No-code / low-code is garnering all the buzz these days, and not without a good reason. The fact that one can create products without even having coding knowledge has democratized the process of creation like never before. Hence, it’s not a surprise that we’re seeing so much action happening in this space. Builder.ai is one such company that’s making it easier for anyone to build products. However, the company sets itself apart by not only providing the ability to create basic things without the coding knowledge, but is also offering a marketplace where one can get the software customized by giving it to developers across the globe. We catch up with the co-founder of London-headquartered company, Sachin Dev Duggal to understand Builder.ai’s inception, evolution, USPs, and what the future looks like.
PS: The interview has been edited for the sake of brevity.
Table of Contents
1) How did you get the idea for the business? What made you start Builder.ai?
Four years ago, we started out with a dream to be the connection between every great idea and a fully realized product. The idea is to empower everyone to build their ideas; especially given that only a few professionals successfully take their idea to a live software product. To achieve this, we went back to the drawing board on how software is made today. We looked at best practices across industries and landed on the magic Henry Ford did with his assembly line. Back in the 1900s, cars were produced by a small group of people that did everything from the engine to the seats. Now, it’s all on an assembly line where different teams from around the world work on their specific areas bringing their respective core competencies to the finalized product. We are applying this methodology to custom-built software by employing an AI-powered assembly line. This line brings together building blocks of frequently used features (“building blocks”) alongside the best human talent from across the globe. The result is often delivering 3x the speed and a quarter of the price. This is possible because our customers don’t pay for code that’s common across the software.
The crux of it all is that unfortunately many powerful ideas end up never seeing the light of the day. This is because software development has always meant innumerable other challenges such as ensuring timely deliveries, creating flawless products, deciding on fair pricing, and safeguarding the idea. So, Builder.ai was launched keeping in mind every single challenge faced by startups, and enterprises during digital transformation.
2) Can you walk us through Builder.ai’s evolution since its inception in 2016 and the insight behind its name change from Engineer.ai?
When we founded the company in 2016, we named it Engineer.ai with 2 essential products – DevOps and CloudOps. As Engineer.ai, we did some exemplary work with some of the best brands around the world. We built software that could solve all kinds of problems. Halfway through 2018 we decided to review our identity and conduct a branding activity. In early 2019, we brought on board one of the best global creative agencies in London to support.
We wanted to simplify our brand to directly correlate and connect with our product offerings and our customers. That branding session led us to a huge realization – that a lot of our customers were finding it confusing to deal with three different identities – DevOps, CloudOps and Engineer.ai. We learned that the name ‘Engineer.ai’ as a product wasn’t effective. People aren’t simply looking for an engineer, instead, they’re looking for someone to help them build their dreams. The logic behind ‘Builder.ai’ is simple: we don’t just build software. We help companies build phenomenal, revolutionary, business altering ideas.
3) What’s the current user base of Builder.ai? Which countries are your biggest markets?
Builder supports customers ranging from Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to large multinational enterprises.
In 2020, we introduced a new product called Studio Store that exclusively caters to the small and medium businesses (SMBs). It is a range of pre-packaged apps – beginning with e-commerce and delivery – designed to bring businesses online much faster and at a fraction of the cost, even if you are building from scratch. As COVID-19 heavily impacts SMEs & SMBs, Builder.ai will not only help SMEs & SMBs build their e-commerce or local delivery app with The Studio Store, but also provide the first three months of live service for free.
Notable enterprise-level customers of Builder’s include BBC, NBC Universal, Manscore, Virgin Unite, Videocon, Rapaport, France TV and many more.
Currently, the biggest markets for us are India, South East Asia, US, UK, and Middle East. In early 2020 we expanded by adding a new office in Dubai as we were already serving a growing number of companies in the Middle East. Our research showed us that there were a lot of up and coming businesses in the market who want to elevate their digital footprint to better serve their existing customers and expand their base internationally. This region has been an underserved market and is ready for a platform that can digitally amplify its businesses.
4) Could you provide us a split of how many individuals/freelancers and enterprises are using Builder.ai?
We are proud to say that a significant chunk of our clients are SMBs who are looking to scale with the right software; but we also support a fair share of enterprise customers who seek to innovate on the edge and build software to improve employees’ productivity, internal communication, logistics, drive sales, etc.
5) Can you share some details about the pricing of Builder Studio, Builder Care, and Builder Cloud? Which of these are the most popular among the users?
As an ecosystem, we are right now increasing our tailor-made software solutions to the next generation of customers. Therefore, costs and timelines vary greatly depending on the ideas on the table, but when compared to traditional agencies, we do it in a third of the time and almost half the price, and we are proud that we’ve always matched customer expectations (if not surpassed it). We’ve succeeded in working out how each feature follows a different pathway.
Builder Studio brings customers’ ideas to life without requiring them to learn to code, and Builder Care proactively manages updates, bug fixes, and infrastructure monitoring so that our customers need not worry about post-deployment service or warranty for their tailor-made software. Builder Cloud uses AI to make cloud hosting simple and inexpensive. We saved our customers almost 4.5 million USD last year. Builder Now, the latest addition to the family, is a disruptive instant prototyping tool that will empower our customers to bring their business ideas to life by prototyping a tailor-made app for free in as little as 10 minutes. Amid COVID-19, we also launched Studio Store to help the impacted SMBs and SMEs adapt quickly.
6) Considering the no-code programs space is garnering a lot of buzz, with a slew of players –both big and small, how does Builder.ai stand out from the competition?
Our USP is in being a one-stop-shop for individuals and businesses of all capacities seeking digital transformation. Our products are unique and cater to the requirements of SMBs and SMEs alike. With one of our newer launches Builder Now, customers can have a prototype of their idea in as little as 10 minutes, absolutely free of cost. With our latest launch, Studio Store, we’re able to help all SMBs – such as flower shops, grocery shops and retail stores build their own e-commerce solution or local delivery app. To top it off, these solutions can be delivered to a customer in less than eight weeks. Studio Store is designed to bring businesses online faster and at a fraction of the cost of building from scratch. For all those reasons, we’ve given the competition something BIG to think about.
7) What is your go-to-marketing strategy to reach out to potential users?
We provide holistic, long-term solutions to our clients. Builder.ai is known for its unique model of offering 360-degree software solutions for entrepreneurs, enterprise customers, and anyone in between to build, run and scale any idea, without needing any knowledge of coding. Our human-assisted-AI platform lets our customers create on-demand, tailor-made software using a library of reusable features and a network of verified expert talent/specialists across the world. Our after-care product, Builder Care, keeps this software up-to-date, and for businesses in need of an infrastructure to support growth, our cloud solution, Builder Cloud, combines all the best providers into one platform to bring you the best possible price.
We provide the playing field for companies that recognize the importance of having an online presence, but don’t have the technical knowledge to bring it to life. It should be simple, immediate, and efficient to make all kinds of ideas a reality. Overall, our strategy is to keep the complicated stuff simple.
8) Amidst the ongoing pandemic, you introduced The Builder Studio to SMBs free of charge. How has been the response to the same? How many small and medium businesses used your platform and how many apps were created?
The Studio Store launch was a part of Builder.ai’s larger mission to make the process of building a digital future more accessible, cost effective and efficient. Our mission is to help SMBs to build their e-commerce or local delivery app with The Studio Store and provide the first three months of live service for free. Having a thoughtful digital presence for businesses will be critical, which is why we are offering this assistance to all SMBs so that they can use this time to leapfrog ahead.
We are witnessing a great response from the business community at large. It is great to see how small businesses such as flower shops, grocery stores, bakeries and more are embracing the technology and changing their approach. We want to assist these small businesses as the sector has a vast growth potential that has not been tapped yet.
9) What does the future look like for Builder? Are there any cool features that people should be looking out for / are you looking for any acquisitions in the space?
Globally, Builder.ai is going through an exciting phase where we’re seeing quick yet strategic growth, supporting both active digital markets and those that are ripe for digital transformation. We now operate in five financial and business hubs across the globe (London, Los Angeles, Delhi, Tokyo, and Dubai). We look forward to sustaining this growth by offering more entrepreneurs and enterprises the ability to bring their software ideas to life.
Builder recognizes the incessant need for the evolution and adoption of technology, and there is always a constant need to redefine the intersection between people and technology. The tech industry isn’t going to get tired of experimenting, digital transformation won’t see a downturn any time soon and the current pandemic has increased the demand to make a quick shift towards digitalisation. Among other successes, we’re delighted that we’ve recently won the prestigious CogX 2020 award for Best COVID-19 Innovation for Recovery and TechCrunch Europe’s’ ‘Hottest AI Startup’. This champions our vision to help businesses achieve their digital transformation goals. Besides newer innovations we’re constantly looking at refining our current offerings. Let’s just say one can certainly expect to hear more from us soon.
10) Considering Builder.ai has offices around the world, has COVID-19 pushed you towards thinking about remote work even more seriously?
We have the necessary infrastructure and capabilities to support a remote workforce. We expanded from 30 employees to over 200 across five locations in merely two years. As of last year, we were working with a large talent pool of roughly 140 odd dev shops across the globe. As a matter of fact, our work module is optimized by and for technology. Thus, it saw no impediments when it came to remote working. We use Slack messaging, Zoom video conferencing, Quip for team collaboration, Asana and Figma for project management, and Front for day-to-day communication, amongst others. We also regularly share department-wide updates and conduct monthly global town halls too.
Apart from the difficult times, this unprecedented situation has given us an opportunity to enhance our skills and develop some new ones. One of my most used anecdotes for a long time has been that you cannot paint a speeding train; I think COVID-19 is a chance for us to press “pause” as a way to upgrade how we work. We also want to give the same opportunity to our clients, and so we are working feverishly to bring down the cost and timeline of the most common transformation projects so that they can be developed in record time and without pinching already stressful budgets.
11) What are your favorite SaaS products out there?
It’s an endless, constantly evolving list for me, but just to name a few – I love Copper CRM for stakeholder management, Qlik for business intelligence, Trello for personal to-do management, Krisp.ai for removing background noise from audio calls, Front for custom communication and team collaboration, and lastly, Figma for design.
