No-Code, The Future Of #1 Entrepreneurship
I’ll never forget my first aha moment with no-code.
First came the excitement of building software without coding skills.
Then the realization that it could transform anyone with an internet connection into a startup entrepreneur.
I’d like to say this was a casual realization, but the truth is that it ended up completely changing my life.
I define entrepreneurship as building something that creates value, and to do that, you don’t need technical skills: you merely need the passion to see things through and the ability to look at existing problems or solutions from a new point of view. The tools that you use along your entrepreneurship journey don’t define your approach.
So here is the story.
I had spent a decade building startups as a non-technical entrepreneur and had faced many of the challenges of working with programmers to get things off the ground.
After moving to Los Angeles, I found myself reviewing hundreds of startup applications as the director of an accelerator program. And as I read through them, I realized that most non-technical entrepreneurs were making all the same mistakes as 10 years ago. These first-time founders with drive and work ethic were spending 1–2 years and most of their savings to build half-baked products with no customers.
Now this made sense to me, during that same period I had also experienced a shift happening in the investment market. Investors started investing larger amounts in fewer more mature companies.
In fact, in 2019 a study done by investment firm Wing Capital showed that seed investments were increasingly going towards startups with revenue. From only 9% in 2010 to a whopping 67% in 2019, meaning that the days of raising money for ideas were officially over…
Today, investors expect founders to actually build their product and get their first paying customers before considering an investment.
Which is exactly where the non-technical dilemma starts.
How were entrepreneurs supposed to build their website/app without technical skills? And how were they expected to pay for programmers without investors?
This put the cost of building on the shoulders of the founders.
And the options to get something built were not ideal:
1) Hiring developers is expensive (30k — 50k for a first MVP/App)
2) Hiring cheap developers usually ends up in buggy unusable spaghetti code
3) Finding a perfect tech-cofounder is like going to a bar looking for a husband/wife
4) And learning computer programming takes 3 years
It was a generation where being non-technical was a huge disadvantage.
This is why No-Code comes at a perfect time.
A set of visual programming tools for non-technical people to build software and automate tasks without coding. And yes, there is code behind everything, but you don’t deal with it directly :)
These drag and drop builders, now allow entrepreneurs of all backgrounds to create software like Airbnb, Twitter, or Netflix without writing a single line of code.
It gives founders a new way of building their businesses without technical skills.
And for a fraction of the time and money.
🤯
This chart was created by Forward Partners, a UK based VC investment firm, it compares the no-code approach to the old model:
Long story short:
- It’s cheaper to build
- It’s faster to launch
- It’s quicker to learn
Not to mention the hours saved on translating the vision for developers. Or constantly having to pay another bill to improve the app/website.
A fresh new approach to disrupt early-stage entrepreneurship and fuel a new generation.
🚀
Ok, now back to present times. It’s 2022.
I’ve been running WeAreNoCode for two years now. An online institute for non-technical entrepreneurs to learn how to launch their business without technical skills.
My co-founder Eddy Widerker built ClearSegment.com in 10 Days for $40 just to teach our students the no-code tools used. Our Chief Non-Technical Officer Caio Calderari built a marketplace for mentors called Mentora in 7 days for 15$.
And students like Heidi have gone from idea to 24k in monthly recurring revenue in 6 months without technical skills or experience.
So we are witnessing this change first hand.
And it’s powerful.
Because in an era where every opportunity is online, yet only 0.1% of the world knows how to code.
It’s critical that we empower the other 99.9%.
This is why I say that No-Code is the future of entrepreneurship.
❤️
Christian
If you’re interested in learning how to launch your business idea leveraging no-code tools join our free course here:
