The Exchanges

Q You had said, uh, in our intro call that there was a clone of Twitter made using no code. So if you said that this is more of a future application where it's high traffic, if it's been designed, why can't it be used at scale?

A So one of the Challenges with that is just the teams behind these application builders getting sufficient size and funding to be able to make it scalable in that capacity. So of course they can deploy on AWS or public cloud, um, Azure, Google cloud as well. But one of the challenges is building, um, for something that's that scalable when the majority of their users are small businesses or startups, it takes a lot of resources and money, um, to commit. To solving that problem. So I would imagine that these application builders like bubble and others, um, until they raise tens of millions of dollars more, which companies like Webflow for websites has done. Now they're able to get scalability. Some of the bigger projects will need, but it's just unrealistic for such a small company to be able to build in that scale at this stage.

AI assessment note: “teams behind these application builders getting sufficient size and funding to be able to make it scalable”

Q so obviously I don't know, so my question is based on assumption. Is it like having a variety of different, like, UI components, like buttons and things, and you just say, oh, I want a button that's You know, with this hex code, or I want a button of this pixel size. Like, how exactly does it enable you to not code, but still have the versatility that you want?

A Yeah, that's exactly it, Sean, is there's, there's components, and some would view this as building blocks that you can drag in place, almost like a set of Legos. Now, the challenge is, once you build those visual elements, sometimes there's default functionality built into them. For example, a button It's going to have all the properties that say on hover, you know, it shows that your mouse is over it. If you click it, it's going to go somewhere, but then it's on the developer to decide what happens when that button is clicked. So where, where does this take the user? What is the, what is the workflow here, if you will? And so for bubble, they call them developers because you actually do have to come up with the logic. And, um, there's even a database component that's again, simplified in no code format, but you have to say, What is the data type and the data field that I want to return when someone clicks submit? I need to return them a message. And where is that live? So there is that kind of logic. And that's why I mentioned, uh, you do want the user to have, or the developer will be consistent here, uh, to have a creative or an inquisitive mind to, to want to follow the logic and workflow. Um, and the reason why we call it like, it's, it's still appropriate to call them developers is they do develop software. They just, someone who's developing on bubble. They're, they're …

AI assessment note: “there's components, and some would view this as building blocks that you can drag in place”

Q have these components that enabled payments or did they have to come in with some third party system and integrate it with the no code application they built in order to support payments? Because there's no reason to build anything for a business unless you're going to make money from it. So, uh, how easy is it to actually connect payments and, Uh, facilitate payments using these systems right now?

A Yeah, that's a great question. So most of it is done via API. So, um, if someone wants to process payments, probably not in this loan case, uh, you wouldn't use Stripe, but let's just say you have a merchant, you know, type of business, uh, use the Stripe API on bubble. And then you hand, handle it the way you would with WordPress, the way you would with Webflow is you just integrate the Stripe API and you're set in WordPress. You normally do that through 10 lines of code that you copy and paste. And in bubble it's, you just click a button and say, you know, give my Stripe account access. And so, APIs have even been, uh, no codified in no code, uh, platforms where the API is sort of handled on the backend for you and you don't implement it like a developer. You just click a button and say connect. And so that's been very, uh, useful. And I think, you know, that's how you would normally process payments. Uh, to be honest, I don't know exactly how this, um, specific company, uh, processed their billion in payments. Um, but, but I would imagine, you know, they did it through an API. And, um, I think Bubble, one of the co-founders, Emmanuel, did mention that initially they didn't have, uh, what this client needed. And they were, you know, they built it for them just because they knew they were going to be a showcase customer.

AI assessment note: “most of it is done via API... in bubble it's, you just click a button”

Q So you're talking about bubble. What was the name of it?

A Correct. That's, that's sort of the largest general purpose application builder at the moment. They were founded in 2012, really launched in about 2015. They have, uh, over 400,000 users and, uh, one of their biggest customers has processed a billion dollars of loans on their platform, a fintech company. That's their claim to fame right now at the moment, being sort of the first mover. Um, one of the challenges with Bubble is that they're To use the software, it's, it's fairly difficult. Um, there's a steep learning curve, and that's one of the hurdles that most pessimists see as something that has to be overcome, is some of these are, would say that it's almost as difficult to use this as just writing code. Now, I've used these tools, and I've written code, and I, I know that not to be true. Um, it's, it's still, there's still a very steep learning curve to bubble, but it's, it's not like having to learn a programming language. So it's, It's, um, going in the right direction on the spectrum of high level of difficulty and time-consuming to learn versus being a little bit faster and easier to learn.

AI assessment note: “Correct. That's, that's sort of the largest general purpose application builder”

Q You were talking about agencies growing up around the idea of developing no code projects for companies at a fraction of the cost. But if the goal of an agency is to maximize profit, then why would they choose to Charge somebody a 10th of the price when they could charge 80% of the price and still present value?

A Yeah. Great question, Sean. And initially you're absolutely right. I've looked at some of these agencies and the prices are quite high. And I think one of the reasons being is because like you said, they have this spread that they can, you know, take essentially as much of the spread as they want before the customer becomes aware that they're, they're sort of not getting as good of deal as they expect. This is what we see in most developing markets where Uh, you know, if you think about the financial markets, you need a market maker that helps decrease the spreads by taking either side of the trade. And that's something that we need to see happening here. It won't be quite like a market maker, but with increased competition where that. Tends to close the spread a bit. I think we'll see that, um, mainly because of how easy it is for some folks to learn, learn this tool and become a developer on, on bubble, let's say, or Adalo or V one, uh, all these no code tools. Or even just become, um, what I haven't mentioned yet is Zapier, which is very useful for workflows and integrations. That's something where I've started to see just freelancers, all they do is set up Zapier for, for customers. As people are finding out how relatively easy it is to learn these tools, that's why I think there'll be so, so much, uh, supply on the, uh, agency side or on the freelance side. Cause again, yo…

AI assessment note: “with increased competition where that. Tends to close the spread a bit.”

Q I'm going to deploy to all of the clouds, you know, or all the big three, so that I know if AWS goes down, my, my backups on Azure and Google Cloud are still working. But I guess, is there a platform that allows you to deploy once to all of the different clouds? And manage payments to all of them, but you only manage it on this other platform?

A There are a few. One is actually produced by Google. It's called Anthos, and they'd call them application meshes or cloud mesh. There's one under development. I don't know if it's been released yet, AWS as well. And there are a few independent ones. I haven't worked with them before, but the idea is a few scrappy and hungry entrepreneurs have found that, you know, that's, That's a problem that a lot of folks have wanted to solve being multi-cloud and being able to manage it essentially through a single integration hub. Um, so there are a few layers for doing that in the no code space that hasn't been popularized yet, just because, uh, they're sort of in such early innings, they got to get running on their own stack to start with. And so I think that's something that, um, I didn't mention that we'll probably see over the next three to five years as well as is more optionality for deployment.

AI assessment note: “There are a few. One is actually produced by Google. It's called Anthos”

Q this episode, I'd like to talk about no code. Beyond the operating system, beyond the WordPress, but rather into the development of actual platforms and applications. So we'll get into that in a little bit, but first I want to ask, what are the pros and cons of using no code within that context? And obviously not the WordPress and the other, the more advanced things that are coming up.

A You know, that's where I'm most excited as well, Sean, is, is on the application builders. So you can actually build software With these no code platforms. And that that's more interesting because it enables people to work on all types of technical projects. Whereas, you know, WordPress was just one subset of technical challenges and that was building a website. Now we want people to build internal tools. We want them to be able to launch an entire business and manage the whole tech stack in the end. And so that's something that low code is enabling. So one of the pros of that is being able to be an entrepreneur or startup. And be able to do that as a non-technical founder or non-technical co-founders. Um, whereas traditionally you'd have to go out in search of a CTO or a technical founder or co-founder. And this actually applies also not just to startups, but as you get in the larger orgs, there's been a real struggle for talent. Um, right now there's, you know, massive shortage of software developers for context in the U S there's about, you know, four to five million college Graduates each year, and only about less than five percent or 250,000 of those might have a CS degree or computer science education. You know, the problem is there's nearly 400,000 new jobs. And so there's, you know, shortage of at least 150,000 in the recent years. So that's, you know, one of the pros o…

AI assessment note: “So one of the pros of that is being able to be an entrepreneur”

Q What's the history of no code and why did it become something necessary and or viable?

A Yeah. So no code's been around for a long time without that name. So, uh, for example, WordPress for building websites, uh, is a CMS or a content management system, uh, that's been around, uh, and actually serves up, uh, somewhere around a third or more of the websites worldwide right now. So there's a lot of people who have been using no code without really calling it no code. If we go back even further before the internet, just desktop OS's or operating systems Are a version of no code. Whereas before you'd use the command line to interact with the computer, because ultimately you need to be sending those zeros and ones, you know, talking in the machine language. So every time you abstract and add another layer of abstraction, that's a, another version of no code. One might call it low code because it just eliminates a certain amount of coding. Um, but anytime you still have to do some coding, that would be called low code versus no code.

AI assessment note: “no code's been around for a long time without that name.”

Q a website that has some sort of AI based quiz that allows people to tell it what They want to do, and then it will tell them no code is good for you. And if so, you should use this platform or no code is not good for you. You should go build it natively or have you seen anything like that? And if not, is that a good idea?

A I haven't seen anything like that. And Sean, that's a great idea. In fact, you know, that, that might be something I get to work on, um, in the coming weeks, because I think we've sort of been asking that to the companies themselves, you know, what is your value proposition to customers? What can and can't they do? This is where it gets really, I don't want to say personal for the founders, but, um, they have this vision, right? And this goes back to, you know, decade long or however long a vision of a founder might be. We don't want to try and get in the way of that and sound like we're questioning it. We just want to understand where they sit in the mix, because the reality is there's other players, there's alternatives. They're not always direct substitutes, but there are other players and potentially better options based on fitment for that customer need. And so I think it would be a great You know, idea what you're suggesting. And then, um, you could even, you know, suggest the, the appropriate tool, not just say, is this possible in no code or not? Likely the case is most of the small projects will be possible in no code. Question is, which is the correct tool? And that's not something I've seen on any of these sites that I've mentioned. They generally just have a very large list. Most of them are searchable. So you could say, I need database. I want to link it to a sprea…

AI assessment note: “I haven't seen anything like that. And Sean, that's a great idea.”

Q it and make it what They need it to be. So, so I love that this has risen up for those of us who are a little bit more shy, I guess, about getting their hands dirty. What exactly do you really need to know technologically to get started with a framework like bubble? You mentioned business logic. What is business logic? How do you make decisions based on this?

A Yep. So what I would say is to start, if you are a business user, the best no code tool would be like an analytics platform that is no code. Um, so that would Somewhat guide you through the data types that you could port, and then it would automatically generate, you know, graphics or something. Some would even call something like Tableau a bit of no-code type of analytics platform, although they have very sophisticated functionality. One of the things that I think will help the no-code space, and this is to your question of how does someone who's really non-technical, no technical background, strictly a business user, how do they get started? The way Some of the companies building these no code platforms are thinking about it is they want to decide whether their identity is on the limited functionality side, but very simple and easy to use from a user experience perspective, or do they want to be able to be a full scale, you know, generalized application builder, which provides that increased functionality, but it's also very complex and difficult to use. Um, so what I would say is you really don't go to bubble and expect to crank something out really quickly. For something like bubble, you would go there and say, I'm going to spend two weeks going through all their tutorials and really get to know how to use this platform. And the benefit is two weeks is still a lot shorter t…

AI assessment note: “For something like bubble, you would go there and say, I'm going to spend two weeks”

Q So let's look out five to 10 years from now. What does no code look like then?

A Yeah. So five to 10 years, um, you know, the further out, the harder it is to predict. Um, you know, I might sound like that gentleman who was talking about flying cars being around now. And I think, you know, a lot of A lot of what he was saying, he, he got right. Um, you know, it's from the book. Weren't there any flying cars? You know, he talked about our data being stored, uh, in a centralized location underground, you know, in a, a temperature and humidity controlled area. A lot, you know, like describing a data, a moderate data center to some extent, um, though, the most are not underground. You know, when I, when I look out five to 10 years, I would say, uh, there's certain things that I have a little higher level of confidence in. And that's just that we're going to be using no code tools. We're going to be using more of them. We're going to see more people building on no code just because the technology is there and there's no reason not to. I think again, going back to the cons, the only one true con we've been able to see so far is the amount of functionality and scalability besides the, the normal stuff like learning curve, which is, you know, a problem in, in other areas, you know, training is, is an education's Sort of a insurmountable, you know, hurdle, um, until we can just, you know, plug in our minds and do a download. So we will see more people building on no…

AI assessment note: “we will see more people building on no code tools and, uh, no code tools will be more prevalent”