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How Connor Finlayson built the largest freelance marketplace in New Zealand with no-code whatsoever

‍When Connor Finlayson founded the Unicorn Factory in 2018, his intentions were simple: Find more clients to freelance for. ‍

By
Holly Brooks
Holly Brooks
August 28, 2025

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When Connor Finlayson founded the Unicorn Factory in 2018, his intentions were simple: Find more clients to freelance for. 

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Today, the Unicorn Factory is the largest freelance marketplace in New Zealand. Wowza. 

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“When I started out, my plan was just to build a landing page so I could advertise myself and some friends as freelancers.” 

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“I had zero coding knowledge. All my experience was in sales and marketing so I didn’t really know where to start.”

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That’s when Connor discovered Webflow. 

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“Initially, I just wanted to build a landing page so I could advertise myself and some friends as freelancers on the site. In order to do that, all I really needed was Webflow.”

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“And so that was really the starting point for me.”

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But as the Unicorn Factory started to grow and more freelancers wanted to join, Connor quickly became swamped with manual data entry; filling out people’s profiles and forwarding messages to them.

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“I started researching what kind of automation tools were out there to make my life easier.”

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Without going into too much detail, Connor swiftly discovered, integrated, and mastered the no-code cosmos, building the largest freelance marketplace in New Zealand and catching the attention of some pretty big-name no-code developers.

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Remember that one called Webflow? The one with 3.5 million users worldwide. The one that has helped create over 550,000 websites on the world wide web.

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Yeh. Well.

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In 2019, Webflow was so impressed by Unicorn Factory, they asked Connor to speak at a global no-code conference. 

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“They reached out and asked if I could come over and show them how I built it.”

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“That was a really life-changing experience. I met a whole bunch of people who were in the space and after I did my presentation, I got emails from so many people asking me if I can help them with their setup and if I can teach them how I did certain things.”

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And teach them he did. 

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Alongside Unicorn Factory (which continues to run self-sufficiently on no-code), Connor has built a no-code education platform dedicated to teaching others how to learn and master no-code. Here you gain access to blogs, videos, courses, and private coaching that will set you up for success and bring your business ideas to life. 

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And it doesn’t stop there. 

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If you haven’t already heard, Connor is partnering with Startmate to bring you the No-code Mastery Fellowship, a 6-week in-depth learning experience for people seeking to build a website, launch an MVP, and accelerate their digital journey. 

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Throughout the program, fellows will learn the no-code fundamentals; from where to even begin, which tools do what, which work best, how to optimise them, and much much more. You’ll also meet some other leading no-code experts like: 

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For those who are interested in learning from the no-code wizard himself, Connor will not only be running the workshops each week, he will also be personally available to bounce ideas off and ask questions. 

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For more information about the No-Code Mastery Fellowship and how to apply, take a look at our webpage here. 

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Applications close Monday 17th July 2023. 

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Holly Brooks
Senior Marketing Manager
Meet the author

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