AI made a “no code” guy into a coder

The Next New Thing

🎧 Highlights:
[00:00:00] From Makerpad to Factory — Ben Tossell’s journey
[00:01:33] Life after acquisition and redefining work
[00:05:06] Why AI might make things harder, not easier
[00:07:30] No-code lessons and the illusion of simplicity
[00:10:42] From teaching no-code to debugging workflows
[00:12:00] Learning to code with AI as your translator
[00:15:09] Curiosity as the new technical skill
[00:16:21] Building a “source of truth” AI system inside Factory
[00:23:42] How Ben uses AI to search across code, docs, and tickets
[00:27:36] Teaching AI to follow his workflow
[00:30:27] Getting comfortable with the command line
[00:33:45] The first time AI made him feel like a real builder
[00:35:42] Makerpad’s growth, Slack community, and hiring from within
[00:41:24] Newsletter growth hacks and lessons from Ben’s Bites
[00:46:03] Selling Makerpad and rediscovering purpose
[00:49:39] Investing through Ben’s Bites Fund
[00:50:33] Returning to his roots: teaching, learning, and building again
[00:53:18] The one-person billion-dollar company — myth or movement?

In this episode, Andrew Warner talks with Ben Tossell, creator of Makerpad — the #1 community for no-code builders, which he later sold to Zapier. Now at Factory, Ben is helping developers build with AI instead of code — and rethinking what “technical” even means.

Ben opens up about the post-acquisition burnout that came after his sale, why he avoided starting another company, and how AI has reignited his creativity. Together, they explore what it means to go from no-code to “AI-native,” and why the dream of one-person billion-dollar companies might be closer than it sounds.

👉 Join us: https://thenextnewthing.ai/