Meet Patrick
I’m Patrick Kelly and I am the Founder & CEO at Frontly. With our product, you can build AI-powered applications without writing code.
He accepted SaaSPirate request to an interview on AI industry and his role in Frontly company. We were privileged to have the chance to got the sort of in-depth discussion you will not find on the internet.
Without any further delay, let’s hear what he has to say!
Hi Patrick, please introduce yourself to our audience and tell us a bit about your industry experience?
I’m Patrick, a three-time startup founder. I started my first business at 22 years old, and bootstrapped my second business to one million dollars in annual revenue in 4 years. Currently, I’m the founder and CEO of Frontly.
Can you tell us about the inception of Frontly AI? What was the inspiration behind it?
I came up with the idea of Frontly while building my previous startup. I was the primary developer on the project for several years, and through that process, I saw how much time and energy was wasted building SaaS tools with custom code, when the majority of the work was the same across different businesses. I wanted to change that, and I envisioned a no-code SaaS building platform that could 10X the speed of creating and launching a SaaS product.
How does Frontly AI differentiate itself from other no-code platforms currently available?
Frontly maintains a unique balance of ease of use and speed of development, while offering sophisticated features not offered in other app builders like custom reusable components, conditional block states, and chained multi-step actions with conditional logic flows.
How do you see the no-code movement impacting traditional software development?
As a self-taught developer with nine years of experience, I strongly believe that no-code will replace 90% of traditional coding over the next 10 years.
There’s just no way that it won’t. It’s already happening, and it’s just a matter of time. Every year, no-code platforms are able to handle more of the common needs that custom code provides. Even as someone who loves coding, I would no longer recommend learning custom code today.
What are the biggest challenges today in the no-code AI tools industry?
AI is powerful, but it’s inherently unpredictable. This creates a big challenge when trying to implement AI into systems that need stability and predictable outcomes. The challenge for developers in this space now is to create the ‘guard rails’ to keep AI on track while still allowing it to do what it does best, generating intelligent and unique content.
How does Frontly AI keep up with the rapidly advancing field of artificial intelligence?
I’ve been optimistic about AI for many years, and as soon as OpenAI released their GPT-3 model, I jumped into building as much as I could with it. We spent a lot of time focusing on generating apps with AI, but now we’re focusing more on the ability to build apps that use AI in their workflows. Because our platform is already so easy to use, we believe the real value is in empowering our users to build their own AI apps. We are always updating our solution and following the trends to stay relevant.
What are your thoughts on AI ethics, especially regarding AI-generated content?
I think that we’re going through a societal shift where the concept of owning an idea is going to fade over time. When physical paper documents were the only option, it made sense that you could protect the intellectual property, and it didn’t take much to do it. We live in an age of information, accessible from anywhere on the planet from a supercomputer in our pocket.
I respect creation of content, but I don’t see any logical path forward other than one where we learn to appreciate the skills of curation as much as we do creation. When 1 million feature-length films and 1 million micro SaaS products are generated every day with AI, the ability to curate will be exponentially more important than the initial creation.
What new features or capabilities can we expect from Frontly AI in the near future?
Frontly is pushing to build a full suite of SaaS-creation tools, including integrated payments and more advanced AI data manipulations that will enable the building of nearly anything you want. We’re excited to continue pushing the boundaries of what you can build with no-code and empowering startup founders to move quickly.
If you had one piece of advice for entrepreneurs looking to enter the AI tools space, what would it be?
Focus on bringing real value, ignore the hype. Everyone has access to the tools now, so the excitement of the technology will fade unless you focus on solving real problems, particularly ones that people care enough about to pay for.
Did you enjoy our interview? Do you have anything to say to our community?
Thank you for the opportunity to share my story.
For anyone reading this, if you’re interested in building a SaaS product with no-code, we’d love to chat with you and learn about what you need. We’re a small, dedicated team and we have a Discord community of over 1200 builders who are very supportive and love to share their challenges and successes. We’d love to see you there!
