In an industry rushing headlong toward AI-generated code, Kofo Okesola is making a contrarian bet. The Nigerian founder behind Servflow, who cut his teeth building enterprise API systems at Invision, Tyk, and Brankas—companies generating multi-million dollar revenues—believes the entire no-code movement is headed in the wrong direction. His solution: a deterministic backend development platform that treats engineering fundamentals as features, not bugs.
The thesis is simple but provocative. While competitors race to leverage large language models for code generation, Okesola argues they’re creating a future maintenance nightmare. “AI-generated code creates major problems down the line,” he explains. “Problems that usually kill momentum or require significant capital to overcome. They come with security flaws and are usually nowhere near ready for production or MVP.”
It’s a position informed by the kind of experiences that only come from building at scale.
Kofo Okesola on Deterministic Systems
From Cybercafés to Enterprise APIs
Okesola’s journey to this conviction began in Somolu, one of Lagos’s most economically challenged neighborhoods at the time. As a teenager, he would meticulously save every naira he could find for a singular purpose: renting minutes of internet access at local cybercafés. Those precious sessions, purchased at ages 12 and 13, became his gateway to programming.
Exposure to BASIC sparked an ambition to build games. What followed was the self-directed education familiar to many developers of his generation—hours spent absorbing documentation, experimenting with code, teaching himself the craft. Straight out of high school, Okesola landed at a business development company before pivoting decisively toward web development.
But it was his subsequent roles that shaped his contrarian stance on no-code platforms. Working at Invision, Tyk, and Brankas gave Okesola frontline experience with what he calls “complex systems that require integrating or stitching with other systems.” These weren’t prototype environments or MVP-stage startups. They were enterprise operations where unreliable code doesn’t just slow development—it creates cascading failures.
“I think I’m uniquely positioned to build Servflow because of those years in API development,” Okesola notes. “When you’ve worked on systems at that scale, you understand that fundamentals matter more than shortcuts.”
The “Canva for APIs”
Servflow represents Okesola’s answer to what he sees as a fundamental flaw in the current generation of backend builders. Rather than relying on AI to generate unpredictable code, the platform uses a drag-and-drop interface to orchestrate deterministic backend actions and systems. Think Canva or Webflow, but for APIs.
The technical approach is deliberately old-school in philosophy, even as it leverages modern interfaces. Servflow builds complex systems by composing smaller, proven, deterministic components—the same principle that has guided software engineering for decades. Where AI does appear in the platform, it’s combined with deterministic processes to enable rapid prototyping while maintaining reliability.
“We stick to the fundamentals of engineering,” Okesola emphasizes. “Building complex systems using working deterministic smaller systems, leaving room for customization at any level and much better security.”
The distinction matters in practice. AI-generated code can appear functional during demos and early testing, only to reveal structural problems when scaling or integrating with other systems. Deterministic approaches, while potentially slower to set up initially, create predictable, maintainable architectures.
Early Traction and Market Validation
For a platform challenging conventional wisdom, early signals suggest Okesola may be onto something. The open-source version of Servflow has accumulated over 50 GitHub stars in barely one month since its release—a notable achievement for a developer tool in a crowded market. More tellingly, the waitlist for the pro version has grown to hundreds of signups.
Those numbers represent developers wrestling with the same technical debt Okesola identified. Teams that have experienced the pain of AI-generated codebases requiring extensive refactoring. Engineering leaders skeptical of the “move fast and fix never” approach implicit in many AI-first platforms.
The momentum also reflects a broader conversation emerging in the development community. As AI coding assistants have proliferated, so too has awareness of their limitations. Generated code that works in isolation but creates integration nightmares. Security vulnerabilities baked into suggested implementations. The difficulty of debugging systems you didn’t actually write.
Betting Against the Consensus
Founders who challenge industry consensus face a particular burden of proof. They must not only build superior products but also convince markets to question prevailing assumptions. Okesola’s background provides credibility for this challenge—his resume includes exactly the kind of large-scale systems work that reveals the long-term costs of architectural shortcuts.
Yet the real test lies ahead. Servflow must demonstrate that deterministic approaches can match the speed and accessibility that make AI-generated code appealing, while delivering the reliability and security advantages Okesola promises. Early adopters will be watching whether “the fundamentals” can compete with “the future” in practical terms.
For now, Okesola remains focused on building what he believes the industry needs, even if it’s not what it’s currently chasing. In a sector often characterized by herd behavior, there’s something refreshing about a founder willing to argue that sometimes, the old ways endure for good reason.
As the waitlist grows and the open-source community engages with Servflow’s deterministic approach, the market will ultimately render its verdict. But whether Okesola proves right or wrong, his challenge to the AI-generated code consensus has already sparked a conversation worth having.
