Hi @eliquid. First of all, thank you for sharing your knowledge and taking time to answer everyone. I have been going through this 5 year old thread and it is awesome. The following topics have been touched on briefly, but I would like to ask you more specific and detailed questions.
I selected a few problems that I could solve with SaaS in my niche, where I have a competitive advantage. There are some successful solutions on the market (which may be a good sign), but they do not look good and there are many drawbacks listed in reviews. Sounds like a good place to start my first online business.
I have a technical background and a very basic understanding of HTML, PHP, Python, C or Solidity. I even built a simple one page website in the past, but it was mostly copy pasting code from Stack Overflow. I am able to master PHP and Python probably within a few months following courses and tutorials. My problem is that this would delay the launch and validation of my products. More importantly, I would much rather focus on the business side than sit in front of code. This is where my strength is and what I like more.
The first alternative is of course to hire a developer. Here I completely agree with you and I don't want to outsource at this stage, at least not the MVP.
This is where I came across no-code tools like: Webflow (website building and hosting), Memberstack (user authentication), Stripe (payment processor), Zapier (integration and workflow automation), Airtable (database). I thought this could be a fast way to build a landing page with semi automated MVP (where I still do some of the tasks manually) or fully automated MVP. Once the product is validated and investment can be at least partially paid from revenues, it would be much easier to work together with a developer to rewrite the logic from no-code tools into the proper code and migrate users. This way I can launch few products and scale the most successful one. Can this work in practice?
I see one advantage of this solution as security. I would imagine using these tools to be much more secure than code written by a beginner fresh after completing programming courses.
On the negative side there is a counterparty risk that if one of the vendors goes out of business, my site will stop working. It doesn't sound like fulfilling the commandment of Control. But maybe this is not so important from the beginning. Also in case the first version MVP turns out to be successful and interesting for acquisition, reliance on other vendors services could reduce the value of the company. Can a product built with no-code tools even be sold for a good profit?
I understand from the thread that you are a fan of building websites from scratch. My question is: would you consider starting your first project MVP based on no-code tools if you were in my position? Or this is a complete waste of time and it does not work as I imagine. I want an honest opinion because I am considering both, just no-code tools sound like a better way to get going and launch sooner than later.
I selected a few problems that I could solve with SaaS in my niche, where I have a competitive advantage. There are some successful solutions on the market (which may be a good sign), but they do not look good and there are many drawbacks listed in reviews. Sounds like a good place to start my first online business.
I have a technical background and a very basic understanding of HTML, PHP, Python, C or Solidity. I even built a simple one page website in the past, but it was mostly copy pasting code from Stack Overflow. I am able to master PHP and Python probably within a few months following courses and tutorials. My problem is that this would delay the launch and validation of my products. More importantly, I would much rather focus on the business side than sit in front of code. This is where my strength is and what I like more.
The first alternative is of course to hire a developer. Here I completely agree with you and I don't want to outsource at this stage, at least not the MVP.
This is where I came across no-code tools like: Webflow (website building and hosting), Memberstack (user authentication), Stripe (payment processor), Zapier (integration and workflow automation), Airtable (database). I thought this could be a fast way to build a landing page with semi automated MVP (where I still do some of the tasks manually) or fully automated MVP. Once the product is validated and investment can be at least partially paid from revenues, it would be much easier to work together with a developer to rewrite the logic from no-code tools into the proper code and migrate users. This way I can launch few products and scale the most successful one. Can this work in practice?
I see one advantage of this solution as security. I would imagine using these tools to be much more secure than code written by a beginner fresh after completing programming courses.
On the negative side there is a counterparty risk that if one of the vendors goes out of business, my site will stop working. It doesn't sound like fulfilling the commandment of Control. But maybe this is not so important from the beginning. Also in case the first version MVP turns out to be successful and interesting for acquisition, reliance on other vendors services could reduce the value of the company. Can a product built with no-code tools even be sold for a good profit?
I understand from the thread that you are a fan of building websites from scratch. My question is: would you consider starting your first project MVP based on no-code tools if you were in my position? Or this is a complete waste of time and it does not work as I imagine. I want an honest opinion because I am considering both, just no-code tools sound like a better way to get going and launch sooner than later.
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