Tools to build your next startup, without coding!

Get to know the #nocode ???

If you are a startup founder, then really, the first place to go is Product Hunt. It's where cool and exciting software get launched on the internet every day. 

Now before you get to product hunt or become a startup founder who doesn't know how to code but needs to get a digital product out there quickly to validate your business model or idea, you need to start from somewhere, right?

That's what we are going to talk about. This article collects content from very resourceful material sources that talk about #nocode tech, their use cases and could hopefully be a guide to you making a decision for your new startup.

The rise of NoCode tools

Once upon a time only a very small group of software engineers — some self-described webmasters — built things on the internet. These often ambitious people spent months learning to code before publishing even the most basic website.

But, #NoCode has made everyone a creator!

Today anyone with a computer and access to the internet can build awesome responsive CMS-driven site using Webflow, E-commerce shop with Shopify, Facebook Messenger bot for your shop powered by Octane AI, Web app using Bubble, Mobile app with Thunkable, Voice app using Voiceflow, Complex web app combining Zapier and Airtable, Simple single page website with Carrd, Paid newsletter with Substack, AR/VR/3D experience in your browser with Scapic, Online magazine hosted by Readymag, Turn a Google Sheet into a website with Sheet2Site, Internal dashboards and tools with Retool and the list continue.

These tools are reducing the amount of time and coding expertise required to translate an idea into something people can use. You no longer need to become a programmer to build things on the internet, empowering a new wave of makers from different backgrounds and perspectives.

The critics

Predictably, many criticize and judge those that use “no-code” tools. While they come with tradeoffs, it’s inevitable that more products will be built — or at least MVP’d — without writing code, including by programmers that can code.

Ryan Hoover throws more light on this in his article The Rise of “No Code”.

The #NoCode Battlefield

We are going to be looking at these apps in 3 basic categories:

1. Product introduction or landing pages - this category is mostly for upcoming products that are looking at displaying some copy of their product and perhaps a form to collect user data for testers or to inform users when the product launches. This is suitable for early-stage startups.
2. Content or Curation websites/web apps - these websites or apps provide a curated list of aggregated data, from users or via API of some sort. This means that anything from a blog to a stack website - which are pretty popular these days use these really basic frameworks.
3. Full-fledged software - This are software that allows users to create accounts, have access to the platform to interact with different types of data. Mostly describes as software as a service (SaaS).

Webflow vs Carrd vs Bubble

We have 3 great candidates here that are very powerful at doing something, in particular, so what we are going to do here is talk about when to use which app and which categories they fall under. Usually, there will be cross-overs, beware!

Before we start, here is a link to the website of each of these platforms:

1. Carrd: https://carrd.co
2. Webflow: https://webflow.com
3. Bubble: https://bubble.is

Carrd

“Simple, free, fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything.” That’s the entire premise of Carrd, and it delivers in a big way.

Who is it for? If you’re the kind of person who sells a variety of small products or services, all with varied branding, you might be very interested in this. It is a pretty nifty little product. It’s minimal, good-looking, fast, and easy. 

 Carrd is really a great tool for displaying static web content. This means you can show any kind of information on a Carrd website for people to read and interact with. Carrd websites can only accept/collect dynamic data (signups, payments, etc) but not display them dynamically. 

Data collected from Carrd websites can be connected to and displayed in external databases Google sheets or Airtable.

Hence this makes Carrd suitable for product introduction or landing pages. 

Here is a link to some carrd resources - https://carrd.co/build

Learn more about Carrd - https://carrd.co/docs

Credits WebdesignerDepot - https://medium.com/@WebdesignerDepot/simple-responsive-one-page-sites-using-carrd-ac4541d0e286

Webflow

Webflow is a platform considered as the freelance designer’s dream tool. Yes, it is! 

“Experience the power of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a 100% visual canvas. Build custom blogs, portfolios, e-commerce stores, and more with a flexible CMS. Free design tool. 100% customizable CMS.”

It seems like website builders are about a dime a dozen these days. And to be perfectly frank, the vast bulk of them are just awful.

Webflow is a rare exception to this rule. Built with a “code-first” philosophy, Webflow is an all-in-one web design tool that allows users to design, build, and launch responsive websites visually.

After having used the platform consistently for the past year, and after having tried many others, I feel confident in saying that Webflow is without a doubt the single best site builder currently on the market.

Is it perfect? Of course not. There are several things I’d like to change the software if I had the chance, and I mention some of them below.

But regardless, Webflow is a fantastic tool that can help designers bring their mockups to life — without needing to enlist the help of a front-end developer or rely on poor quality DIY software.

It attempts to fill the space between DIY software like Wix and Squarespace, traditional content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, and actual front-end web development.

And it’s designed to surpass them all in terms of ease-of-use, flexibility, and performance — and in this regard, it’s largely successful.

Hence, I will consider webflow the single Content curation platform for website and web apps and to an extent the functionality of a SaaS platform with the right integrations.

Here is a link to an example of a website created with Webflow - https://webflow.com/website/AttackIO-Cyber-Security-News-Updates

To learn everything you need to know about Webflow - https://university.webflow.com/

Credits to Alex Sanchez-Olvera - https://blog.prototypr.io/why-webflow-is-the-best-web-design-program-right-now-f128aef8b45

Bubble

So, you’ve never heard of Bubble.

But you will.

If you’ve wanted to build an app, launch a startup, or simply express an idea on the web – but you’re not an engineer and you don’t know how to code — two guys in a coffee shop have dedicated the last three years of their life to bridge that gap.

I always consider Bubble the senior brother of Carrd and Webflow. If you are starting your startup journey, and you want to go #nocode tech, I believe the end stage of your product can be achieved with Bubble.

Bubble shares the philosophy that “Programming isn’t coding, it means having a clear understanding of what an app does.”

This includes understanding what the flow of actions is. For instance, when you build Facebook, you have to think about what happens when the users click on a given button. So a condition you set can look like “when the user clicks on a profile picture, open the profile page of this user” or “when the user clicks on ‘post’, save the new post and display in on the user’s friends’ feed”.

It also means understanding the data structure. 

Coding, on the other hand, means more than that… It’s about planning all these data structures and typing highly structured text based on a language of choice on a screen.

Programming and coding today are regarded as the same thing because there aren’t tools and platforms to divorce the skill sets. If you want to program an app, you have to code it — there’s just no way around it.

That’s exactly why Bubble was built — it’s a tool that enables people to design and program Facebook exactly as described: without writing a single line of code.

Bubble provides users numerous confiscated set of tools and a huge library of plugins and templates that make building apps very easy.

In this regard, we will categorise Bubble into the third category of platforms that allow you to build full fledged apps and SaaS applications.

Here is a link to a bubble project - https://bubble.io/showcase

Learn everything you need to know about Bubble - https://bubble.io/documentation

Credits Bubble - https://medium.com/inside-the-bubble/programming-isn-t-coding-3df9eeaace66

Conclusion

When you have a startup idea, you don’t necessarily need to limit yourself to just one of these tools, you can go through all three or two. You can start out with Carrd, then to Webflow for a basic MVP then perhaps move to bubble for your full-fledged web application.

Thank you guys and don't forget to show some ??