No Code & Code

This episode of The No Code & Code Podcast features Chris Obdam, CEO and Co-Founder of Betty Blocks. Chris starts by giving insight into how and why he and his brother first started Betty Blocks and then dives into how Betty Blocks benefitted from finding its target audience right from the start. He goes into detail about how focusing on their target group of enterprise companies meant honing in on building bigger and more complex applications instead of smaller, more general tools for independent professionals, and how keeping this as the focus helped the company operate at higher efficiency. Chris also discusses how Betty Blocks was able to combine many essential components to a usable no-code tool, including a drag and drop UI builder, visually linking tables, a workflow diagram, and integrations. In addition, Chris touches on the politics associated with software development, unique capabilities that Betty Blocks has, including flexibility, safety, and optimization, VC-funding in the no-code space, and more. Chris wraps up the episode by giving his two cents on what he thinks the no-code space will look like in 10 years and discusses how long he thinks it will take before we see a large company built on top of a no-code platform. You can find Chris on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisobdam/], and don’t forget to check out Betty Blocks [https://www.bettyblocks.com/] and the tools and resources mentioned in this episode: Resources Betty Blocks: https://www.bettyblocks.com/ [https://www.bettyblocks.com/] HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/ [https://www.hubspot.com/] Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/ [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/] AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/ [https://aws.amazon.com/] Kubernetes: https://kubernetes.io/ [https://kubernetes.io/] MySQL: https://www.mysql.com/ [https://www.mysql.com/] Power Apps: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/ [https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/] Microsoft Dynamics: https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/ [https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/] SAP HANA: https://www.sap.com/products/hana.html [https://www.sap.com/products/hana.html] Airtable: https://airtable.com/ [https://airtable.com/] Javascript: https://www.javascript.com/ [https://www.javascript.com/]

In this episode of The No Code & Code Podcast, Mitchell Wright, Senior Manager of Growth and Strategy at Lambda School, sits down with us to share his expertise and experience with building Lambda’s foundation using no-code and scaling it to serve over 2,500 students. Mitchell discusses the difficulties behind bridging the gap between technical and non-technical users, especially in a situation where the no-code stack is initially set up by the operations team, but later used by the engineering team. He explores ‘technical debt’, which, in no-code, exists when the engineering team has little visibility into how things are set up and running. Mitchell also dives into the challenges that Lambda faced given the speed at which the company scaled, especially pertaining to no-code tools such as Zapier and Airtable. By sharing the obstacles that Lambda had to overcome in scaling and migrating from no-code, Mitchell provides invaluable advice for other companies looking to follow in his footsteps. He continues by saying that although there are obstacles when scaling a company in no-code, the early stages of a company are about asking yourself, “What is the fastest way for me to get this idea out there and validate whether it will be a good idea anyway?” In the same vein, he states that it’s more about getting your idea out there, rather than getting stuck on what tools to use. Mitchell wraps the episode by drawing from his experience to outline what his scaling and migration strategy would look like in a perfect world. He also lists the top two features he believes would bring no code to the next level and would like to eventually see implemented. You can find Mitchell on Twitter [https://twitter.com/mitchellbwright] and LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchellwright/], and don’t forget to check out Lambda School [http://lambdaschool.com/] and  the tools and resources mentioned in this episode: Typeform: https://typeform.com/ [http://typeform.com/] Airtable: https://airtable.com/ [https://airtable.com/] Tray.io: https://tray.io/ [https://tray.io/] Zapier: https://zapier.com/ [https://zapier.com/] Ruby on Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/ [https://rubyonrails.org/] MakerPad: https://www.makerpad.co/ [https://www.makerpad.co/] Standard Library: https://autocode.com/ [https://autocode.com/] Firebase: https://firebase.google.com/ [https://firebase.google.com/] MySQL: https://www.mysql.com/ [https://www.mysql.com/] Wordpress: https://wordpress.org/ [https://wordpress.org/] Gravity Forms: https://www.gravityforms.com/ [https://www.gravityforms.com/] Salesforce: www.salesforce.com [http://www.salesforce.com/] PostgreSQL: https://www.postgresql.org/ [https://www.postgresql.org/] UI Bakery: https://uibakery.io/ [https://uibakery.io/] Webflow: https://webflow.com/ [http://webflow.com/] Bubble: https://bubble.io/ [https://bubble.io/] Timestamps: 5:40 - Breaking Typeform from student application volume. 6:56 - Implementing Wordpress to build a robust student application portal. 6:56 - Implementing Zapier and Tray.io [http://tray.io/] into Lambda. 8:50 - Why do migrations happen? 10:00 - What would make Zapier more scalable? 11:30: Standard Library’s unique way of being able to push a feature with code or no-code. 13:30 - Collaboration features that contribute to no-code not scaling as far as it could. 16:10 - Adopting Airtable as the primary database. 17:48 - Why Airtable and no-code databases break down, and how that happened at Lambda. 21:35 - How to increase your Airtable base’s speed. 23:40 - How to push past Airtable’s maximum row limit. 24:45 - How no-code can help companies iterate faster than with code. 29:30 - Why no-code tech debt is unique. 33:45 - Mitchell discusses his ideal migration plan. 39:00 - When did you start planning the migration to code? 41:45 - Mitchell’s three dream no-code features. 46:35 - How to get a free assessment of the scalability of your no-code stack.

In this episode of the No Code & Code podcast, Michael Gill, CTO at GPS Trackit, shares about his experience integrating no-code into the code stack at his company - from first getting his team on board, to eventually wanting to use no-code to build out all of the company’s front-end pages. Michael starts by outlining the issues that his design team faced in communicating their vision to the engineering team. There would often be multiple rounds of back and forth between the two teams as they tried to find common ground between the design and the actual implementation. He dives into explaining how Clutch, a tool that is like Webflow for building front-end interfaces and exports React code, drastically improved the productivity and connectivity between his teams. Michael highlights how Clutch allows for flexibility in letting teams pick and choose where they want to implement it, such as using Clutch for one page in an app and writing code directly for another. In addition, Michael mentions other perks of Clutch, such as being able to view live updates of when teammates are editing, bringing more standardization to how the code is written, using Github to manage version control, and more. The episode ends with Michael giving other CTOs a few words of advice regarding integrating no-code into their companies and naming his top no-code feature requests. You can find Michael on Twitter [https://twitter.com/gill_works?lang=en], and check out his Maker Minions [https://gumroad.com/l/makerminions-workshop] workshop on how to use no-code at your company. You can also find some of the resources mentioned in this episode at the links below: Resources mentioned: Bubble: http://bubble.io/ [http://bubble.io/] Clutch: https://clutch.io/ [https://clutch.io/] DraftBit: https://draftbit.com/ [https://draftbit.com/] Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/product [https://bitbucket.org/product] Webflow: https://webflow.com/ [https://webflow.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=general-paid-branded&utm_term=keyword-targeting&utm_content=branded-ads&gclid=Cj0KCQjwvIT5BRCqARIsAAwwD-SysZha1qAIHoBljrED6mVj7l58ENrBJDb4-gIZrC0BYC_AzGNXQL8aAoCuEALw_wcB] GitHub: https://github.com/ [https://github.com/] AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/ [https://aws.amazon.com/] UI Bakery: https://uibakery.io/ [https://uibakery.io/]

Vlad Leytus first started working with no-code as an MBA student at Harvard in 2013. He had an idea for an application that he wanted to launch, but he didn’t have any programming skills or finances to spend on hiring. He was introduced to Bubble by a classmate and spent days and nights becoming an expert on the platform. In 2015, he and his co-founder, Andrew, quit their jobs in management consulting and analytics to build what would eventually become Airdev. Vlad starts by discussing how integrating two big tools, such as Bubble and Salesforce, can lead to both powerful results and potential problems when the ‘source of truth’ data is not clearly defined. He shares his experience of having data live on both tools and how an outage on one tool can cause activity on the other tool to not be updated. Vlad also dives into the different methods in which you can structure your company, depending on the stage your company is currently in. He talks about how earlier in a company’s lifecycle, it’s more important to get things out quickly and to have a shorter line and continuous feedback loop between the developer and someone on the business side, and how later, it is more important to optimize for stability and scalability. He mentions that while this principle applies when using code, too, no-code makes application of this principle even more crucial. Vlad ends by discussing the importance of scoping in client projects. He mentions the ‘rule of pi’, which means that traditionally, you have to take a developer’s estimate for timing and pricing and multiply it by 3.14, and how Airdev places a much greater emphasis on scoping to better manage client expectations on time and pricing. You can find Vlad on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladimirleytus/] and Twitter [https://twitter.com/vladleytus] and check out his company AirDev [https://airdev.co/] and some of the resources mentioned in this episode at the links below: AirDev: https://airdev.co/ [https://airdev.co/] Bubble: http://bubble.io/ [http://bubble.io/] Zapier: https://zapier.com/ [https://zapier.com/] Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/ [https://www.snowflake.com/] Redshift: https://www.redshift3d.com/ [https://www.redshift3d.com/] Postgres: https://www.postgresql.org/ [https://www.postgresql.org/] Code Mentor: https://www.codementor.io/ [https://www.codementor.io/] Salesforce: www.salesforce.com [http://www.salesforce.com] JIRA: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira [https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira] Ruby on Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/ [https://rubyonrails.org/]

Welcome to the No Code and Code podcast, hosted by David Head. David started using no-code almost a decade ago, and since then, he has led the no-code team at a Y Combinator backed startup that he co-founded called Sixty, worked on migrating no-code to code as an engineer at Lambda School, consulted numerous companies on scaling their no-code stack, and more. David draws upon his expertise when interviewing guests on the podcast who range from founding teams building no-code stacks, to engineers who have led migrations from no-code to code, to freelancers and agencies who use no-code tools, to no-code platform founders. David and his guests discuss the limits of no-code, re-integrating no-code tools after migrating to code, and other obstacles associated with no-code. These discussions all support him in answering the ultimate question: How can companies integrate no-code and code tools together right from the start? You can find some of the resources mentioned in this episode at the links below: * Airtable: https://airtable.com/ [https://airtable.com/] * Zapier: https://zapier.com/ [https://zapier.com/] * Sixty: https://www.usesixty.com/ [https://www.usesixty.com/] * Lambda School: https://lambdaschool.com/ [https://lambdaschool.com/] To stay up to date on new episodes of the No Code and Code podcast, head to www.bridge.so/podcast. [https://www.bridge.so/podcast]