250. Less Tech, More Value: Why Simpler Digital Products Win

The more technology you put into your product, the worse it can get.

In this episode, Sophia Matveeva talks with Zahra Almahoozi, founder of DARB and recent graduate of the Tech for Non-Technical Founders program in Bahrain.

Discover how Zahra's "less is more" approach helped her build a startup that addresses real user needs without overwhelming them with features.

This episode is for you if you:

• Are building a digital product and wondering what to include
• Want to create something users will actually adopt (instead of ignore)
• Are looking to validate your concept with minimal investment

You will learn:

1. Why starting with WhatsApp groups or Google Forms can be more effective than complex technology
2. The three things every non-technical innovator must know to communicate effectively with developers
3. How documenting requirements can save you thousands in development costs

You can connect with Zahra Almahoozi on LinkedIn or follow Darb on Instagram

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

03:10 The Journey of a Non-Technical Founder

06:01 Lessons from the Tech for Non-Technical Founders Program

08:54 Understanding User Behavior

11:48 The Value of Networking in Tech

15:09 Advice for Aspiring Tech Entrepreneurs

17:04 Future Plans

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Transcript

 Sophia Matveeva (00:00.182)
You don't actually need tech. You need to set your mindset in a way and tell yourself, I can do this. You can do it through a WhatsApp group. You can do it through a forms, a Google forms. You need to kind of break that thought in your mind that's telling you, I know nothing about tech and actually do things in a very simple way and see if it actually works.

Welcome to the Tech for our Techies podcast. I'm your host, Tech entrepreneur, executive coach at Chicago Booth MBA, Sophia Matiljkova. My aim here is to help you have a great career in the digital age. In a time when even your coffee shop has an app, you simply have to speak tech. On this podcast, I share core technology concepts, help you relate them to business outcomes.

And most importantly, share practical advice on what you can do to become a digital leader today. If you want to have a great career in the digital age, this podcast is for you. Hello, smart people. How are you today? Today I'm speaking to you from Dubai. Have you ever been to Dubai? It is very luxurious. I'm actually doing

somewhat of a victory tour in the Gulf this April. So I started in Bahrain where we just had our graduation ceremony for our tech for non-technical founder students. Then after that, went to Dubai where I gave a master class on tech concepts to a law firm so they could understand their tech clients and their venture capital clients. And then I'm off to Dubai, no Abu Dhabi, I'm in Dubai right now. I'm off to Abu Dhabi and then Riyadh.

I'm very glad that I have an assistant keeping track of all of this. We're actually opening an office in the Middle East soon, so it's very exciting times on the techs, fun and techies side. But anyway, let us get back to you, my dear smart listener. Today's episode is super useful for corporate innovators and non-technical founders. Basically, if you have a tech idea and you're not a coder,

Sophia Matveeva (02:13.89)
you will find today's lesson useful and inspiring because you're going to learn from one of my Tech for Non-Technical Founder students, Zahra Amahusi. And she just graduated from our program in Bahrain. So listen to the way that she talks about what you need to know as a non-technical innovator. She's quite specific about it. She's got three points and they're all good. And also interestingly, she says that the more technology you have on your product,

the worse it can get. And this is counterintuitive and it is often true. If you hear what she's saying and you're like, my God, I want to join this cause, how do I do this? Fear not. We will be opening doors to our online version of the Tech for Non-Technical Founders program later this year. So if you want what she had, just stay tuned, keep on listening to the podcast and I'll tell you about our next online cohort.

which will be open and available to everybody. So I'll tell you about it right here. And my dear smart person, if you find this lesson useful and inspiring, please share this episode with one person who also wants to succeed in the digital age. You never know what amazing things they could achieve with this information. And now let's learn from Zahra. Can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your business?

So hi, my name is Zahra Al Mahouzi. I'm a founder of a startup called DER. Just like any one of you. I'm on my journey to learn how to start up my business. And the reason I'm saying I'm on a journey, I wouldn't say that I have reached the goals that I want, is just to kind of relate you guys to my mission.

What I'm trying to do is not just a startup. What I'm trying to do is to solve a problem that I and many people have faced where we have struggled choose the career path that we would love to pursue. And that's, that's a major aspect in our lives because it's like you set a goal and then you put all of your efforts towards it. Right. But.

Sophia Matveeva (04:34.602)
I found out that I was not the only one who could not establish what is the goal they want to reach and how they can reach it and where can it take them and even like how to decide the career path. So when I stumbled across this problem for me and it bothered me a lot because I'm a nerd and I said, you know what? this is a chance for me to turn my struggle, my problem.

into my goal, into my passion and start helping others to find their passion. And I'm so thankful that I've struggled like a lot to kind of know what's the goal for me, what's the career path I want to pursue, just so I can resonate with everyone who's facing this problem and I can hopefully deliver valuable tools and platforms.

that will aid them in choosing their career path. Awesome. Thank you. So what motivated you to join the Tech for Non-Technical Founders program? I met Sophia, I mean, in the Mashroori program and we had like two to three mentorship sessions. I loved how she was so down to earth. Like whenever Sophia speaks and talks about the Tech for Non-Techies,

She made it so down to earth. Like I would feel I can relate to her and relate actually to the topics discussed. So actually in tech for non techies, you realize you don't need tech much. You can do things that don't scale. You don't need to be so, frightened of all of the tech aspects that you don't know because guess what? There are tech people, there are developers, there are.

So many people, but there are no people who are willing to make a change. And that's what makes or breaks a business. Awesome. Thank you so much. Best, great answer. What was the valuable lesson or skill that you learned during the program? You don't actually need tech. You need to set your mindset in a way and tell yourself, I can do this.

Sophia Matveeva (06:58.146)
You can do it through a WhatsApp group. can do it through a forms, a Google forms. You need to kind of break that thought in your mind that's telling you, I know nothing about tech and actually do things in a very simple way and see if it actually works. See if you're actually delivering value. It has nothing to do about tech to do a startup in tech. It's a certain point when it comes to implementation. But initially what you need to do.

in a tech business is to find what's your problem. You need to know, I like to call these the three no's, Sophia, you know. Know your problem, know your mission, and know your project vision. Once you have these three, you can translate that to any developer, any UI, ex-developer, and you're on your road to do your business. Yeah, it's like what we talked about, know, do things that don't scale, right?

That was the first lesson I ever taught you guys. Do things that don't stop. How did the program help you move your project forward? It was awakening for me in so many ways, especially that the more you dig in, you know that it's not about you knowing about tech and doing tech. It's about you breaking that mindset that it's not all about tech. And then.

You understand what tech people will do throughout the process. you, are equipped with the tools and knowledge to manage that team, not to necessarily do it, to manage it. Because as a founder, you have many things to focus on, such as business, development, raise, raise funding and all of that. You can be focused about doing quotes, but you need to understand what they do.

Just so like when they tell you, we can't do this. can tell them, I know you can do this. And I've no, I've seen you can do this and this and that, you know, and you can have it all documented. So it's a way to safeguard. would say like the tech for non-tech was a tools of information to safeguard myself from future disasters, you know, like as much as we can, like, you need to have this, you need to follow this, you need to do this and this.

Sophia Matveeva (09:24.472)
follow like these kinds of steps, make sure you have all of these documented just so when you move on to the next team, to the next person, you have everything in place. Now I wouldn't say that I've done everything right, but at least I know what I did right and what I didn't write and what I need to focus on going forward. Isn't it funny how such kind of small and boring sounding things like just

writing down what you want and writing down your agreements. That's actually super key to help being, well, to growing your tech business, to growing your tech venture and to communicating with developers. And I think people think that, I'm going to teach them some super technical things, but a lot of it is just good professional practice. Like write down what you want and what you agree on.

You know, because we all have assumptions about what we are expecting from others and businesses or in life, you know, and I know I have done the same mistake over and over because I thought what's in my mind is easily like interpret understandable by the other person. No developers are not in your brain. you are, you ex developers need to know what are your thoughts.

So if you can't by yourself write down everything that's going on on your brain, how can you expect someone else to deliver what you want? You need to know what you want to do so others can know what you are planning to do. know, it's as easy as that. Awesome. And so can you share a specific example of how you have applied what you learned in the course to your business? Yes.

so in the tech for non-tech, was planning to do my second MVP. And what I really kind of focused on is when you are trying to deliver value, you don't want to disrupt the whole system of, you know, people, like for example, my case, making a decision about your career path. You want to facilitate their current behavior.

Sophia Matveeva (11:48.981)
So a very important aspect and benefiting your users is understanding their current behavior. What are they struggling in their current behavior and deliver value in that. Because once you can add value in what they are currently struggling in and what they are currently doing, then you can add a bit, know, you have this feature now. You can do this. You can do this. You can do this because they're already overwhelmed by this problem.

They can't figure out like all of the new tech stuff that you're going to give them. So actually the less tech your business is, the more approachable it is by your users and the more value they will see in it because it's simple. It's delivering value for their current struggle, current behavior. That's why in my startup, I was like, you know, everyone is basing their career path based on reviews and feedbacks from their cousin, from

their friends, friends, cousin. So I saw that in their current behavior, there is a struggle of finding information, finding reviews and finding feedback and interacting questions with people because they don't know person who studied this major or went to this university. So it was a platform that will have all of the majors. Everything is on it. So people can.

easily access the information without having to find the people because people are just there and they have just written down all of the information that they could need. And if not, they can engage in Q and A's. I guess the advice to other people would be what I always say, like, don't just make features because you can, but actually a simple product that delivers

the value that people need is much better than a complicated product that has lots of features that basically nobody uses. You know, like people know, right, you would need in the future, a gamification experience, a personalized experience, very like, you know, these kinds of fancy words that everyone has to have, but you need to have the core, right? If you don't have the core, just the value that you're delivering, you can't add all of that because it will just make no sense.

Sophia Matveeva (14:12.007)
Absolutely. So what would you say to somebody who is considering joining the Tech for Non-Technical Founders program? Just do it. Don't think about it. You know, the more you think about it and the more you just keep it in your mind, the more you're putting barriers to yourself. What harm could you possibly get from joining this program? Nothing. If you feel like

what would I get? What would I benefit? No, you would get a lot. By the way, I'm still doing my business. I'm still benefiting from the course, not because it's been a great material and Sophia has been great, but also the network I have done with the people that are on there. We are still in touch. I actually want gifts from people from marketing agencies and branding agencies from just being in that course.

You, we underestimate how important it is to be involved in the ecosystem. Being involved in the tech for non techies and such ecosystems have great value for us, not just as material and learning, but networking, which is as me as you Sophia know, is a very important factor in growing your business. And we had a, we had a really wonderful class.

You know, Cohort 2 was really wonderful too. And I think there's, there's just something about, I don't know whether it's particular people that it attracts or that somehow the best sides of everybody comes out. But yeah, we had a very warm, like lovely group. Okay. So what advice do you have for people with tech ideas, but no coding skills? You don't need coding skills. Like think of it as simple as.

If you have a business for cleaners who clean the houses, you know, do you need to know how they are cleaning the house? You're not the one who's going to clean. You're the person who's going to manage. You're going to hire people who are experts in cleaning, right? Because you're going to be busy and doing the business, finding customers, finding partners. So coding tools, development tools are not.

Sophia Matveeva (16:35.185)
your responsibility, unless you're passionate and you want to be a tech founder, there is nothing wrong with that, you know, but they are experts. need to be experts in starting your business and advocating for your business. That's your main focus. While for coding tools, you don't need to do that. There is, we've learned about so many non-code tools in the tech for non-tech. There's so many non-code.

I mean, there is AI in every kind of platform now that would do for you the UI UX that will generate for you the code. You just need to have that critical thinking of what you actually want and what you want to deliver and tools and means will just be there waiting for you to be used. Thank you very much. And last question. What is next for you and for your business? Next.

So yeah, I think I've done two MVPs so far. I've learned a lot. Next is the official soft launch coming up in shallow. Yes. I'm working towards that and you can all be, you can all stay tuned. can, you can follow DERP on Instagram. It's my dot DARP and you can stay tuned. D A R B. Yes.

the DARB and yeah, I'm looking forward to launching to the users, launching to the partners and get us moving. So this is so exciting. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. Of course.