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Jun 16, 2026
Building Digital Solutions with No-Code Tools with Karen Kelly
Building Digital Solutions with No-Code Tools with Karen Kelly
00:00
19:35
Transcript
0:00
Welcome, everyone. Today, we are speaking with Karen Kelly. Karen is a three-time founder, CEO, mom, and grassroots organizer who's spent 20-plus years driving innovation across healthcare, marketing, media, and tech.
0:13
Her previous ventures have been recognized by Boston's 50 On Fire and featured in Boston Business Journal and Ad Age. Karen, welcome. We're so happy to have you. Thank you so much for having me, Rachel.
0:24
I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Likewise. So let's start where we usually do, which is talking about transitions. I know you've had several, and they've all built on and off each other.
0:36
Big picture, just to re- really make you feel like you can transition across anything, my career started in advertising. Um, I then migrated over to healthcare.
0:45
Really, the tie between the two was communication and connection, and then migrated into creating my own kind of media studio and then into technology. Big picture, really, transitions are, are very doable for folks.
0:59
It's just about kind of drawing your own lines around it and creating the story you wanna create.
1:03
But, um, I think today, Rachel, in, in thinking about this podcast and our conversations, one of the biggest transitions for me was once I arrived in technology, um, and I kind of came in as a CMO to a technology startup, a marketing technology startup in Boston, um, and after four years, had migrated over to the president seat and ended up having to resign because my local public school district could not find a place for my six-year-old son in their after-school care program, which really seemed impossible to me at the time.
1:34
But after a year, a full year of keeping an additional mother's helper around the house just to cover the gaps in what they couldn't cover, because these kids get out of school at, like, 2:15 and 1:30 on some days of the week, right?
1:48
So it's pretty wild, and there's definitely no way that man or woman, you can run a company with a small child coming through the door in the early afternoon hours. So I really felt incredibly frustrated.
1:59
I felt like I had to choose between being the parent my son needed me to be and the parent I wanted to be, and the executive that my company needed. At the end of the day, you know, of course, I chose my son.
2:12
It was a tough decision, but I resigned from that role as president and put my... Kind of woke up the next day and, like, put on my determined face and was just like, "I'm gonna fix this problem."
2:24
So ended up then going into Facebook, it's like the one platform we're all on, and asking other local moms, "Who else needs after-school care?" And so from that grew a movement, Parents for After School Solutions.
2:38
Um, and we, we blew up into a Facebook group of about 600 parents really fast. Turns out there were hundreds of us that, uh, weren't getting after-school care from our local district.
2:47
We sort essentially popped up a business [chuckles] um, and created our own parent database. We mapped all the land assets in town that the, that the school district could possibly use for after-school care.
2:55
We reached out to dozens of childcare providers to try and find the right ones who could plug in anywhere and anywhere, right? It wasn't a financial problem. I think that was kind of the biggest thing.
3:05
Seven months later, we had actually put together two new after-school care programs with, uh, the YMCA at a summer camp that was just sitting empty September to June, and then through our local recreation department as well.
3:15
So that was a very big transition. That's incredible. Can you tell me a little bit about what you were feeling going through this transition, uh, from being the president to then starting a grassroots org- organization?
3:30
It's funny. I mean, it uses so many of the same skill sets, right? Um, especially when you're at an earlier stage startup. You've gotta be scrappy. You've gotta find a way. You've gotta use organic marketing.
3:41
You, you've gotta reach people in a way that appeals to the heart. You've got to own the data, and I think this was, like, a very important piece of...
3:50
In fact, my co-founder and I were just talking about this this morning. My current company, we have 100% organic growth.
3:57
We have not paid a dollar for marketing, and I take a lot of pride in that, but I use those same skills in rallying parents, um, and sort of getting folks' attention and bringing them into the fold and, and creating a space whereby we can start to have discussions.
4:10
Any company I've ever started has been an extension of me. For one reason or another, this is just the way I'm built. I insert my heart into everything.
4:17
This was just another movement, another company, in a way, um, that, that I was determined to make succeed. I had a lot of very low moments, I will say that.
4:29
I have worked every day of my life since graduating college, which was many years ago, and to walk away from a position that had taken me 10 years to get was just sort of insane.
4:40
And we were just coming out of COVID at that time, too. It was the fall of 2022, and I felt lost, for sure, at times. I self-identified with my position, my role, what I was doing professionally.
4:53
When I met someone new, that's kind of the first thing that would come out of my mouth. I always identified a little bit more as a professional than necessarily leading with mom for a reason.
5:04
And so when I lost that and I had to detach from all that, I think it was a really good thing to go through.
5:11
But I think that created a lot of challenge for, challenges for me in terms of thinking about, well, who am I outside of work, any work?
5:19
And how do, how did this happen, where I got to a point where I, I lit- I felt like I had no community around me, although I live in a very small town.
5:29
And how do I wanna live my life differently so that I don't have this happen again, and so that I can support other parents and families who I now understand are going through the same thing?
5:41
No one needs convincing that parents, especially moms, are completely overloaded, right? It's, it's happening all the time, every day.
5:48
We have, like, this extra 30% of things that we have to take care of, and generally, it does fall to, you know, chief mom officer, right? Like, we are the center of operations for the family.
5:59
So by- Really thinking about, like, a lot of self-reflection, how can I live my life differently, and what will work look like in the future, and what choices will I make differently when considering my next company?
6:13
I can certainly relate to the feelings of isolation in transition and attaching my identity to my work. Can...
6:20
Do you have any advice or tips for women who may be in that right now and wanna channel their skills or their previous experience to get through the transition? Community. Plug into community.
6:32
So whether that's a professional community. In fact, I would say multiple communities. Don't limit yourself. Professional community for where you wanna go next, community for folks who are in transition.
6:45
Um, I will s- I will give a plug for a community that we have been working with.
6:50
Um, it's called The Afternoon Shift, and it's all about mid-career folks who are in transition for one reason or another, and the idea is to make career a team sport, um, which I think is such a beautiful mantra.
7:01
Um, finding community of people who are going through something similar.
7:05
Right now is a very relevant time to be talking about this because, um, as we're all seeing in the headlines and feeling, there's a lot of uncertainty in the air. There are a lot of layoffs happening.
7:14
Before, they were talking about a sort of quiet quitting during the, during COVID, and, and a lot of people did quit their jobs because they rethought their lives.
7:22
But now they're talking about job hugging, um, because people are really fearful of losing their job. The future's just wildly unknown for many reasons.
7:29
Um, I think as much as you can start to, even if you're not in transition now, thinking about, "How could I take one step towards building community around myself?"
7:39
Whether that's professionally or personally, so simple things even. Just go to a couple networking events a month. Like, really, really simple.
7:49
That is the best way to, number one, get out of a sense of isolation, but number two, find other opportunities, right?
7:57
Regardless of what those opportunities are, find other work opportunities, find other promotional opportunities. Like, meeting people in the flesh, you just can't do it all on LinkedIn.
8:06
It's not even close, and I've watched friends try and job search just through digital means. It just, it doesn't work. And then the last thing I would say is find some way to connect yourself with your local community.
8:18
That is incredibly important, and it can look in a, like, a lot of different things. Um, it can look like being part of, like, a, a parent and child association in your town.
8:26
It can look like signing up for your town newsletter, so you start to see actually what's going on. There's probably much more going on than you realize.
8:32
It can look like going on into your local mom's Facebook group and just saying, "Hey, um, you know, I'm a mom who's thinking about a job transition. Does anyone wanna have coffee?"
8:39
I saw someone do this recently, um, in my town, and whoa, the number of people who jumped onto that post, right?
8:45
So it's, there's many people out there who are feeling this way, but just if you can be the one to kinda crack the door open, um, and, and put out a little bit of vulnerability, the rewards, I think, will be great.
8:56
I'll double stamp that vulnerability discomfort because there's always a hill to get over almost every day, but once you just get started, everything becomes easier. 100%.
9:06
In our preparation conversation, you mentioned that you followed the effects, and maybe still do, of the after-school programs you set up.
9:14
Be- being data-based, you wanted to see actually what happened and how people were feeling. Can you tell us about that?
9:21
Well, after we got these programs set up, so that, that happened essentially between December 2022 and July 2023. September came, everybody can go back to work, right?
9:30
And so that was very exciting, but I felt something really different, and it was more than just a few extra hours in every workday. I felt lighter, sort of calmer and happier.
9:40
I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I wanted to know if other families were feeling this, too.
9:45
So I went back to those 600 families who, for the first time ever, started the school year with their kids enrolled in after-school care, and after about a month in, I asked them, "Hey, would you mind filling out this survey?
9:57
Um, I'm just really curious, what does your life look like now?" The data we got back was...
10:01
I was astounded by it, um, but it helped clarify things for me so much in terms of what I was feeling and actually what millions of parents are feeling across the country, which is now parents had essentially, uh, about 55% of them had made a plan to exercise three times a week.
10:16
Amazing. 60% of them were taking mental health breaks every day, um, and then 91% of them were happier around their kids, and that just blew my mind.
10:26
Everything we do, all the choices we make in our career, in our lives, how we spend our time, like, all of it trickles down to our children. It just does.
10:34
And so the fact that it has enabled parents to be happier, more engaged with their children, just like, it just meant the world to me. There were other interesting factors, too, in that data set, like
10:46
30%, roughly 30% of parents, um, were able to avoid moving out of our town. Percent were able to avoid scaling back work.
10:54
Uh, and this was, you know, I, I recently did a Ted Talk on this, like, that's a huge piece, and this idea that, like, these types of situations, they pull women out of the workforce.
11:03
They make us less likely to wanna work because we're totally overwhelmed and just, you know, it, it creates such significant stress.
11:11
It was, it was really helpful for me to kind of understand at least, you know, about 10 different areas, what the impacts were, and that helped me clarify what I was feeling, but also then opened up this whole other realm to me in terms of thinking about, like, well, wait a minute.
11:26
Like, what is this type of health... This is clearly health related. What is this? And then starting to dig into some of the data around social health, um, and really, if you haven't heard it yet, Google it.
11:37
Here it comes. It's the third pillar of our health. You have mental, you have physical, now we have social, and the data is there to back it up. So for example,
11:46
whether or not you choose to go to book club or go to your baseball game can predict whether or not you get a cold next week, whether or not you get Alzheimer's disease or dementia or stroke or m- one of many other terrible things.
11:57
Um, that repeated pattern of choosing to engage in real life, and the in real life is very important. It affects our brains differently. It impacts our bodies differently.
12:07
That, and that has just, like, opened up my world and been a huge p- part of the next company I started and also just how I'm thinking about making choices now. I'm gonna use your use case over and over again because It
12:22
exemplifies what I think is coming, you know, in the future with the economy, like you said, so many things are changing. With health, we have to acknowledge new things.
12:30
What I hear you saying is you are creating solutions to things you are experiencing, and even when it's upsetting that those solutions don't already exist,
12:42
you have to persevere and see it as an opportunity and something to build. And I think that that's gonna be a lesson for all of us moving forward in terms of where we inject value into society and community.
12:57
So you mentioned that you're working on a new company. I'd like to hear more about that because I think that also builds on what you did previously and all of the learning around what is needed now.
13:07
You, you really segued that beautifully, Rachel, because I feel like right now I'm sort of taking the best of both worlds, which is AI enablement.
13:15
So this new world in technology whereby you don't have to know how to code to build a product, right?
13:21
It, it used to be that either know-how, how to be, you know, a coder or to be an engineer and/or financials got in the way of an idea and reality.
13:32
Now doesn't have to be the case anymore, and for a few hundred dollars you can actually build your own application using prototyping tools.
13:40
I, I know this'll sound slightly strange, but I definitely feel like I receive missions sometimes, and I felt like when I first used these tools, I received a mission to tell the world about it.
13:50
Because as a non-technical founder in tech for almost 10 years now, you know, it, it is a constant struggle, right? You're always losing control.
13:57
You don't, you don't know when that-- something's actually gonna get released. You don't know actually how much it's going to cost. You lose control of these things because you're not the one coding.
14:05
It doesn't matter your position. So for me, it was like the-- like everything has changed. The current world view that I had completely shifted.
14:14
What I ended up doing was tapping my fractional CTO at the time and saying like, "We, we need to run accelerators. Like, we need to bring this to the world."
14:23
And so we ran six accelerators really fast with about 10 to 15 folks in each cohort using these tools, building their first application, um, in four weeks, one hour a week. And that felt great.
14:35
But what we realized, unsurprisingly, is that people really loved learning in a community, and they didn't wanna let their community go after we had completed the cohort.
14:43
And so we said, "Well, why don't we just build a community around this idea of non-technical founder enablement, right? Using AI to build anything you want." It's like chatting with ChatGPT.
14:53
And so we launched this community at the end of July 2025. Um, it's called Launch by Lunch, and the idea is really that it-it's kind of the future of entrepreneurship through community.
15:03
So much resonates based on what we were talking about previously and also what excites me about the future.
15:10
A lot of us have initial reactions that are scary about technology and those are warranted, but there's also some really exciting things there, and I think
15:20
you guys are hitting the nail on the head with your community and your product.
15:23
I've even had the opportunity at FemFactor to speak to a few women who have-- who are actively trying to be non-tech tech founders using vibe coding to bring their idea to life, which even in the last two to three years would not have been possible 'cause you would've had to pay for expensive dev teams with engineers, and you would've had to take years of time to actually build and develop it.
15:47
And, um, now women in particular, at least who-- that's who I'm speaking with, are coming up with these ideas and actually being able to follow through in a short amount of time and in an affordable budget.
15:58
Helping people do that is really helping a myriad of new ideas come to life and come to market. And it's allowing experts to be the ones to design it. Mm. And that I think is so important.
16:13
You were sort of offloading your vision before when you had domain expertise and you had an idea for how to bring it to market digitally. Now you get to be the one actually in the driver's seat.
16:25
The good news is you get to bring all your domain expertise. You know this problem so well. The downside is you probably aren't a UI/UX expert. You probably are gonna run into issues when you have bugs in your code.
16:39
Um, but you can be the one to drive the vision forward. You can be the one to build that early product. You can stay in control of finances, and you can get support when you need it.
16:50
The way we're looking at it philosophically is there's less of a need for you to find a technical co-founder, because typically that's always the way we were told to do it, right?
17:00
You've gotta find a technical co-founder. It made a lot of sense because you need significant cost savings and you can, you know, obviously having a partner that can build it versus sending it outsourced somewhere else.
17:11
I mean, it, it, it's a whole other level of care for the product. But now I'm watching co-founder women, both non-technical, get funded with millions of dollars by VCs, and it is like so exciting.
17:24
In fact, I saw one the other day who put together a two-sided marketplace for after-school care programs and parents, and I'm like, "Oh," like, right, I, I could've built this, but it didn't exist three years ago, you know?
17:37
Just amazing stuff.
17:38
And again, because we've got more moms in the driver's seat or non-technical folks who typically wouldn't be in the driver's seat, uh, we're gonna-- we are seeing a whole new range of products, especially for parents.
17:48
I had three calls yesterday with founders who are building products for parents, mostly mom brains.
17:53
But like how-- but how do you sync the two brains, and how do you offload, you know, to-- more to dad or the other parent, whoever is the one who typically takes more of the cognitive load?
18:04
So if women listening have an idea and they wanna get started, what would you tell them to do?
18:10
I would tell them to pick up one of the-- and this is all changing very fast, but if you run a Google search for AI prototyping tools, the biggest ones right now are Lovable or Bolt or Replit.
18:23
Um, I recently used Softr and Base44. I think these products are generally gonna stand at the test of time for the next few years.
18:31
It is as simple as opening up one of those platforms and typing in a prompt for your idea.
18:37
And I would say just get a taste, because once you get a taste, it's like there's so much excitement, there's so much power, there's so much possibility. Do that.
18:47
When you wanna push through and you feel like you need more education and you're, you're stalling a bit, like join our community. Like, that's what we're there for.
18:55
Um, there's probably other communities that are doing something similar, but we have this very nice blend of folks who are technical and not technical, all with this give-first approach of non-technical founders absolutely can and should be building on their own.
19:08
Amazing. Can you tell us where people can find you and Launch by Lunch? Our website is launchbylunch.co, no M on the end. Um, and I am on LinkedIn a lot, um, Karen Kelly.
19:19
I'm in Boston, but you can find our company easily there too. Um, on Instagram I am builtbykaren. Nice and easy. Thank you for sharing your story and your new venture. It's super relevant to this audience.
19:31
Hopefully we'll continue the conversation with you guys. Sounds great, Rachel. I really appreciate you having me.
FemmeFactor
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