Thinking about getting into no-code building? I'm the founder of Makerpad, ask me anything.
Ben Tossell
44 replies
At Makerpad we believe whatever tool you want to build, you can do it without code.
Replies
Matt Ellsworth@mattellsworth
TracGen
Have you found a good way to handle user account registration? I felt with Zapier & alts like it. Everything I needed to get pitchsend.com setup was there but I need customer auth & account setup.
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Makerpad
@mattellsworth there's not a great solution yet, but using memberspace.com/ or memberstack.io/ is a start.
you can then do some clever stuff with zapier and airtable to update records and display them via a webflow CMS. I'm doing a tutorial on this soon: www.makerpad.co/
@mattellsworth @bentossell ... this is where the magic is. (rubber meets road, etc.) Go Ben!
Nanonets
What are your thoughts about deep learning based no-code products? Here is one article about it: https://dcgross.com/software-20/
The one difference from traditional no-code products is you can never guarantee 100% accuracy, so human in the loop will be needed in most cases. Setting user expectations in this case is the most difficult task.
Makerpad
@pjuvatkar I've not looked into it to be honest!
BrandBallers Episode 10 - About Page of Your Website is a BIG Deal!
Is no-code building a topic that companies are interested in learning? Like for example, going into a company and doing a 1-2 day workshop to teach how to build something? Just thinking if this could be a sort of consulting gig
@mikemiello interesting angle... I feel it has more appeal as b2c than b2b based on what I've observed so far
Makerpad
@mikemiello I think they will increasingly be. I want to create tutorials on www.makerpad.co for all sorts of roles:
- tutorials for being more productive as a manager
- building growth engines
- automations for customer support folks
etc
@mikemiello You're onto something. IMO the small/medium b2b market is massive. From a marketing/sales perspective a virtual workshop could work well as a stand alone product or as a foot in the door strategy, where ultimately they hire you to create the solution.@bentossell what say you?
BrandBallers Episode 10 - About Page of Your Website is a BIG Deal!
@bentossell @mefranco thanks guys. And definitely www.makerpad.co is the place to be as it's already opened my eyes to more technologies and ideas. I'm sort of a marketer that eventually learned how to build stuff and more traditional marketing peeps I meet find that understanding "both sides" (marketing and the technical) is not common. Maybe with noCode, this could help offer sort of better understandings of technology, which might be fun to learn while building something
@mikemiello @bentossell @abadesi Yes some big compagnies are interested in that, at least in France ! I founded Start The F*** Up to help startups and big companies kickstart their projects. One of our key differentiators (compared to traditional innovation consultants) is that we master NoCode product dev strategies and introduce these tools during our workshops to build a quick MVP with a non-tech team.
Let's chat if you want to know more !
One thing I think about is what are the best products to start with? There are obvious landing page builders like Carrd and SquareSpace for example. But what about for MVPs that need more than a landing page?
I also hear folks talk about WebFlow and Airtable but haven't played around much with them. Maybe it would be helpful to know what the best products are depending on the kind of product I need to build.
@andupotorac @abadesi That's how I roll as well. FYI, their products are not perfect, but, for the money, I have not seen more (options) for less. Look into Zoho.com and their Zoho One enterprise bundle. $35 per month for Solopreneurs and you get 40'ish different products, site, email, help desk, PM, team coms, etc, etc. Lots of great off-the-shelf products which can be branded and deployed quickly on your own domains with SSL as well.
As far as one product which creates the most options in one tool... my immediate reaction is Bubble.is due to it's combo of design and dynamic database capabilities. Note: I have not used it in a couple of years, but from what I remember, my statement is true. When I have time and money, I'm going to dig in and hopefully master their platform.
A couple of others not mentioned often are Caspio.com and Knack.com ... low-code/no-code database tools where functionality can be embedded on your Carrd or Zoho or GoDaddy site, etc. Zoho has a database tool called Creator. I'm not a fan personally.
Hope all that helps. :-) Remember, all of this is still relative to your current digital skill level, your current budget, and your available time (to either learn and/or build.) Therefore, my suggestions may not be spot on for you.
Fodeli
@abadesi I made a list of about 100 such tools and took screenshots of their interfaces as well. Some are better than others: http://bit.ly/DIYWebsiteBuilders.
@andupotorac thanks Andu - which are the ones you keep coming back to to use?
@andupotorac @abadesi .. the answer is completely subjective. Each individual uses what fits within their current digital skill-level, current budget, and available time. If a tool fails on any of those three, it becomes almost useless. <- and all of that is relative to what you may be trying to create. Can you share the basics of what you are considering building? Or are you fundamentally trying to figure out where to place your learning efforts to create the most options?
@andupotorac @jimcanto Definitely the latter!!
Can no-code become the default way websites/apps are built?
How difficult is building out a subscription / payment gateway for your service? Are the costs of those integrations worth the time saved?
Makerpad
@james_reilly super simple, can use https://www.memberspace.com/ or https://www.memberstack.io/ to add this functionality
Letsmint
What user data would you like to track without coding?
Letsmint
The reason I'm asking is because our product Dashly tracks various user data without coding and I'm interested in how in can be useful for the comminity, what use cases you have with data tracking
Are there any up startups in the no-code space that excite you (that you don't already promote / use)?
It's possible to build a website with user registration/profiles with no code? (ie. dribbble where a user can register and post design pictures, or a job board),
what tools would you use for a website/app like this?
Makerpad
yes. there's not a great solution yet, but using memberspace.com/ or memberstack.io/ is a start.
you can then do some clever stuff with zapier and airtable to update records and display them via a webflow CMS. I'm doing a tutorial on this soon: www.makerpad.co/
Comment Deleted
@kanad_bahalkar wow! that would be cool. A bit like Sheet2Site except it would be Figma/Sketch2Site!
Makerpad
@kanad_bahalkar I think Webflow is working on this.
https://youtu.be/v1M4ydNlgP0
Rohr Kreuz 01
Is this a good way to be still behind ?
If you really want to develop something new (and big), don't you think no-code seems to be a solution "with borders" ?
Makerpad
@johan_bavaud see this tweet: https://twitter.com/bentossell/s...
"Is no-code scalable?
Solutions out there will work for 10, 100, 1000 and probably 10,000 users. If you don't have lots of users, think about validating your idea first.
Stop getting ahead of yourself."
Not everything has to be 'big'.
Rohr Kreuz 01
@bentossell makes sens if we speak about a MVP during the early stage to get feed-backs and validation. But my question was not related only for this stage.
I took into consideration the whole life of a product/app/software, from the beginning to the exit.
In your Tweet, you say : "stop getting ahead of yourself" and in one answer "I disagree. Far too many people ask me about scalability when they haven’t made anything."
If I understand well, your message adresses newcomers in startup world. And I like the way you try to reassure people to make the first move, It's important.
But when you grow your company and want to keep a real USP and/or when you sell a company, it's difficult to value your no-code side - we could develop more that point, but it's not the purpose.
As I read your answer and your tweet, it's seems you are focused only on the early stage's momentum - I didn't take into consideration you were speaking about that stage (or defending your business by opening this discussion 😁).
"Not everything has to be 'big'." -> Right ! What's matter is how you use it. Fine.
Have a nice day ! 😊
@johan_bavaud no code has proven itself countless times to go WAY beyond the validation phase. We first need to crawl, walk then run.
If you can't build it then you can't sell it.
If we can provide thousands of paying subs value via no code and then run into issues when scaling that's a problem most love to have.
Rohr Kreuz 01
@mefranco @bentossell
Sorry for my stupid question, but what is the definition of no-code and early stage for you guys (and big 😊) ?
Again, I completely agree with the fact it's ok to start with a no-code solution for the early stage.
Sketch -> MVP -> get feedbacks -> validations through some $$$ and then start to code your solution.
I assume "start to code" could depends of your business/product too. If you build an already seen business, you can count on existing tool for a longer time.
But if it's not the case, you have to build everything from scratch.
This is why I am asking provocatively "Is this a good way to be still behind ?"
What limitations do you run into with no-code building? What do you want to do that is difficult or not possible with the existing tools?
@chris_hansen3 Is it possible to use no code to build something like a wiki i.e. where multiple people can edit the content on the page? e.g. if I wanted to make a mentors directory, but allow mentors to add their contact details/updated them.
@chris_hansen3 @abadesi .. yes.. but at what price point? Meaning, how much can you afford for the right tool? There are off-the-shelf solutions such as https://www.zoho.com/wiki/ (included in the Z1 bundle I mentioned), or you could use database tools such as https://www.Caspio.com or https://www.Knack.com to build what you want.
Bubble.is would get you there also, depending on your technical aptitude and comfort.
Many other ways.. like @bentossell suggests, he has loads of tools listed with their capabilities. He knows his no-code stuff!! Check out his site as a resource. https://makerpad.co
Hi! Do you think it is possible in any manner to create apps for macOS without high-end coding? I'm kinda new to this coding business.
Makerpad
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