In this interview, host David Hirschfeld talks with Vitaliy Lyoshin, founder of AppForge Lab, about the evolution and vision of his AI‑powered no‑code platform for small‑business workflow automation. Vitaliy outlines his background in IT and early work on a hospitality‑focused no‑code system, then details three major pivots: from a chatbot for barbershop bookings, to a broader no‑code application builder for small‑business tasks, and finally to an AI‑agent‑enabled platform that lets users create self‑modifying assistants. He explains the pre‑revenue go‑to‑market plan, leveraging online communities (Reddit, Product Hunt), local DC AI groups, and interview exposure to attract early adopters, with a focus on a niche booking engine to prove the concept. The conversation covers how the team uses generative AI tools (Copilot, code‑generation, requirement drafting) in development and testing, and their intention to seek funding after the MVP launch in early fall. Vitaliy shares personal influences, citing the Diary of CEO podcast and Alex Hormozi’s books on offers and leads, and discusses a broader problem he’d solve if resources were unlimited: a trustworthy information filter (truth.ai) to cut through online noise. The interview wraps with reflections on trust, verification, and the future of AppForge Lab.
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Today we've got Vitaliy Lyoshin, who interviewed me about 6 months ago on his podcast. And I'm doing a lot of these sort of like payback interviews for the people that have interviewed me lately. And about 6 months ago, Vitaliy founded a company called AppForge Lab, where he's building an AI platform that other people can use to build their automated workflows and AI agents. Really on the cutting edge of things. Hi, Vitaliy. Thank you for coming on to the show today.
Hey, David. Really nice to be here with you. Thank you.
In just a few words, tell us your— a little bit about your background and the genesis of what got you to AppForge Labs.
Yeah, so my background is in IT. I studied business intelligence and information systems, and in 2011 I started working at startup. We were building a web system and mobile applications for hospitality industry primarily. So it was no-code back then, so people could configure a lot of things themselves using our platform for their daily operations and things like that. And lately I've been working for a government organization as a program project manager. And I'm just, I'm, yeah, I just started joining this project basically 6 months ago, building something with AI, which is something pretty cool.
Yeah, really cool. And you said, you told me you've pivoted 3 times since you've launched, since you started this 6 months ago. That's a lot of pivots in a short amount of time. So tell me about that.
Yeah. So the first pivot really happened before I joined. It was prior to my time. So my co-founder is, I worked with him since 2011, basically in my first company. And he had this experience when he goes to the barber that he goes to, that barber was complaining about booking the clients and that was cumbersome process. It's, he had to juggle multiple applications and things like that. And so my friend basically said, let me build a chatbot for social media apps and streamline this process using AI. And people, unfortunately, people weren't really trusting or got scared of this technology back then. So he said, maybe that's not a very viable idea to build just a chatbot because people not really don't wanna put their information in and chat with it. So he pivoted to start building the platform to to build full-blown applications, basically. It's a no-code platform where people can set up their business workflow, something like booking. So that was the first pivot. The second pivot happened in March when he asked me to join him. And we basically started investigating how viable just the booking idea is. And then we realized that it could be much bigger than that. Even though there are a lot of small businesses who need to solve this problem, we could build a platform flexible enough to support Any other needs for small business owners, for freelancers, things like invoice generation, things like expense trackers, task management, those all type things that people use spreadsheets for or paper. So that was the second kind of pivot back then. And now our approach, which is a latest pivot, which we're building MVP for right now, hoping to launch it this fall, early fall, is basically a platform that can also build, you can also build your own AI agent basically, or your own AI assistant. And instead of just creating an app where you can manage records and see some reports, we're also building AI into this app that allows you to modify itself. It allows you to analyze the data, ask questions, ask for feedback. And we really hope this is gonna be really helping people, especially small business owners who don't have maybe a lot of people to help them with tasks. And this is going to be huge for them.
Now you're pre-revenue. So what is your plan for nailing down early adopter customers and starting to generate revenue?
So we have, we're trying to use some platforms online to build community around the platform. Even simple things like Reddit and getting some traction talking inside the communities there. And then platforms like Product Hunt, obviously we can use that. So that would be probably also beneficial for us. And then also we're doing like these interviews with you and we're trying to get and attract more people for us, local communities we're part of. So we are based in around Washington, DC, and we have a few communities of engineers and AI enthusiasts here where that we're trying to leverage as well.
So there's a lot of noise around agents and agent builders and workflows. How are you going to be able to stand out with so much going on right now?
I think we really need to find a small market or niche first and really prove to the business owners that we can really solve this problem for them really well. And then it will— the hope is it will kick in from there with word of mouth and we'll start expanding. So that's our focus, to nail the simple problem so well that people are just gonna start using us.
Like building booking agent, booking agent or something like that?
For example, like building booking engine. Yeah.
Because if that were really successful, all that all by itself could be a big success and growth path.
Absolutely. We looked at the market and it's about 30 million small businesses, uh, in North America alone. I'm not even talking other parts of the world. globe. And if we can capture even like 1%, 2%, that's gonna be huge. And that's just booking. Think about other workflows that businesses have to manage all day long. Think about like small restaurant, right? They have a lot of things they need to worry about, a lot of personnel receiving and customers and things like that. So all that can be automated. Yeah.
Yeah. It's pretty exciting. What's— and so of course, You're using AI in your own business, right, to figure out how to market and how to reach? Why don't you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, so obviously, yes, we're using some tools to help us generate code, assemble things together. We use AI for writing like requirements and doing some basic research of how things can be implemented better. So that's part of the process. For testing also, that we use some AI tools, and those tools are for like Copilots basically with Visual Studio and Things like that. So I'm sure people already heard of them and know about them. So that's kind of part of the process for us. But the rest of the things is just what we can build in the platform. So that's what the main focus for us right now is to make sure that this AI agent can build the app and also can sustain or live inside the app and help business owner with their task questions, insights, and things like that.
Are you considering trying to raise money from investors?
Possibly, yes. After this MVP is done in the fall, we're probably going to start going and talking to people about funding. That's something on the plate for sure. Yeah.
Okay. That's really exciting. I like to keep these short and sweet. Vitaliy, what is one of your, what's your favorite podcast that you'd like to listen to?
Oh, there's a lot of them lately.
Yeah.
I've been all over the place. I like the Diary of CEO. I find that the long, very long, like 2, 3 hour interviews, very going into depth with what people have to say. And yeah, Steve has just very good people on the podcast who have a lot of insights and experience. So I really enjoy those. So yeah, that would be my top choice for just for what I'm doing for business and some insights there.
And do you have one or two book recommendations?
My, right now, top of my mind is like trying to build this project and get it going, right? So I've been reading Alex Hormozi books for 100 Million Offers and 100 Million Leads. So those two books were top of my mind and I'm really enjoying. And the best thing is about them, it's very simple, very actionable. It's like reading like the book for the first grader. I highly recommend.
Awesome. And one I have for you, I don't know if it'd be ideal for you or not, but I may have mentioned it. It's called the MOM test. My listeners have heard me talk about this before, but it's basically how do you ask questions from potential customers who are biased to say the nice and right things, but are not being honest about whether or not they really need or value what you're talking about. And so how do you ask those questions? And that's what The Mom Test is all about. It's one of the best business books I've read to make sure it keeps you very honest about the feedback that you're getting. And the last question I'll ask you is, if you had no limits on money and no limits on what technology or AI could do, what problem would you solve in the world? Or forget the world, just what problem would you solve?
Yeah, I will have to think about that one. I think something with education, because I'd like to have people access to knowledge, even though everybody have access to the internet and knowledge, but there's so much noise these days and you don't know what is truth, what is not. Everything is biased, so many different opinions and so forth. And Flat out lies, right? It would be nice to have some sort of product, if you will, or some sort of device to filter it all out and help out people to have on-the-go information that they need in the right time, in the right place. So I, I'm sure there are some tools and somebody's working on it, but I will, I, it's even for myself when I'm looking and searching for something, it just takes so much time to figure out what's truth, what's not, and how to filter out all the noise.
Yeah. So truth.ai, right?
Yeah. Something like that. Yeah.
Or trust.ai. How do you trust the information you're getting even from that?
In social media lately have been this trend, get verified, right? This blue checkbox, like people pay money for it and they get verified. So before it used to be, you had to earn it. You had to prove that you're actually trustworthy resource, something like that. Like everything has to be verified and have a stamp that it's approved and it's good to go.
All right, Vitaliy, with that I'm gonna say goodbye, and I really appreciate you coming on, and I am very excited to see how App Forge Labs or App Forge Lab takes off and grows, and I'm gonna follow you and track you. I look forward to talking to you again in the future.
