A while ago I saw this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY is about "The first 20 hours" and there is a book as well. It's surprising how much could you can learn in just 20 hours. You can't be an expert by doing so little but you can learn some tricks for fun.
1) Regarding the bias on friends feedback I highly recommend you the book "The Mom Test". It's a great read on user interviews for product validation.
2) Have you tried cold emailing people? It tends to work better than linkedin in my experience. Look for people who blogged or tweeted about topics related to your product. Not everybody will respond but people that the time to share what they know have a tendency to help other people.
I am curious about your example. When you guys tell management about the best practices what is their response? What is their reasoning on not doing PR reviews, tests, etc ?
I was thinking that this no-code thing was about giving people who can’t code the power to make apps. Could you please give an example
were a no-code expert would be useful?