My discovery of no-code tools and code

With a degree in economics and a master's in business school, I had no idea I would become a developer*! No-code*.

At the beginning of 2021, I didn't know how to code, and I had absolutely no idea how HTML and CSS code worked.

Early 2021 was not so long ago... And yet now they say about me :

Florian ? he's become a "geek"!

(In other words, he knows how to create websites, behind a computer)

In this article, I share with you my personal experience with no-code tools, the discovery of code and the web in general.

So how? How do you go from a commercial training to → website developer with no-code tools?

1. What software should I use to create a website?

Final year internship, January 2021.

Together with Thomas, we decided to replace our end-of-study internship with an entrepreneurial "project". "Project' in inverted commas, because we are still often asked the famous question...

"So where does the project stand?"

When we wanted to start a business, after 5 years of sales studies, we were ready! Ready to sell. We just needed a medium to gain credibility: a website.

So we looked for a tool to help us do this and quickly sell our revolutionary offer. A great service, unheard of! (at the time, we were preparing a real revolution: energy, company charges, HR, we thought we could do many, many things... 😂). Anyway, we have refocused since then, but that's not the subject today!

1.1 Discovering the nocode tools

While looking for a tool to create a website and while preparing our strategy to attack the market, we discovered, one after another, the no-code tools. Wow. Wow. Wow. (It was a change from Powerpoint, I guarantee it). We immediately sensed a huge and mostly untapped potential in most French companies. In short, with all these tools we now had to make a choice.

1.2 How to choose your no-code tool?

In order to choose, we compared prices and features, read different blog articles and watched Youtube videos. With hindsight, I would say that the two most important points to choose your no-code tool are :

1. The amount of resources to learn the tool available for free on the web (tutorials, videos, training, etc.)
2. The community that runs the tool (forum, slack channel, etc.)

In short, we searched, we searched so much, that our business plan had time to change. Now we were going to compose selections of no-code tools (stack no-code for the experts) and integrate them into French VSEs and SMEs.

1.3 Webflow, an obvious choice for me.

Now that we were going to sell stacks of tools to"boost your business" (that was the Headings 1 of our homepage, partly from where the name Digidop was born), we started to create our website. Our v1. (1 year later we are running between V3 or 4 already? ahah).

The more time we spent creating this site on weblow, the more we thought that this tool was a revolution. Today we still sell a selection of tools, but around Webflow ahah.

2. Why the No Code?

The question may seem like a no-brainer, but I can't code. (Maybe a bit more now 🤓). But in any case, in the beginning, the question didn't arise. But even today, the question doesn't arise.

1. I don't have time to code, there are better things to do and focus on your customers, right?
2. Developers are much better at thisthan I am, I prefer to let them code perfectly for us, the no-code makers

2.1 I can't code

The answer is simple, I can't code. So to create an application or develop a website, the question did not arise. We needed no-code tools. We had understood drag & drop with Powerpoint during all his years of study, we were armed.

2.2 Create quickly

Oh yes, and most importantly, it's super fast. The "automatic" edition of code with drag & drop allowed us to create and launch our first MVP on Webflow in 5 days. 5 days yes, the time of a design sprint.

2.3 Recruiting a web developer?

We didn't have any money. 500€ of capital is short. We would have sunk after the kick-off 😂

3. What is the difference between No Code and low code?

Webflow is a visual code editor. The drag & drop system allowed me to focus on learning the "block" and the web structure in stages. By building in no-code, you learn little by little the CSS and HTML system of the web. Especially in Webflow, with the system of classes and combo classes.

3.1 Want to go further?

No-code still has its limits(not for much longer in my opinion). And when we started working with big companies, the very specific customer requests came. Yes, the famous clients that take you to the next level! To answer them successfully, we had to .... learn to code !

Learn yes and learn fast to solve tooling blockages on client projects. This methodology, with the problem in front of me, allowed me to learn HTML and CSS code quickly. Survival instinct or the desire to unlock the next level of the game? No lo se. In any case, learning the code on real examples with specific cases did me a lot of good, in terms of business knowledge. Projects that used to be "difficult" are now "easy" for me.

To sum up, developing in low-code allows me today to have no-code products with more functionalities and above all to be able to find solutions for clients who are stuck in a project.

3.2 Understanding the basics to become a better no-coder

Our goal is to make Digidop the French reference in terms of no-code development on Webflow. By learning the technical basis of web construction (html and css) I was able to make huge technical progress on the quality of my no-code creations, which I can now share with all our team. Very useful when we sell web platforms on Webflow:)

4. How to learn code?

So how? I'll share with you three ways that have helped me a lot

4.1 No-code tool forums!

The forums are filled, filled, filled with code! Already written for you! This is the best resource for learning. Ask Google, look at the script, try to understand it, copy/paste it and test it!

4.2 The Google developper website

Google explains it all. You just have to look.

4.3 Testing code snippets on test projects!

Test → fail → retest → succeed 🤩