You do not need to know how to code to do great things! The value of coding is decreasing more and more in a large number of areas. Today you do not have to code to build an app or a website, nor do you need to have an army of data scientists to compute data. What a big step compared to 20 years ago when building a single page of a website required a lot of work and coding and was charged at a very high price! Now, anyone, having something simple and willing to put in the time, can do it themselves for very cheap.
No-Code platforms are wonderful in many ways:
They empower entrepreneurs to launch ideas easily,
New ideas can be quickly tested in the market,
New projects, ideas, prototypes, can be launched on the cheap,
Anyone with no code experience but a good sense of entrepreneurship can bring great things to market,
Customers have much better quality applications offered to them.
There are a variety of no-code platforms:
Marketplaces: the one I prefer is Shareatribe. They, however, can still largely improve in usability.
Mobile apps: Goodbarber, Bubble, and AppyPie are my recommendations.
No machine learning no data scientist data computation: Cyborg Intell
Websites and online stores: Strikingly is the simplest of all and the most limited. Come next Weebly, Squarespace, and Webflow. Finally, Shopify is the best and most complete no-code eCommerce platform.
Professional logos: Taylor Brands.
Voice and chatbots: Voiceflow.
Internal management tools: Retool.
Customer Feedback: Bugs Reporting.
The limits of the no-code platforms:
Most of these platforms are wonderful but there are 2 requirements:
What you have to build remains simple
You are ready to invest your time to learn the platform by trials and errors
When is getting help recommended?
You calculated that the time you would spend building what you need is better spent focused on your expertise - Some hours can bring more revenues if invested elsewhere than figuring out how a platform works and how to build what you need.
What you have to build requires some integration - Exporting a catalog, integrating with another system can be challenging even if there are apps available to facilitate the task.
What you have to build is more complicated than it appeared - There is what is in your head and what you actually build. If you were to get everything you wanted, you might have to access the code and add a few lines.
You don’t know what you don’t know - Even if these platforms are very intuitive and apply a lot of usability best practices, they also give a lot of flexibility to build a variety of things, which once built, a non-professional might not perceive as a bad user experience.
I have seen lots of customers who start with one of these platforms and reach out as they are growing. I also see customers give a try to these platforms and realize that it requires much more work than they anticipated so they reach out for us to finish the work. Sometimes they did everything they could but could not figure out this one major component that made their platform unusable and prevented them from launching their project.
What does that tell us for the future?
People can be more empowered and there can be more entrepreneurs trying more things. Trying and failing fast is more real than ever. No-code platforms help foster a more dynamic market because more people can more easily undertake projects. Technology is non-negotiable in our time and these platforms bring technology to the masses. It is fairly exciting to wake up one day, have an idea, and put it at work right away. No need to invest a lot of money nor develop for months before presenting a prototype to an investor. The money raised can be used to develop the business rather than used to solely develop the product. Entrepreneurship is now at full power!