An “AI-First” Culture Is The Best Bait When Your Fishing for Talent

Build Club founder Annie Liao believes that the most significant returns on AI don’t come from the tech itself, but from humans properly trained to wrangle it. 

Just 12 months after raising $1.8 million in seed funding, 23-year-old founder Annie Liao is already seeing her hypothesis bare fruit. Build Club, the buzzy AI training campus that combines gamified, hands-on learning with a global community, appears to be delivering on its mission to democratise AI.

The startup aspires to help everyone, from beginners to experts to upskill for AI-native roles, and get access to vanguard tools all over the world. “What Build Club is doing changes every day, just as AI also changes,” Liao admits, reflecting the constant evolution at the heart of her business.

Although initially launched in Australia, Liao is now based in San Francisco, a city where it feels like “just everyone is constantly talking about AI, all the time.” She now offers practical advice to business owners navigating the automation explosion and relentless battle for talent. 

The Future Perfect Candidate

While the average hiring spend for an Australian SME is now $13,545 per year, with medium-sized businesses outspending their smaller counterparts by 3.5 times, allocating over $18,000 annually to secure top candidates. Even once the ink dries, a staggering 60 per cent of businesses report they’ve had new hires leave within their first month on the job.

Breaking this expensive cycle requires a fundamental shift in how businesses identify talent. For Liao, the answer beyond trying to decode resumes and looking for something more innate. While her company champions no-code tools, they still see people are the most critical part of any build, and spotting that potential is a skill in itself.

“We look for people who are curious and like to tinker with AI tools. Everyone we’ve hired at Build Club has actually come up through our community,” she says. “So we know they’re mission driven to some extent.”

She likes to test for curiosity. “When we’re hiring engineers for example, a key interview question we ask is what are you excited about right now in the field,” she says, “what co-pilot tool are you using just for fun and why?” 

Upskilling As The Great Equaliser 

Liao is a big believer in companies upskilling the employees they already have. She argues that AI is not a threat to be managed, but something that can unlock unprecedented growth for your people and your business.

“I think before you would study a degree and then you kind of just had to do a job in that degree,” she says. “But now AI has kind of democratised your ability to switch roles, and actually do what you want to do.”

This means the perceived skills gap in your business may not be a gap at all, but a pool of untapped potential. Liao says it’s something she sees every day with Build Club. “There are a lot of people who are learning vibe coding, or no code workflow tools, who are very non-technical but now they could probably be an AI consultant if they wanted to.”

Build Club is putting this democratisation into practice by launching enterprise learning courses with Manus.ai. “The Manus courses are mainly targeted to people that don’t usually code,” Liao explains. “For example, if you’re a business analyst we’ll be able to help you figure out what AI tool stack works really well to make learning feel personalised.”

This approach isn’t just for Gen Z. “A lot of people in Build Club are not super young. There’s a lot of people who are between 30 and 60 who are using it to up-skill,” she says. “They’ve been in the workforce for so long they have a lot of expertise and they actually have an advantage because they know how to do things really well.” Their deep industry knowledge, combined with AI tools, becomes a force multiplier. 

“When employers realise internal talent could also be upskilled, it gives employees a good reason to stay,” Liao says, “because they begin to see how their role could grow.”

Ideas To Build Your Business’ Own No‑Code AI Tools

Think of no-code platforms as digital LEGOs. You get to build the exact AI tools your business needs to fix its most annoying problems. Here are seven things any business can build right now.

Your Own Market Research Bot

Build an AI agent that watches your competitors. It can track their pricing, scan for customer reviews, and flag industry news.
Platforms: Zapier, Browse AI, Make

A Smarter Website Chatbot

Build a custom chatbot that diagnoses common issues, gives instant quotes, or books appointments 24/7.
Platforms: Voiceflow, Botpress, Landbot

Simple AI Upskilling for Your Team

Build a quick internal training course on the basics of AI prompting. A small investment in training can be a huge boost in productivity.
Platforms: Manus.ai, Gamma, Tango

Design a Brand Content Generator

Build a custom AI writer trained on your brand’s unique voice and past marketing materials. Use it to draft social media posts, email newsletters, or blog outlines that sound consistently like you.
Platforms: Softr, Bubble, Jasper

Build an Internal Knowledge Bot

Create an AI assistant trained on your company’s documents and procedures. It can answer staff questions instantly, from “What’s our leave policy?” to “Where is the Q3 sales report?” making onboarding and daily work much faster.
Platforms: Voiceflow, Dante AI, Botpress

Create an AI Lead Qualifier

Automate the top of your sales funnel. Build a tool that analyses incoming website inquiries, scores leads based on your ideal customer profile, and assigns the hottest prospects directly to your sales team.
Platforms: Zapier, Landbot, Make

Automate Your Expense and Invoice Processing

Design a simple app where your team can upload receipts or invoices. AI can read the documents, extract the key information, and input it directly into your accounting software, saving hours of manual data entry.
Platforms: Nanonets, Airtable, Rossum