AI Replaces Paid SaaS Tools by Letting You Build Your Own | Scott Knowles - Co-founder of Mello

Nov 13, 2025

Scott Knowles, co-founder of Mello and a former OKR software entrepreneur, shares his journey of restarting his coding career using ChatGPT. He discusses how AI facilitates learning by allowing individuals to ask high-level questions before diving into coding. Scott emphasizes the importance of planning projects and the 'three tries rule' for debugging. He explores building cost-effective tools and personalizing cold outreach emails using AI, highlighting an innovative approach that empowers small teams to automate processes without relying on expensive tools.

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ANECDOTE

Relearning Code With ChatGPT

Scott reentered active software development after a six-year break using ChatGPT as his co-pilot.
He read and edited AI-generated code until he regained fluency and shipped projects quickly.

ADVICE

Plan Before You Ask For Code

Start projects by asking high-level questions before requesting code to avoid premature complexity.
Narrow scope step-by-step then ask for detailed implementation once you choose tools and architecture.

ADVICE

Use The Three-Tries Rule

If a solution fails after a few attempts, pause and ask the model for simpler alternative approaches.
Request multiple options and pick the one that minimizes time and complexity for you.

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In this episode of This New Way, Aydin chats with Scott Knowles, the co-founder of Mello, a digital process manager designed to automate human-centric workflows. Scott shares how he reentered software development after a six-year hiatus — not through online courses or bootcamps, but through ChatGPT. With AI as his co-pilot, he rebuilt his coding skills, created software from scratch, and automated complex systems like cold outreach engines and data pipelines — all for free or nearly free. The episode is a hands-on masterclass in learning, building, and automating with AI.Timestamps00:00 - Intro0:29 – 1:12 — Introduction: Scott’s background in computer engineering and management consulting2:00 – 4:18 — Founding and selling an OKR software company; early startup experience4:23 – 5:06 — What Mello is: a “digital process manager” that connects humans the way Zapier connects software5:36 – 7:00 — Returning to coding after six years thanks to ChatGPT7:42 – 8:15 — How ChatGPT helped him relearn code “like slang you forgot”9:03 – 10:13 — Learning new skills: how to ask the right questions as a beginner10:41 – 11:27 — Using ChatGPT to scope and plan projects instead of asking for instant results13:00 – 14:03 — The importance of high-level questioning before diving into code15:06 – 16:21 — When to stop and ask, “Is there a simpler way?” instead of getting lost in rabbit holes17:05 – 18:07 — The “three tries rule” for debugging with ChatGPT18:26 – 18:50 — Sometimes the fix is on Reddit: mixing AI and human answers22:01 – 27:21 — Demo: Scott’s TikTok “routine scraper” app built entirely with ChatGPT-generated code27:33 – 28:14 — How the scraper uses OCR, captions, and transcripts to build structured data28:58 – 30:06 — Using ChatGPT as a code generator — no manual coding required30:49 – 32:10 — Introduction to N8N: self-hosted automation for free cold outreach33:01 – 36:33 — Step-by-step breakdown of Scott’s automated email system using N8N and Google Sheets38:32 – 39:09 — Building high-quality prompts for personalized emails40:00 – 42:06 — How N8N automations replace tools like Clay and Smartlead42:33 – 43:09 — Watching the automation run in real time43:39 – 44:14 — Human-in-the-loop safety: drafts before sending46:02 – 47:05 — Scott on the future of AI and human collaboration47:17 – 48:31 — Aydin on “vibe coding” and how LLMs democratize software creation48:55 – 49:13 — Closing thoughts: start small, get quick wins, build momentumTools & Technologies MentionedChatGPT — Used as a real-time coding tutor and co-developer to build entire applications.Mello — Scott’s product; a digital process manager that automates human-to-human workflows.Zapier / N8N — Workflow automation tools; N8N is self-hostable and used in Scott’s cold outreach automation.Supabase — Open-source database used to store and serve data for the TikTok scraper app.Playwright — Browser automation library for scraping TikTok videos.VS Code + CodeX Plugin — Integrated code editing environment that connects directly to ChatGPT for automated coding.Fellow — AI meeting assistant that summarizes meetings, tracks action items, and integrates with other tools.OpenAI API — Powers many of the automation and text-cleaning features within Scott’s projects.Subscribe at⁠ thisnewway.com⁠ to get the step-by-step playbooks, tools, and workflows.