REVENUE DRIVEN FOR OUR CLIENTS
$500 million and countingIn this episode of WYTPOD, Harshit Gupta, Director of Business Alliances at WYTLABS, interviews Philip Daineka, Founder and CEO of Flatlogic. Flatlogic stands out as an AI-powered platform for enterprise business applications, striking a balance between off-the-shelf SaaS and custom development. Philip shares the company’s success stories, including a telecommunications firm that swiftly built five e-commerce sites using Flatlogic. The conversation explores the future of web app development, emphasizing economic cycles, remote work, and the role of AI and no-code/low-code tools. Flatlogic, already leveraging OpenAI API, envisions a move toward a conversational interface. Philip discusses the importance of source code ownership for clients, ensuring independence from third-party platforms. The interview details Flatlogic’s engagement strategies, target audience focus on SMBs and startups, and global outreach without significant localization challenges. The rapid-fire round sheds light on Philip’s habits, despised chores, favorite subjects, and recent Google searches, offering a comprehensive view of Flatlogic’s journey and its vision for web app development’s future.
Flatlogic is an AI-powered platform for enterprise business applications, striking a balance between off-the-shelf SaaS and custom development.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of WYTPOD. My name is Harshit and I’m the director of Business Alliances at WYTLABS. We’re a digital agency specializing in SaaS and e-commerce marketing.
And I’ve got the founder and CEO of Flatlogic with me today. His name is Philip and Flatlogic is an AI-powered platform specializing in creating enterprise Business applications.
A big welcome to you, Philip, and thanks for taking time out for this.
Thank you very much, Harshit. Thank you for your invitation.
I appreciate it. To be speaking here. It’s the first time I’m speaking in an English-speaking podcast because I have my own podcast, but it’s in the Belarusian language. So, it’s like a very, it’s a debut for me. Okay. If I can go like that. Yeah.
thank you for joining us today. And now before we dive into Flatlogic, and all the wonderful things it does can you please let our viewers know a little bit about you and your professional journey so far?
So, I finished 10 years ago, I finished university. I have a computer science degree. I studied for five years. So, I am originally from Belarus and we have the so-called specialist degree, something between. Bachelor and Master. So, I studied for five years. And then a few years ago, I also finished like a master, uh, in economics.
So, I also have an economics degree, but must be at the master stage. My background is I worked for a company called Exadel American company and was a software engineer for several years. And then I went I left this company to start my own company eventually, but I did not know what I was going to start.
And I started uh, what eventually turned to be Flatlogic. So, the idea was to create there was a market. Called, and it’s still, this market is still there, it’s called SymForest. So, have you heard of it? Yeah. So, it’s a market where you can sell this code asset, like templates plugins, and so on.
And they had a section named admin dashboard templates. And I thought, okay, this is something I can do myself. And so, I designed a template, I coded the template, and everything myself. And sent my template as a submission to SymForest, but they rejected it. And for almost half a year, they rejected my template.
Then I said, okay, I don’t want to spend time anymore trying to convince them that my product is good. So I went to another marketplace, Redbootstrap, and my template was accepted, so I started to make quite good money because it was 10 years ago. I was like a fresh after university.
So, I was making quite good money by making this sale from a template by selling templates, licenses. And I also was it was quite good for several years, for two years. It was just the only thing that I did. I was, I created one template, and then I created another one. And, but I also was constantly approached by some businesses or some individuals.
And they said, hey, Philip, we loved your template. Could you please develop something for us? Based on this template I thought, okay I jumped on this, on that geek, right? You call this geek, right? So, on this, a contract and I finished this contract. So besides having product revenue that came from selling licenses, I also had revenue by rendering services.
And I thought, okay, maybe it makes sense to say that it’s not Philip anymore. It’s a company. And this is how Flatlogic was born. It was like Until some time, until some period, it was a fake company. When I was just a single person. Yeah. When the initial employees came, I started to hire and grow. Till yeah. So that’s the story.
That’s brilliant. And would love to know now because You’re in an interesting niche and I would understand from you, what are the unique value propositions or unique selling propositions that set you apart from other solutions out there in the market.
If you imagine, like I usually drew like this sort of a map to compare. For example, it’s to understand who we compete with and what are our advantages, we first need to define the market. And so, the market is, for example, if you want to create a CRM, right? You can go to and use existing solutions like HubSpot.
for example, or other like Salesforce or other tools available. So, these are software as a service tool available for you to develop to have CRM for you. You will be paying every month and you’re; you can be happy with that. It’s okay. The other side of the on other side of the scale is when you want something custom, I want custom CRM for me, for some reason, I want to have a lot of integrations.
I want to, I don’t know, display my leads in some way. I want to store some data. So, for some reason, I need custom CRM and I go to software development companies, or I need to build a team to, hire a team, to build the CRM for myself. That’s the opposite, right? And we try to be in between. There is also like third solution available, which is close to the software as a service solution.
It’s no code, low code tools. So, you can go, for example, to Retool, Babel, or other companies, and build a CRM for you using no-code, low-code tools. But you also will be limited within the platform. You build the tool and we try to combine the benefits of low code, and no-code tools and still gain the advantage of custom development.
So, we generate the source code now, and before it was the same with the template. So, you could purchase a template of CRM. So, it’s like a template, but what I call it, they are ultimately customizable. It means that you can do whatever you want since you own the source code, you have the source code, you can do whatever integrations you want and you have no limits, right?
Because we have some cases, not a lot of cases, but some cases when startups build their products using no code, local tools, and then they are attached to the platform. They cannot go from this platform. They need to pay. They cannot integrate and not extend. And if you have the code, you can do whatever you want. So that’s the idea. Okay.
And now the other question, because you’re giving the source code also, how exactly is the business model? Is it like a one-time fee? How exactly does it work for you?
So, it’s two, as it was from the beginning. So, the same business model. So, we have a product revenue. So, you can go to the Flatlogic website purchase a subscription, and subscribe and use a product.
The product will be the generated application that will be hosted. You can download the source code. You can modify it. You can keep using it and it’s yours. You can modify it with your, platform. You can modify it with the source code, it’s yours. You can also resort to our services and we will build something for you.
So, we also provide customization services based on this product. And this is how you can deliver real products fast.
Makes sense. Alright. Can you share any particular case study or a success story or where the platform has made a significant impact on one of your client’s businesses and helped them scale or fulfill big, real, big objectives?
Of course, I believe there are quite a lot. So, for example, the recent one, when we were approached by a telecommunication company like its local telecommunication company in there and they were able to build. Five similar e-commerce custom websites using our platform. So, they generated the applications and then customized everything including adding integrations with local payment providers.
Including integrations with local, I don’t know, signature services, and so on. So, this is one of the examples and they were able to build like five in just a month or two of work. So besides. Having the app generated and ready out of the box, they also added these custom features. Okay. I don’t know if this is in terms of the generator.
Because we, the company, the generator so we are talking about the platform, right? So, we’re referring to the Flatlogic generator. So, it’s the tool. You can use it to generate applications either based on plain language description or by defining database schema. But we have also been in the business for 10 years and the platform has only been available since last year.
Before that, we yeah, the generator has been available only since last year. Before that, it was only the static templates, but we had a lot of them. We had like around 60 templates.
But you were offering managed services back then as well. So I’m sure the like, team could still go ahead and fulfill the requirement, whatever that might have, right?
Correct. Yes. Correct.
Makes sense. As a leader in the industry, what trends do you foresee in the future of web app development, and how does Flatlogic position itself to adapt to these volatile changing needs altogether?
I observe several trends. So, the first trend is, of course, it’s some sort of recession, maybe not pre-recession, some sort of a decrease in the economic activity cycle, right? So, it’s a cyclical that also affects us. Because we develop software. When you have everything else developed. So, it’s something that people spend money on when it’s not the first thing that they spend the money on.
Yes. So, this is and the second is I would say remote work. So, it affected us quite significantly, for example, now it’s easier for businesses to hire remotely. Then to hire some agencies, then to hire development companies, then to go to services instead they can just go and hire locally or maybe hire remotely and they have all the benefits like working with the team.
And the third is AI, of course, AI and no code, low code tools. So eventually I believe that AI will replace it. And we will help it, we will help to achieve this goal. Yeah. AI will replace at least some basic application development. Application development because what we face and what we see, what we observe from our own experience and our users, our projects, is that a lot of this we call them data management applications.
They are very similar. They have a lot of similar components, they have a lot of similar logic everywhere, and this can be replaced. Maybe not, I don’t know, not in a month, not in half a year, but maybe in one, two, three years, I believe it’s going to be replaced with AI soon. At least some core basic kinds of concepts, basic parts of the software development process.
Okay. Is the platform currently enabled AI-powered or do you wish to include it in the future?
It is AI-powered. It became AI-powered after the open AI release of the API. So, we still rely yeah. We considering moving to our large language model, but so far, we use OpenAI API.
So, we, but we do not use it to generate code because the code generator, it’s our proprietary kind of software. So, it’s not related. OpenAI does not write code for us. We just use it to interpret. User input and translate it into some actionable interactions that our platform or generator may do.
Gotcha. How’s a typical journey on your platform from a user point of view? How exactly does it complain?
So, the user comes to Flatlogic. They put the description. It’s better to have a description of the application at the moment. So, they describe the application, and whatever, they want to achieve.
It’s better to have it in the form of user stories. Then the generator generates the application, they can modify the schema of the application, they can push the source code to GitHub, and the application is deployed to the cloud, so that’s it. And then they can work with it, use it. Modify it via the source code or the schema editor of the logic platform.
That’s pretty easy.
One thing to note is that our ultimate goal Ah, also, but now we added a new fancy feature that you can just create charts and widgets from descriptions. So, we just, you can say, I want to have a chart of orders by month. And it’s going to show you a chart of orders by month.
And eventually our goal is to move completely to conversation interface. So, you say it’s like a conversation for you. So, you come to the Flatlogic website and the Flatlogic bot asks you, okay, what kind of application do you want to build? What are the roles in this application? What modifications do you want to make?
And you just type with text and you, it has the application built for you. So that’s our goal.
Makes sense. Now finding the right balance between local development and customization is crucial, right? How does your approach help with this balance? And especially when you’re getting to diverse business needs, you are targeting a big, broad industry with the platform. So, we’d love to take some insights on that.
It’s the biggest advantage that we have. We generate the source code and it solves a lot of potential challenges with clients, especially with business clients who want to own the code, who want to own the software.
If I pay someone monthly to have. For example, we solve the classical case of our client when they try to, it’s so-called business process automation. So, you automate some part of the business process of your company, either sales or, I don’t know, administrations, operations, whatever inventory management.
And if you put the handling of this process to some third party, and you need to pay it monthly, you do not have control, then you have a lot of risks, right? Because you don’t own the software, you don’t own the source code. We know that like recently a quite large player in the code market announced that they are going to shut down the company.
And so, what’s going to happen with all of these users who build their apps on top of the platform? So maybe it’s good for you, as an individual to track your, I don’t know, expenses maybe. But if you are a business and you have a lot of processes, you have a lot of people depend on some automated business process, then that’s the main advantage for them. So, they own something, they do not rent something.
Oh, that makes sense. Makes perfect sense. Now I would love to know how your company engages with existing users is there a user community? How exactly do you incorporate user feedback into your development and improve your platform? How does that cycle work?
I would say it has a lot of forts. So, we first do a lot of email campaigns, not marketing campaigns, but I’m just writing to everyone a message after they sign up Hey, thanks for signing up. Please let me know, please be open. Please be brutally honest with me.
What do you think about the platform? What is your opinion? If they cancel the subscription, I also write this, if they extend, I also thank them. So, we also have customer support. So, if you have you may reach out via a chat interface, you may post on the forum, you may post via email your request and we are going to respond to you.
And this is one of the most important parts of the business development is to be close to your clients. And with your customers, because they are the guides in light for you, because they tell you where to go, right? We have a lot of clients who became friends, not clients’ customers who signed up, who loved the platform, who generated applications, and who became friends. They are asking me, hey, Philip, how are you? What is your news? Have you seen this new tool? What do you think about that tool? And just. Having good relations with your customers on a personal level is something that gives you a lot of sources of knowledge on how to make your product better.
So, I just, I’m trying to be a friend for them because eventually what I see is that uh, the business eventually is for helping people. You just need to do something that people need, and they will pay you for it if you solve something for them. If it’s not needed by anyone, then no one is going to pay you. And if you’re going to help people, they’re going to help you.
That’s true, I agree. And Philip, I would love to know because the industry is definitely, competitive. I would get your opinion on, whether you are relying a lot on SEO. For your traffic generation, would love to know what SEO strategies are working in your field.
We have been working with traffic for a long time. So, it’s our main strategy, so we never relied on any paid marketing campaigns. So, I’m not sure how I start to understand that maybe it’s our, it’s not the best way to go. So, I think that for a healthy company, you have to for healthy marketing and sales department, you have to have all channels Working for you. You have to have an inbound channel. You have to have an outbound channel, all of the channels, but for us, for many years, only, uh, content marketing channel worked and works still works. So, we just started to create content for our blog. We started to think deeply about our SEO.
So how can we make sure that our Pages are ranked in Google highly and yeah, we have quite good results? Several months ago, we had 100, 000 people per month visiting our website. Then it dropped a bit, now it grows back a bit, so it’s fluctuating. But yeah, we have, and this is like the main source, I’m not sure.
You know what’s good with SEO? Is that? It has a sort of cumulative effect. So, when you post an article, it has a direct effect right now. And it also has an effect in the long term. Yeah. And the more articles you have, the more it is back, and your blog and your website become better assets. Yeah. It’s not just yeah.
You build authority, you build that content authority, you build the matter expertise in your niche and Google does promote it.
Yeah, yes, yes absolutely. Because if you, for example, I can spend 10, 000 on writing content or I can spend 10, 000 on Google ads. Ads are going to bring me traffic right today. And that’s it. Yeah. And only today, right? And if I spend 10, 000 on content, so it’s going to work long term for me. It’s like creating some value for you but in the long term. So that’s why I like it, it’s my preference.
Makes sense. And how do you approach new content? What does that process look like within your organization?
I believe it’s a constant marketing analysis, market analysis, based on market analysis. Like we understand what our demands in the market, and what are news in the market. We react to Signals from the market, right? We see what our competitors do. We see what the demanding topics and we identify a content plan based on these topics and create a marketing strategy and then either hire someone or have our internal team work on that to create the content.
And what about, because I think link building again is a big part of your SEO success even though, a lot of people argue, but it does like, the biggest ranking factor out there and what exactly with a new company that process look like?
We have a special person who is doing that, like an SEO specialist who is making them, not the link building, I would say, but post exchange link exchanges. So, it’s partnerships in the form of website presence for Google. So, on social media, you can go and partner with some bloggers, right?
You’re an influencer, you go and partner with another influencer. Yeah. So, the same is true for SEO. You just go and partner with another website. You either create content together or just exchange links. And so, this is what an SEO specialist does.
Makes sense. And are you relying on digital PR as well as a strategy to promote your business and for your branding efforts?
Excuse me, which strategy?
Digital PR press release.
Ah, of course we do. Of course. Yeah. We do like on our website when it’s something important, we also reach out to our contacts to make a post about our news. So yeah, it works, of course.
And, What’s the target, uh, ICP for your ideal customer profile for your business? And how do you tailor your marketing efforts to resonate with that audience
I would say that those are small to medium businesses who want to streamline their business operations. So, business process automation. So, it’s either someone who wants to have this custom inventory management, data management, content management, resource management, and also startups.
So, startups, it’s another segment. The first is existing small to medium businesses. And another one is startups. Okay.
And what roles within these companies do you target mainly?
It’s technically so it’s many decision makers with technical backgrounds. Okay. So, it’s either the CTO or the CEO.
Okay. Makes sense. And because you’re relying a lot on SEO, I would love to know what are the key performance indicators that you keep an active look on and then work on a new strategy or revamp an old strategy.
We monitor our active articles, and our active pages in the search console, right?
Monthly, we track pages that perform that have a lot of traffic. And if something changes. Traffic drops, right? We need we know that something happened and we need to react. We need to either update content or we need to create the same content for the same topic. So, it depends on, our reaction. Yeah.
Gotcha. All right. Now because it’s serving a global audience, I would love to get insights from you on how you navigate cultural differences. And localize your marketing strategies.
like for me, it was never, actually, I never phrased this maybe I’m lying to myself, but I never, I don’t remember that if you speak English, we, we have an English-speaking website.
So, it’s English, and I don’t know even how to answer this because We never faced these challenges. So, it’s like a globalized we’re targeting those globalized decision makers who search for some product via the internet. They search internationally. And so, I don’t know. That’s why maybe it was not a factor for us by now.
Know, maybe if I start to go locally, go and attend local conferences somewhere, then I will face it. But so far, we haven’t faced it. This is interesting.
Yeah, and that’s wonderful because, localizing content but such a broad audience is a mammoth task, it’s not something easy.
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Yeah, we’re coming to an end, Philip and I would love to have a quick rapid fire with you. Are you ready for that?
Of course.
What habit holds you back the most?
A habit that holds me back?
I don’t know. I love to sleep. So sometimes I wake up quite late. I don’t know. Yeah
That’s fine. It’s not something that holds you back. But yeah, still I take that as an answer what chore do you despise doing? Do you know any routine habit that you don’t like doing?
Let me think about it like
I don’t like waiting, that’s why I don’t drive. Yeah, I don’t like this, staying in the traffic jams. That’s something that makes me very angry.
Okay. What subject do you find to be most fascinating?
Mathematics. Okay. I love math. Yeah. I love finding this connection, and relations, and I believe that it explains a lot.
So, you can apply it anywhere. So that’s why math is something that I think everyone should study and understand.
I’m now coming to my very last question. What was your last search on Google?
I think it’s going to be quite a long time to find it. I believe I searched for something about this tool that went the shutdown, this is no code tool.
Okay, gotcha. No worries. Thank you so much, Philip. Thank you for your time. Thank you for all the wisdom that you shared in today’s session about the platform, about your life I appreciate it. And thank you so much
Yeah, Harshit, thank you very much for your invitation. I appreciate it and for the rest of my life, you’re going to be the first one who interviewed me in English. So, thank you very much for that. Yeah, thank you very much.
Love to be the first. Thank you.
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