I've been thinking about what it looks like to create products for people using no-code. In other words, I've been thinking about serving the community of people who use no-code. It's a bit meta.
Some of you can relate.
If you're reading this, you may be:
This blog is more or less my way of building something to serve the no-code community. So I'm in this group, too.
I've taken a step back to think about what drives the no-code community. What do they want? What problems do they face? Why are they using no-code? Are they developers? Aspiring founders? Builders?
This was a bit of a self-reflection because I, too, build with no-code and am part of this group! So let's take a look in the mirror and explore.
For this purpose of this post, we'll look into what problems people face with no-code and not what type of people use no-code.
It's quick and it's visual.
This is the appeal.
You can build an app, a website, or an integration more quickly than you ever have before.
You can build things without code and do it visually. And let's be honest, when you're building something visual, it helps if the building process itself is visual. That's what no-code offers.
No-code solves a building problem.
Naturally, the no-code community is all about building. They have challenges for building everyday (see 100daysofnocode), communities with building tutorials and bootcamps (see Buildcamp), and Slack workspaces where people troubleshoot building (see No Code Founders).
The point is that no-code isn't about marketing, advertising, accounting, copywriting, launching, or any other -ing.
It's about building.
They'll need ways to use no-code even more quickly.
At the moment, this is done through education (Makerpad, Buildcamp, NoCodeMBA, NoCodeMVP), frameworks (Airdev), and templates (Zeroqode).
What building needs are still left unmet? What areas can we improve on for people in no-code?
Organization. No-code can be janky. It can pull together information from many apps (gets complicated when you introduce Zapier).
Here's an idea, something like Snapboard (https://snapboard.io/) but for no-code. It would create a dashboard of your product built with no-code to keep track of everything it uses to operate.
But, once you start getting into other areas of business like marketing, the problems aren't so unique to people building with no-code.
Perhaps it would make more sense if I zoom out just slightly to "copywriting for micro-saas founders" or "copywriting for landing pages for super small businesses like 1 or 2 people tops who don't have a ton of time."
Once I get into the copywriting realm, I exit the building process which is so integral to no-code. Tying the idea to no-code breaks down.
So what's next?
Keep building. Find ways to make no-code even quicker for people. Get specific about who are you targeting with new products, but not so specific to where it doesn't make sense.
Happy building,
Bryce
