If you ever wanted to start your own business, you know how challenging it can be. While everyone dreams of the freedom and independence a business can give you, there are many obstacles and challenges along the way. The story of our student Cristina proves that life is unpredictable and that to thrive, you need to be flexible and willing to learn new things.
Her story is a story of a woman who had to quit her successful job because of health problems and family responsibilities. But she took this challenge as an opportunity to start her own business. Now, Cristina is at the end of a no-code course and is already using new skills to build her own business and help other organizations. She’s also planning to turn it into a side hustle.
How a successful career can change in a second
Cristina has always been a high achiever and hard-working person. She started her professional journey with a degree in economics. Soon after graduation, she achieved many professional accomplishments — from working at well-known Portuguese and international companies to starting her own projects.
But it wasn't enough, so Cristina started a new challenge — a degree in tourism and hotel management. Right away, she liked the course and started working on exciting projects. She helped build one of the biggest wellness resorts in Portugal and then decided to work as a hotel director for other businesses. Her professional life was thriving until life happened. Her mother's dementia worsened, and Cristina had to undergo serious back surgery, which left her with chronic pain.
Struggling to care for herself and her mother, Cristina couldn't work at the same pace and environment. She asked her company to let her work remotely to help balance work and life, but the employer couldn't provide this option.
Challenges inspired a new business idea
Being unable to work remotely, Cristina decided to quit her job and focus on herself and taking care of her mother. It was a challenging time because she was searching for a job that allowed her to work remotely, but in a conservative Portuguese market, it wasn't easy to find a job like that, especially in her field.
To cope better with the new unknown period of her life, Cristina gave herself one year to decide what to do next. It was a tough time for Cristina. She struggled with her health and caring for her mother's declining mental state.
This difficult situation motivated Cristina to look for solutions to help people in similar circumstances to hers. The need for a solution to support caregivers of dementia patients inspired Cristina to launch a digital platform. From her own experience, she knew that the market lacked digital solutions for caregivers, so she set out to change that. But her enthusiasm was hindered when she came across another challenge — a lack of tech skills necessary to build a digital platform and present it to investors. For her project to work, she had to create a digital portal, but she didn't know how.
The first idea was to hire someone else to code it, but outsourcing work was close to impossible for a business in its infancy due to high prices. The second option was to learn to program. However, for Cristina, who was still taking care of her mother, volunteering at a non-profit organization that helped to combat food waste, and trying to get investments for her dementia caregiver business, it was too much. And when she thought she was on standby with her business idea, she came across No Code Institute.
No code opened the door to launch her business
It was perfect timing. Cristina needed to learn to build a digital platform for her business, but she didn’t have the right skills and time to learn to program. So, when she came across No Code Institute, it was an instant match. Right from the start, she knew it was the right choice. She was learning quickly and immediately implementing new skills in her business. "When I started the course, my project was on standby because it's a digital platform. And investment to start with a digital platform for a social organization is massive. And I thought, "Well, it'll take years for me to get proper financing to start my project.” And suddenly, with no code, I had a chance to at least start. First, with a pilot version to present to potential investors. It makes me feel much more empowered."
In the program, she was matched with a social organization that needed a CRM tool for fundraising. It was exactly what she wanted to learn to build for her other activities. Now, Cristina is using her new-learned no-code knowledge for her own business launch, a social organization she volunteers at, and a client on the No Code Foundations course.
Inspired by a quick learning curve and success implementing new tools, Cristina is excited to use no code in her future work. She's not only thinking of using no-code for her business but also offering her newly created CRM tool for fundraising to help organizations manage volunteers and donations. She's also thinking of using her CRM tool as a side hustle to build another income stream in the future. As she says, learning no code made her business idea possible and opened the door for more opportunities to come. "No code was one of the best things I discovered last year. And now it's part of my daily routine, future, and work."
Start your business with the help of no code
When asked what she would recommend to someone who's in a position she was in before, Cristina believes that the most important thing is to be open-minded, search, read a lot, and talk to people in different fields. She believes that nowadays, you have so many tools and opportunities to create great things, "You can be an entrepreneur of so many different things. You might need to put yourself in places where you feel uncomfortable or need to start from scratch, but it's amazing to learn, grow, and discover new things."
If you feel like you're on standby with your projects, career, or life in general, the best way to find new opportunities is to look forward. No-code development is a set of tools and techniques that enable you to create websites, mobile and web apps, databases, and similar digital tools without writing a single line of code. It's a great way to elevate your career or build a foundation for your own business.
We invite you to learn more about the No Code Foundations program and start your journey now!
