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by panphora 1648 days ago
Use no-code

Hear me out.

The #1 problem you have as developers is marketing.

The #2 problem you have is validating demand from customers.

So force yourself to do the uncomfortable steps ASAP, while also making it easy to pivot by launching with the smallest possible stack.

If you can launch with something like Airtable + Webflow + Zapier + Typeform, you can get something out there in weeks instead of months/years. It will be relatively easy since your team is technical.

Then release it to the market and see if it sticks.

The power of a lightweight stack is NOT the ability to find Product-Market fit instantly.

The true power comes from making the 20-30 iterations it will take to actually find Product-Market fit less painful than if you had to rebuild from scratch every time you had a new idea.

2 comments

N8n instead of zapier since it’s open source and free
Terrible advice imo
Why is it bad advice? Genuinely interested.

I'm interested in what's worked better for you and why you think no-code is a bad choice.

Yeah fair, that was a pretty bad answer.

I would equate basing your business on a no code product is taking on ultra high interest tech debt to get something working up front. Sure you get somethint shiny quickly but thats the moment that system peaks and from there its just creating drag.

And the thing is no one ever decides to just throw the working thing away and rewrite so you end up tinkering with these tools with diminishing returns for way longer than is justifiable because youve got other stuff to do and it easy to deprioritize.

The points about fast validation are valid but a competent person van protoype as fast or faster with most modern web frsmeworks and those systems will be viable for 100x the timespan ad what the no code tool gets you through.

There’s an illusion that no-code is easier than firing up a usual mean/mern stack with a DB behind it. The benefits of not using no-code are you can easily adapt because you’re not baked into these no-code workflows. They end up falling apart pretty quickly.