Brent Summers

having fun on the frontier. prev: built operator/nocodeops, acquired by @zapier

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

we're closer than you think

[Ben Cera @Bencera]

Polsia just raised $30M at a $250M valuation.

Approaching $10M annual run rate.

One Founder + AI. Zero employees.

Polsia runs companies autonomously.

It also ran its own fundraising.

I just showed up for signatures.

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

6 years later - we've arrived

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

The ultimate no-code tool of the future - dictate what you want your app to look like and do, and the code gets generated and deployed

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

It's been such a privilege to build @nocodeops with my co-founder @PhilipLakin and our incredible team over the past 3+ years. I am proud of what we've accomplished and couldn't be more excited to join efforts with @zapier!
https://t.co/3hVeYQQ5vO

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

Super proud of the team for this launch. We saw that even after syncing automations and dependent assets/endpoints into Operator, our users wanted an easy way to document complex ops workflows. Using Notion style @ mentions in Operator means you just have to write out a process and it will automatically monitor/update any of the mentioned assets. Now live and hopefully the first step to solving the headaches of manual documentation

[Philip Lakin @PhilipLakin]

📢 We're excited to announce that our two most requested features are now live in Operator, reinforcing our mission of helping ops teams move quickly while maintaining stability. Meet Process and our new @make_hq integration!

1. Process: A New Way to Document Workflows
✍️ Write out documentation effortlessly - just @ mention any automation, endpoint, or external resource - it’s all automatically synced and tracked so your documentation never goes stale again
👀 View all processes in a list, filtering by tags to see workflows that matter to you (e.g., those involving teammates like @CCafeo).
🚨 Activities & Issues: monitor updates and problems on any assets mentioned in a process
💬 Flexible Formatting: use rich text and external links to document workflows in a way that works best for your team
🔗 Apps & Linked Assets: quickly access automation cards and all the apps used in a process

2. Our @make_hq Integration: More automations, all in one place
🤝 Unified Management: sync and manage your Make scenarios right alongside Zapier in Operator
📣 Stay Updated: keep track of changes in real time with updates on the Timeline page
🔌 Connect Easily: link your Make account using an API key with full permissions flexibility

Full demo video below. To the moon y'all!

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

https://t.co/NlScLPfD3M

[Philip Lakin @PhilipLakin]

🚀 After 2+ years of collaborating with ops pros from our community, we're thrilled to announce the launch of Operator Beta! 🎉

They all discovered the magic of #NoCode, built game-changing automations, and became their team's hero. But as word spread and their quick fixes morphed into critical infrastructure, managing those automations required a new level of cross-application observability.

When we noticed that the world's best no-coders were solving for this with sprawling, manually updated spreadsheets, the seed for Operator was planted.

Today, Operator is the world's first automation management platform designed for @airtable and @zapier (with @make_hq and Airtable Automations in dev) that:

🔍 Visualizes cross-app dependencies
📄 Auto-generates current documentation
📜 Unifies activities across apps into one changelog
🚨 Sends proactive alerts for automation issues
🤝 Enhances collaboration, training and onboarding

If you're a no-code automator, we'd love to give you superpowers to fortify the #NoCode ecosystem you've worked so hard to champion. Join the beta below💪 https://t.co/mVh0U4ugeo

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

@PhilipLakin 😘

[Philip Lakin @PhilipLakin]

[1/3] So stoked to finally announce our new, unified @nocodeops brand: https://t.co/A8WhKl8cnK. Our community, product, newsletter, and conference are now all a part of one ecosystem empowering ops professionals using #NoCode. 🧵...

[Josh Lu @JoshLu]

Fun learnings in here about the human role in phase 1 AIGC game creation:

Humans as QA (does the thing work as intended), design director (choosing style, giving feedback on direction), and producer (budget and picking vendors)

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

@danshipper mostly agree, but would hesitate to go all-in on an ai startup right now. Feels like when the dust settles we will have 1-2 winners in chatbots, will then be the right time to build on top of them. Similar to the first App Store devs building flashlight apps

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

@micsolana The Sydney witch trials

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

@kevin2kelly I find it easier to see its first attempts at output vs trying to write an overly complex prompt

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

For anyone like me that feels overwhelmed/uninformed at farmers markets, this book is a game changer. Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden

H/t @myles_cooks

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

No-code app builders like Bubble might realize it was a mistake to hide the code from users. I think systems like @dynaboard by @kernio are set up for long term success by being able to show syntax/work with copilot

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

The hottest new programming language is English

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

Some related @sivers wisdom:

“The adding mindset is deeply ingrained. It’s easy to think I need something else. It’s hard to look instead at what to remove.”

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

I’m a big fan of systems that acknowledge hard constraints on time/energy/resources.

When you’re younger and time feels unlimited, it’s easy to spend it poorly. I’ve noticed my friends with kids might only have 2 hours to spend on craft per day, but they use that time well

[Rob Mohr @R_Mohr]

One of the best “exercises” given in the @DrAndyGalpin x @hubermanlab Guest Series...

The “Quadrant System” helps identify where you’re currently placing your energy.

You get 10 points to distribute across the categories below.

Where are you currently giving your points?

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

But just as mobile didn't kill web, I don't think saas is going anywhere. It's still early days, but it's worth thinking about
- how saas data could plug into the assistants
- which features are complementary with a chat input box vs competitive

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

It's an unsettling time to be a product builder as AI brings our next platform shift since mobile into focus 😅

Kinda hard trying to balance the reality of what models are capable of today while predicting where our products fit into the assistant UIs right around the corner

[Brent Summers @brentsum]

Once the dust settles in the next 12-18 months with a handful of smart assistants living in Slack, browser, etc, I think some saas UI will become redundant. For example, I likely need fewer dashboards if I can just ask a question related to metrics and get the answer