HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.
I have 30 experience in managing custom development for Fortune 500 companies. I was born the same year that Douglas Englebart created the computer mouse and that Ian Sutherland created Sketchpad; I have not been as influential as either of those things.
What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?
Neonto provides “tooling” for creating code robots, otherwise, know as no-code platforms. Using Neonto, a company can create its own in-house no-code tool that uses exactly the language and framework and back-ends of its choice. We publish a free reference implementation called React Studio so that people can try out the technology for free and get to understand its power.
What is the origin story?
Having successfully exited his first startup, our founder Pauli Olavi Ojala was a freelance contractor writing mobile applications and got tired of all the boring, repetitive, and error-prone “boilerplate” code and integration tasks around it. The child of an architect asked himself why couldn’t programming have the same kind of CAD/CAM tools that the rest of the industrialized world uses to achieve consistency and quality in high volumes? And so he created Neonto. Programming polyglot since the age of 8, he instinctively made his tooling language independent and highly abstracted.
What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?
Pauli loves to start things. Co-founder Antti Sihlman, along with lead programmer Juha Pellinen, loves to finish things. And I love to talk and write about the things they do. I think it is the perfect marriage.
Pauli has been programming for so long that he has a deep understanding of all programming languages. That has made our products uniquely able to support any language at all (really). Antti has the perfect background to put himself in the shoes of the typical end-user, which is why he guides our product development. My contribution is that I have been at the leading edge of enterprise software development for three decades. I know what works in that context, what doesn’t, and why.
If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?
Writing another book (or two). One about corporate business culture, and another one trying to synthesize a middle ground between certain parts of science, psychology, art, and religion.
At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?
Right now, we are focused on increasing the React Studio user base. We have a backlog of important enhancements to make and support material (tutorials, more documentation) to write.
What’s most exciting about your traction to date?
Our core technology is in use by one of the largest social media companies in the world. I cannot name them, but they would be one of the first names you think of.
What technologies are you currently most excited about and most worried about? And why?
Obviously, we are most excited about no-code and the fact that it is starting to gain acceptance. I can’t really say that there is any technology we are worried about. Humans have a proven robust ability to figure out how to master tools and eventually ensure that their productive aspects outweigh their destructive aspects.
What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?
Pauli and I have both been contributors to HackerNoon for a few years. We feel like we are amongst family. :)
What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?
Buy Apple. Or maybe: Get a mentor who is well-grounded in the classics. There is a reason why they are the classics.
What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?
I could not believe how easy it was to wrap an npm/GitHub React component as a plugin for React Studio! I did it for the first time just a few weeks ago (I usually am not involved in the programming side of things). I was truly amazed.
Neonto is nominated as Startup of the Year in Helsinki. Go vote!