MBA2101 What Is No-Code Development & Is It Right For Your Business?

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Foreign. Welcome to the $100 NBA show your personal business workout every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and in today's episode you will learn what is no code development and is it right for your business? You might have heard of the no code movement that has been going on for the last few years. People building solutions for their business without knowing how to code. These are platforms and tools that allow you to visually build out platforms, communities, basically software to run your business. But is it right for your business? Should you rely on no code? What are the pros? What are the cons? Where can no code get you into trouble? As a business owner, it's important for me to share with you these topics because a lot of times there are these movements that come out. There's a lot of momentum, there's a lot of energy and sometimes they're just overrated. They're overhyped. And I don't want you to invest time, money and energy into something new in your business if it's not going to get you a return on investment. So will having a no code solution in your business get you that roi? Well, we get into that in today's lesson, so let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

ADP knows anything can change the world of work. Like what if a blocked shipping port caused a worldwide coffee shortage? Suddenly, businesses are scrambling to manage an increasingly drowsy workforce. Productivity slips 20% just due to the extended time it takes to conduct a job interview while yawning. Anything can Change the world of work From HR to payroll. ADP helps businesses take on the next anything. ADP always designing for people.

I want to start today's lesson by giving a very clear cut example of no code development and that's a website builder like Squarespace. Typically if somebody wanted to create a custom website, they would need to know how to write code. They'd also need to know how to design and implement that design with some sort of programming language they've learned, but not with a no code solution like Squarespace. Squarespace gives you templates. It's like a tool where you can drag and drop. And I'm just using Squarespace as a example. There's plenty of alternatives like Weebly and WIX and other ones. But the point here is that you can visually design your website using some tools, drag and drop, move some things around and the code kind of takes care of itself. There's no reason for you or there's no need for you to write any code so that your website exists. Same thing goes when it comes to editing or changing your website. But a website builder is just a simple example. There are now no code solutions for many things like editing an app, like a mobile app, tools that allow you to create your own mobile app visually rather than knowing how to code. There's no code solutions for CRMs and content management software. There's no code solutions for communities and membership sites and all that kind of stuff. And the point here is, is that they're empowering anybody who has some time to learn how to use the platform to develop a tool to develop a platform to help them run their business. So I want to start with the pros and cons with this. Number one, the pro is, is that you don't need to be reliant on an engineer. You yourself, the founder or anybody on your team can build and change things easily. Number two, often this is far less expensive than actually building it yourself. So your upfront costs are very low. Allows you to test out your business idea, your product or whatever it is without having to invest so much money on a custom website or tool. Number three, yes, there are some limitations. We'll talk about that in the cons to a no code environment. But if you did want to do some hyper customizations, most of these solutions will allow you to edit some code, add some code. If you wanted to get a little bit of both worlds, you customize certain things to exactly what's in your head. And number four, I think is a really big pro, is that you can hand over whatever you're doing, building, maintaining, editing, to anybody on your team. It's easy to learn, it's easy to implement. They don't need to be an engineer. So you have redundancy in team, just in case you're not available. But what about the cons? Well, the biggest con is that it's not endlessly customizable. Even if you add extra code. There's nothing like a customized site or tool or app where you think it up, you design it, and engineers build it for you. The second con, you are dependent on that tool, on that no code solution to run your business. For the most part, that shouldn't be a problem. But when you build your own site, when you build your own apps, when you build your own code, it's your code and you can host it, you can move it, you can do whatever you want with it. Number three, it's restrictive. You can't do everything under the sun in a no code environment. You're going to live or work within the parameters of the platform. You might want your website to do a certain thing that the platform doesn't allow, or an animation or something like that. You're going to need some help. And even if the platform allows customization, there's a good chance that whatever idea is in your mind is just not possible to be exactly like what you think in your head. You're going to have to make some sacrifices and some compromises. Now, do I think it's right for your business? This is where we're going to get really serious about this topic. It all depends on your product or your service. What are you actually selling to your customers if your product itself is the platform? Like you're actually selling an app or you're selling a software, you're selling a tool for people to use and you're using a no code solution to develop it. I actually do not recommend using no code because you really can't build exactly what your customers need, especially in the beginning. You got to be flexible and be able to develop and code something that's to the needs of your market. And if you're boxed into this no code environment, you really can't do that. On the other hand, if your product or service has really nothing to do with the platform itself, but the platform is the way you deliver this product or service, then that's less of an issue and then no code is actually a pretty viable option. A good example of this is you might be selling your online courses on an online course platform. Really what people are buying Is the content, is the courses, is the training, and they're using the platform that you are delivering it on to access it. So having a no code solution for that makes sense. But if your actual product, let's say, for example, you're selling a course platform to other course creators and you're using a no code solution to do that, this is where I say this is not a smart move. It may be okay at the start to validate your idea and to get your first few customers, but eventually you're going to have to write your own code because you just don't have the flexibility and the adaptability that you need to serve your customers when the product itself is the platform. Now, let's say you decide not to go with no code. You're going to build something yourself. You're going to have a customized, you're going to get an engineer, a developer to work on this project with you. This doesn't mean you don't need no code altogether. You throw it all away. There are solutions within engineering and development that are kind of plug and play and no code in itself to just one aspect of your actual app. For example, maybe in your software you want to include some sort of feature to allow SMS reminders. Building that from scratch can cost you a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of maintenance. And you, or maybe your engineer is not an expert at SMS technology. A Google search will result in a lot of different providers to solve this specific problem. Twilio, for example, offers SMS services that you can just plug in with an API, a few lines of code, and now your app does SMSs. Another example is at the start. When we started Webinar Ninja, all our customer support was via email. It was literally using Gmail for business inboxes. But then it was really hard to monitor. It was really hard to have a shared inbox. It was doing the job at the start, but we kind of had to graduate to a better solution. We could have created our own customer support software that suited our needs, but instead we moved on to a product that's already built for that solution. At the time we moved to Zendesk and now we're with Intercom because our needs changed again. Yes, we have to pay these services month over month, but it's really expensive for you to build something that for yourself. A lot of companies kind of do this in the enterprise level because they have certain needs, but most small businesses don't really need a lot of tweaking or changing. And most of these other Services will do what you need because they're built for small businesses. So let's bring it back. Now, should you go with no code? For most people, if your product or service is not an actual piece of software, like you're a coach or you're a trainer or you do services, you're a law firm or you're a dentist and you need to build a website to bring in customers and leads, that's fine. You're not selling the website, you're selling your services. No code all the way. Now, if you're a dentist that's trying to sell an app to your customers that reminds them when to floss, or maybe you can do like, video checkups between actual appointments in the dentist's office, you're going to have to build out a whole app. I recommend not going with no code, actually having it custom made to suit your needs, because this is the platform your customers are going to be on and getting value from. They're paying for the actual app.

ADP knows anything can change the world of work. Like, what if a blocked shipping port caused a worldwide coffee shortage? Suddenly, businesses are scrambling to manage an increasingly drowsy workforce. Productivity slips 20% just due to the extended time it takes to conduct a job interview while yawning. Anything can change the world of work. From HR to payroll. ADP helps businesses take on the next anything. ADP always designing for people.

To wrap up today's lesson, it's very important to be very, very clear on what you're offering your customers. Why are they paying you money? Where is your real value? You got to make sure that whatever that is, it's delivered seamlessly, that they get it at the highest level, whether it's training, whether it's a book, whether it's a service, whether it's accountability or community or whatever it is. The point here is that this is what they're buying. As long as you're able to deliver it seamlessly, effortlessly, so they're not going through hoops to get the service or get this product, then no code is a great solution for you to be able to launch and build and maintain to serve your customer. But if your product is actually the app, the website, the software you're selling, that's what they're buying. You're starting to dip your toes into the software business or SaaS business. You need to customize it. You need to have control over the code. You need to have a little bit of flexibility to be able to build a customized solution. It doesn't have to be this huge thing. This is why I recommend anybody who's starting a software company to start very minimal, viable solving the problem in a very minimal, viable way. Just solve one problem. Start small, launch iterate, improve. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love what you hear, hit, subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app. Whatever you're using right now to listen to this podcast. Apple Podcast, Stitcher Radio, Spotify. We're on every single platform. Also, while you're at it, leave us a rating and review. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. I read every single one of them and I give shout outs and give away programs and free rides on Friday. So listen in on Friday for that. That's tomorrow's episode. Before I go, I want to leave you with this the amount of tools, no code solutions that are available today is incredible. When I started in entrepreneurship about two decades ago, there were so many hurdles just to get going, just to get started, just to have a presence online. Today these tools allow us to just get up and running in a weekend. So even I'm going to say, even if you are in software and you're launching, it's a good starting point that Just to put the word out, when I started Webinar Ninja, I didn't have the actual app ready. I pre sold it on my website which was a no code solution. Using WordPress and a theme. I put up the designs I had. I told them what the product is going to do. People locked in their access and bought early access in a pre sale. I then took that pre sale money and invested in a developer to build the solution I needed for commercial use. So as you can see, I'm using no code even though I'm eventually going full code. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Tomorrow's episode Freeride Friday. I'll see you then. Take care. Foreign.

Knows Anything can change the world of work. Like what if a blocked shipping port caused a worldwide coffee shortage? Suddenly, businesses are scrambling to manage an increasingly drowsy workforce. Productivity slips 20% just due to the extended time it takes to conduct a job interview while yawning. Anything can change the world of work. From HR to payroll, ADP helps businesses take on the next anything. ADP always designing for people.