Even billion-dollar teams start simple first.

Rags Vadali's team at Meta gave small businesses in Brazil two phones—one red, one blue—and spent two months tracking every customer message in a spreadsheet.

No fancy tech. No code. Just analog data collection.

That experiment validated what became a $5 billion product.

In this episode, Rags explains why the hardest part of building a tech product has nothing to do with technology—and why non-technical founders who understand this have a massive advantage in 2026.

What you'll learn:

• Why Meta validated billion-dollar products with spreadsheets before writing code
• The difference between what to build (your job) and how to build it (AI's job)
• Why talking to customers beats "figuring it out" behind your computer
• Why 2026 is the best time in history for non-technical founders to start

If you're ready to stop overthinking and start building, this episode will show you exactly where to begin.

P.S. This January, Rags is joining Tech for Non-Technical Founders as a guest instructor.

If you want 1:1 coaching from someone who has launched products to 600 million people, enrollment opens January 13th. Details at the end of the episode.

Resources from this Episode

FREE class: From Business Owner to Tech Founder, without the $100,000 developer disaster

Join this class to learn:

• The 2-step framework to go from idea to scalable tech product
• Why smart business owners waste $100k+ on their first tech venture—and how to avoid it
• When AI helps vs. when it destroys products (and your ROI)

Sign up here: https://www.techfornontechies.co/january

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Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.

For the full transcript, go to https://www.techfornontechies.co/blog/286-lessons-from-meta-and-google-for-non-technical-founders-in-2026