The Citizen Developer is Dead
A Product Manager’s perspective on the real users of B2B Low/No-code
This post is part of a series on B2B low/no-code written for Charge by Indraja Karnik, a full-time MBA student at Columbia Business School. Prior to B-school, Indraja was a Senior Product Manager at Appian. By building this investment thesis publicly, she wants to create a resource for others like her who are trying to break into VC.
In our first article, we established the scope of our inquiry into low/no-code, which will focus only enterprise software, and defined our terminology at a high level. Low/no-code tools help address the challenge of not having enough developers — either by helping your existing developers get more output for their effort or by empowering business users to do it themselves. Last time, we also covered how the line between low-code vs. no-code is fluid and so we will compare tools on a spectrum of ease-of-use vs. power.
Today, let’s dig into the third question to ask: Who is this for? For each B2B low/no-code tool, we need to understand both the skill level required of the user and what they are trying to accomplish.
User Personas
A citizen developer is a user in a non-developer role who creates new applications or solutions within the enterprise IT. It’s not enough for a low/no-code provider to say that their software is for empowering the citizen developer. Frankly, that’s kind of a cop-out. At best, the term citizen developer is overused and sidesteps the responsibility of defining the target user. At worst, it’s a deliberate attempt to obfuscate a steep learning curve.
Because no-code and low-code tools exist on a spectrum of ease-of-use and power, their target users exist on a spectrum of technical ability and business knowledge. When evaluating technical ability, keep in mind it’s not only about if you can write code — we will also consider how comfortable you are with concepts from programming (variables, objects) and software architecture (databases, APIs). Business knowledge here means understanding your enterprise’s functions, roles, data and processes.
So let’s instead consider the different user personas of the citizen developer:
- Novice User — a non-technical role requiring mostly generic* knowledge; ex. HR representative processing documents for new employee onboarding
- Business User — a moderately technical role requiring some business-specific knowledge; ex. Banking operations associate executing transactions for the trading desk
- Technologist — a highly technical role (but not software development) that requires strong business knowledge; ex. Healthcare researcher evaluating clinical trial results
*Note: “Generic” here means unspecific to the core business; some functions, like HR or Customer Service, of course require role-specific knowledge and skills, but do not vary greatly from company to company.
Gotta Catch ’Em All!
It would be easy to say that no-code tools are for novice or business users while low-code tools are for technologists and leave it at that. But recall that no-code vs. low-code is a spectrum and that companies may define themselves as one but still fall closer to the other. For example, no-code analytics tool Interana wants to enable self-serviced data insights for everyone from IT staffers to data architects. However, they expect users to have an understanding of data queries which could prove too high a barrier-to-entry for even some business users.
The more a company can create layers of experiences to meet different users where they are, the greater their market potential. From a PM’s perspective, adding features like smart presets, customizable templates and guided wizards can reduce the barrier-to-entry for no/low-code tools looking to expand market share. Let’s test this theory by comparing Jet Admin and Internal, two no-code app builders that allow users to create internal tools.
For the Novice user, Jet Admin has a clear advantage. Unlike Internal, Jet Admin provides out-of-the-box templates for common use cases such as new client onboarding and order management. These templates come equipped with the “building blocks’’ of user actions and suggested workflows, like third-party integrations or connecting to other templates. Both Internal and Jet Admin have a variety of components, like cards or graphs, to create visually-rich landing pages and dashboards for your internal tools.
For the Business user, both tools have their own abstractions for business data. Jet Admin cleverly uses the approachable concept of “collections” — instead of querying customer data (ugh), a sales representative can simply create a collection of customers by region. On the other hand, Internal uses “spaces”. When you add data sources, Internal will auto-generate spaces with a sortable, searchable table of your data as a starting point. The user will still have to define any additional filters to get the same view of customers by region, but Internal will maintain any database-defined structures and relationships. If that last sentence went over your head, the takeaway is this — Internal requires a higher level of data literacy than Jet Admin.
Finally, for the Technologist user, both Jet Admin and Internal let you start from scratch and choose from a variety of supported integrations. While both allow for custom integrations too, a tech-savvy user may prefer Internal for the broader set of supported databases and API protocols. This is important for large enterprise organizations where historical data is often trapped in legacy systems and some poor data scientist is responsible for collating and making sense of it all.
Conclusion
In our first article, we presented the below (super scientific) diagram of comparing low/no-code tools. From the findings above, I’d put Internal higher than Jet Admin on the “Do More vs. Do Less” y-axis. But Jet Admin is certainly easier to get started. While Internal has a slight edge for tech-savvy users, Jet Admin still covers their bases while making sure Novice and Business users aren’t left in the dust.
So which is the better investment — the tool that can do more or the tool that is easier to use? You have to consider the long-term potential. As a PM, I have personally experienced both challenges: 1) starting with a robust product and adding the veneer of an easier experience; and 2) starting with a lite product and adding optional robust capabilities on top of it. In scenario 1, how easy you can make the thing is often constrained by the existing complexities. In scenario 2, how powerful you can make the thing may require costly refactoring. Still, I have generally found scenario 2 to be more preferable.
So if I had to bet on one horse (unicorn?) today, I’d pick Jet Admin. But with some templates and guides for new users, Internal could be dangerous. Bottom line: keep an eye on both.
Next Time
This article is part of an ongoing series I will be writing for Charge on B2B low/no-code. Next time, we will talk about the ecosystem of industries, functions, and use cases that low-code and no-code tools thrive in. Let me know your thoughts on this analysis, and stay tuned for more insights (and more memes). Happy Holidays!
This post was written by Indraja Karnik, MBA Candidate & VC Fellow at Columbia Business School, and edited by Brett Martin, investor at Charge.vc. If you are working in or thinking about the B2B low/no-code space, we’d love to connect. Get in touch with the team@charge.vc !
Bibliography
Interana. “Intro to Interana.” Vimeo, uploaded by Interana, August 22, 2019, https://vimeo.com/355360251.
“Quickly Build Apps with Templates.” Templates | Jet Admin, Jet Admin, 2020, www.jetadmin.io/templates.
Svetlov, Anton, and Denis Platonov. “Collections — User Guide.” Jet Admin Documentation, Jet Admin, 2020, docs.jetadmin.io/user-guide/data/collection.
“Connect to any Data and API.” Integrations | Jet Admin, Jet Admin, 2020, www.jetadmin.io/integrations.
“Auto-Generated Spaces.” Internal Spaces, Internal, 2020, www.internal.io/docs/auto-generated-spaces.
“Connecting to Data Sources.” Internal Getting Started, Internal, 2020, www.internal.io/docs/connecting-to-data-sources.
