Can I build my SaaS in no-code tools | Hacker News Reader

Can I build my SaaS in no-code tools

unione.digital

16 pointsPatrikSlachta32 comments

I think you're hanging people up by calling this "SaaS." Your pitch reads "We are a community of affordable and accountable writers from all around the world." That doesn't sound to me like you're selling a software service. You're selling the services of human writers, unless you're lying and this is actually auto-generated content.

If you're really selling the services of human writers, the fact that your company will be better at acquiring customers if it has a website doesn't mean you need to make it yourself. Hire a developer. Maybe they use a no code tool. Maybe they don't. Provided the end product meets your requirements, what difference does it make?

What are you really selling here? I just looked at the first thing in your portfolio that was in English and not crypto and you seem to be claiming you produced the "about us" content for Body Union, some supplement company in England? When I compare your entry to their real about us page, the content does match. Are you saying you have a writer on staff who ghostwrote that for the CEO "Katarzyna Pindel?" Is that not really her story? I mean, I know it's not actually her story, because it's not possible for a single person to really have Celiac, Hashimoto, and IBS and cure it with vitamins, but did she not give you the story? Your writer just made it up? Is it autogenerated by a language model?

If you're just trying to track which customer wants which content in which language and match writers to customers, what is driving the need for a custom software stack at all? Doesn't something like Salesforce already do all of this?

Yes, thank you for the idea. I should probably simplify it. It´s basically people I work with and I think it makes a total sense what you´ve wrote. Do you think you could provide me some business tools to get started?

Patrik.

People, I´m a copywriter for around 6+ years. I´ve built what we can call MVP up on the link in 3 hours and now I am creating the software. The software needs storage space with each user having his own, active tasks, language selection and scheduler for an easy first version. I want it on the web after somebody buys service.

Question on hand: I know how to code some basic front-end and learning back-end but I want to use no-code tools since they seem easier. Can I use Bildr, Webflow or Bubble with Airtable and if so, is it going to work correctly?

No, it will be a joke, limited, slow, sub-par experience, expensive at scale, not attractive for users ... It's a fast way to trash your idea

What tech stack would you use? I´m kinda´ new and last time I learned was in school with Python, HTML, CSS and stuff

Nothing wrong with that stack, you will be in full control. Personally I prefer something like react or vue for the frontend and node.js for the backend. The great thing about it it's all in JavaScript so really only 1 language.

But it's a matter of preference, I recommend you to use the stack you feel more comfortable with.

For MVP type stuff, Meteor JS is still a good option since you don't waste time building a login system etc. and can develop your business logic instead.

Altough I am thinking Ruby would be both quick and easier to release

Ruby is good as well, but if you have zero knowledge about it and plan to start from scratch... Maybe not, it's harder to find dev working on it compared to other stacks (python, JavaScript, Go, ... Even C# is more popular)

Okay, thank you a lot and since I am yet a solo-founder, do you think you could provide me with useful links that could help me build this because I am a rather untalented creature. :D

YW, sure please check this: https://github.com/gothinkster/realworld

It's a collection of 100 implementation of the same project but in different languages. This might help you to choose your preferred stack and see a real world example on how to use them and learn

There are domains where user experience is vital. Consumer apps that serve as nothing but entertainment, or fields with fierce competition for instance. And then there are domains where there is a problem that isn't solved or solved well.

I don't know anything about the market for copy writing, so I can't say whether this falls into one or the other but if it's the latter, starting out with no-code is a completely rational approach.

Yea I think the main, major problem with no-code tools is that they are not as composable as real coding.

How that manifests is in a “difficulty cliff” - everything is very easy until that one thing that you absolutely need - it’s impossible - and since the components aren’t infinitely malleable there’s nothing you can do about it.

What happens if you launch and that impossible thing is something critical that your biggest, paid, customer wants?

A close number 2 is the janki-ness, and then the rest of the things you mentioned

A related problem is they say you can export to real code and have infinite flexibility, but now the tool and the code are out of sync. The tooling doesn’t have a handle on this new code.

Despite the attitude of some of the other comments, the code and stack are less important than you’d think.

If you can create an MVP with no-code tool, yeah it might be janky but it might also let you prove out your idea with paying customers with the smallest time and money investment.

Over time developing the software in house gives you control over the roadmap of features, and generally let’s you deliver a better experience.

Unless you want to hone your engineering skills and use this as nice side project to do so, you’re probably well served playing to your strengths and working on getting customers.

You’ll hit a wall with no code software at some point, that’s where you can sprinkle in some custom code.

No code is just someone else’s saas api at the end of the day. If you trust the service, and they have an API that does what you need it to, don’t get bogged down in it.

Maybe in the future you build the whole thing in custom code, but if you’ve got enough functionality to charge money for, the next question (at least from the lean startup approach) is to validate it with paying customers.

Good luck!

Well said!

Some people seem to be able to do it - I couldn't. Here are a few things I learned experimenting with Bubble: 1. The learning curve is not that bad, and the support forums are useful. 2. The sticker price is misleading, in that very quickly you'll likely realize you need additional, paid components. 3. The minute you need any out-of-the box functionality, you start running into trouble. And because each app ultimately tries to do something a bit differently, the bar for out-of-the box is very low.

Having experimented with it for a few months (2-3?) I made two decisions. One, this was not the way to go for us. Two, I was going to bite the bullet and learn front-end web development. I did a Udemy bootcamp followed by a MERN course and that allowed me to comfortably build anything I needed to build for an early version (not yet an MVP). This made our team think very hard about what exactly we're building and spec it out.

I've come to believe the long way is the short way. Even if you end up hiring someone else to build your app, you want to be able to understand what they're doing and read their code.

Thank you, that´s what I thought and that´s why I am currently working on it with otherguys including me in code.

I've been investigating several no-code tools because we need some internal tooling, where most of my team are not programmers, and I don't want to have a bus factor of 1 for this.

I've so far been most impressed with directus (https://github.com/directus/directus), which is open source, can be self-hosted, and can enforce ABAC which essentially allows you to do any permission scheme, albeit with complex queries if you have complex requirements.

It might be worth to give this a try.

Thank you Finch, you´ve got me. This really seems like somthing cool.

Sometimes it feels like everybody wants to work in tech, but ain’t nobody want to write all this damn code. People will try everything except learning to code, even when they are starting a whole business where the main product depends on code.

We simply don’t see this kind of thing in other industries. Imagine a mechanic working on your airplane but… they just want to use an AI to tell them what to do, not really get to deep in the technical subjects.

To be fair a lot of code is just unnecessary.

A lot of businesses are unnecessary.

At https://railsrocket.app/ we are focused on that.

- Easy no-code interface

- SaaS focused modules and components

- Real Rails code output

We are currently in Alpha where we build your app for you in RailsRocket for the monthly subscription fee (cheap!) So if you have a relevant project we could help with do get in touch here: paul at railsrocket.app

Also looking for cofounders and investors so hmu!

How is data protected/segmented? Calls to your own db or do you host? What’s the target market of apps?

I've been pretty impressed with Bubble's capabilities, and in particular it's API integrations make it seamless to ship a lot of common functionalities. I think you can get your MVP up with Bubble for sure, maybe the whole thing, but either way you can get it far enough to convince someone to give you money for some engineering muscle if you need it.

Best of luck :)

Please don't editorialise. I'm seeing title: "Copywriting made easy."

Is the high-quality SEO-friendly content you want to sell generated by a machine learning model, or why do you consider it Software as a Service?

No. I wanted to have amount of words a month preselcted when buying. like from 1k-100k/month basic/semi/pro level writers with pricing and a big "BUY" button which they are then able to distribute between languages and types of content in app.

I don't want to sound crabby, but learn to code. The level you need for most coding is not high. Most people will not need to go past the first hump.

But I really believe software is a form of literacy. And we need a literate society to take advantage of all the silicon revolutions benefits

Yeah, I´m partially on it. It seems like it is not even required but the fact that nobody wants to do it makes it a hot stuff.

Thank you Js ;)

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