we are not raising any external capital. We were launched as a part of Venture Builder that is based in Ukraine.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  So we didn't even attract any outside capital till now, basically. Right now, we want to focus on scaling the company first, building all these fundamental blocks. And only then we would think about raising external capital.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  So what's left in the fundamental blocks that you guys haven't yet put together? Because looking through your website and your deck, it looks pretty future complete to go from what we've talked about. So what's coming next?

• 7:38Speaker 01

  So right now, we have lots of customers who earn some money with our platform. We do not have lots of big whales, you know? People who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. And we want to help people to scale with our platform. So right now, it's easy to start with us. It's easy to start making like thousand dollars a month, maybe three thousand dollars a month. There are customers that earn so much in a month, but there are none of the customers who earn like a lot. Yeah, and we want to prove that in this way you can build not only small businesses, but the pretty big ones as well.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, there's two ways to do that. One is to help existing customers grow until they are that size. And the other is to go out and try to get those people who are already that large onto your platform. So which way are you gonna go?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Well, to be honest, we don't like choosing sites. We want to do both. So speaking about this problem and how we tackle it. So the first thing, you're definitely right. We want to take our customers who already earn much. And we help them build their strategy on how to attract even more people to their courses or to their coaching or to their communities. And from the other side, we also would like to acquire more big, really big influencers out there. So for example, there are of course some extremely big influencers, like for example, Mr. Beast.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  I was gonna say.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  The number one example of person on the internet who has managed to turn that into a massive corporation.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Definitely. And there are lots of actors who have their online courses on acting, for example. So there are extremely big influencers who can earn a lot through selling their online digital products. And we want to attract more of those and help them as well.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  I love that because it does give people more their own digital home. And you know, I'm a writer, so I've been watching other writers kind of like go direct in a way. Instead of working for a publication, they put together a Substack or a Beehive or whatever. And it goes well for some, less well for others. But there's something about like owning your own part of the internet that's very attractive to me because it feels like the platforms are so large that you're rarely on your own, your own ground, your own turf.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  You have low control over your audience and your products, basically. That's what we see. There is a huge trend in social media that lots of the big influencers, they want to create their own platforms and their own apps or websites because they want to have this control over their audience. So right now, for example, you advertise something on Instagram and you sell this digital product somewhere like Udemy, right?

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  So there is always a risk that your customer is going to click on your ad, go to Udemy, see another course and go there by that course. Yeah. And that's what they don't like, really, our creators. So they're really willing to build their own platforms, not to lose money to the platforms and the competition.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  So essentially, if you send someone with your own dollars to Udemy, they might go somewhere else on the website. But if you send them to your tribal app, well, then they can't really go anywhere else because you've got them.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  It's kind of like safe capture of consumer interest.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely, definitely. And what we really advise our customers and our creators is that no matter what you sell, for example, if you sell online courses or digital eBooks, for example, right? Or something else, you should always create a community near to it. Yeah, so we provide community services as well. And when you build this community, you have this network effects. Yeah, you have this much more space for upsells, cross sells, and much higher retention, which gives you not only more freedom, but more stability in your business and recurring revenue.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And what is the pricing mechanism? Is it based on how much I'm selling in my application? Is it based on just a set dollar amount? Like, how do you charge for it?

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so right now, the most money comes from subscription. So we charge on monthly basis. But right now, we are a small startup, and definitely our pricing model will evolve through the years. So I don't know what it's gonna be in a couple of years, but right now, we stick to subscription basis.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Okay. Now, I want to talk a little bit about Ukraine, because I have you here. And you're actually not the first Ukrainian company I've been tracking. There's a developer whose name is, and sorry if I get this very wrong, but you have Henny. He's building a game called Ostriv, which is a city-building game. And you built like a Ukrainian town in like the 1700s, and it's amazing. If you like city-building games, Ostriv, check it out, it's on Steam.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Okay, thanks.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  But he's, he often also talks about, you know, the state of the war and how hard it is to do his work, because he's often being bombed. And so I'm curious, are entrepreneurs staying in Ukraine? Are they leaving? I'm just curious what you're hearing from your community about how to best balance supporting the country while also trying to get work done.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. Working in a startup in the country on a full-scale war, it's really hard and sometimes difficult. But what I feel personally and what I hear from other entrepreneurs there is that every time that you get bombed, every time you get like this huge wave of motivation to support your country. So basically, there is a lot of going on in terms of everyone is thinking about how they can help. And building a startup that lasts is really some kind of an economic help. Because we, we win this war only if we have the resources, yeah? And we need to push this economic growth as much as we can. And that's what we are really motivated to do here.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Do you think that the international community is doing enough to support the economic health of Ukraine? Because we often hear about the US ends, you know, another billion dollars in ammunition or whatever, but we don't hear too much about like economic help for just folks who are living in the country.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  That's a great question. To be honest, I'm really, in my personal view, I'm really thankful for all the help out there. There is so much help out there, to be honest. Even in Tribal, we sense it in matters like when we talk to creators, they know that we are from Ukraine. They are like, well, until my money is safe, if I, my app won't go down, then I would like to stick to you, preferring you over other platforms. And that's so, so we're really thankful for it.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Is the economy doing okay in Ukraine from your perspective?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Well, they find okay here, you know?

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, is it doing worse or better than you expected this far into the conflict, maybe?

• 13:43Speaker 01

  To be honest, much better because when the war started, we were really pessimistic about how it's going to end. But right now, there is like no concerns over, well, we didn't shut down. We have like electricity, internet. We have everything. Yeah, prices are bumped up a little bit, but still like businesses work. There are lots of new businesses that are launched there. So I think like I'm really optimistic about the future.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Awesome. One thing I haven't actually looked into, and I need to do this, is just overall venture capital activity in Ukraine and seeing what the war's impact has been. But I feel like, you know, companies like Tribal are still building in the area, so it should still be active. But this feels weird to cross geopolitics and international relations with, you know, the startup world. I didn't see this coming, but it's been really, really great to see you and the other Ukrainians who are here at Disrupt showing off what they're doing. And, you know, it's given me a lot of hope.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you so much.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  All right, well, we have to go. But Sergey, thank you so much for your time and rucking us through this. And if people want to find your company on the internet, what is the URL?

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Tribal.com. It's T R I B L E dot com.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Awesome. And it works for both iOS and Android?

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  All right, cool.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Great, thank you so much.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  A big thank you to Sergey for taking the time to talk to us. If you want to find Tribal, it's T R I B L E dot com. And of course, please keep up with us at EquityPod on both X and Threads. We're back on Monday, we're back on Wednesday, we're back on Friday. We are always bringing you the latest from the world of startups. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  Equity is hosted by myself, editor in chief of TechCrunch Plus Alex Wilhelm, and TechCrunch senior reporter, Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Teresa Loconsolo with editing by Kel. Bryce Durbin is our illustrator, and a big thank you to the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch Audio Products. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.