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20 Comments

Are you a non-technical founder?

If you are a non-technical founder I'd love to speak with you. Your help would be really appreciated.

I want to find out what were your problems when starting your project and how did you solve them?

Once again, this is super important and your feedback will really help us.

Cheers

Joe
Budibase

  1. 2

    What I am surprised about is that there are so few "templates" built on famous, read common, tech stacks. You have new tech stacks like bubble emerging that are great and very exciting which is super helpful, especially since there are a lot of templates available.

    But why not build fully hosted versions in a well-known stack. There are also things like ready marketplaces like sharetribe which I think is probably the most helpful example - you can use it hosted to start out but download the sourcecode and modify to your hearts content. Currently, it is often an all or nothing.

    What I am looking for is a REPUTABLE developer building a hosted version of a website (clone from which to customise) based on a standard tech stack that I rent and can manipulate etc. If my projects hits off, I can buy out the source code (perpetual license) or rent to own or similar. Currently, I have to build it from scratch at either 2 years of learning a language or at very high costs.

    Once something exists in a known tech stack, it would so much easier to find a developer to expand or add a single feature. I don't want to start from a blank page - have 2 or 10 or 100 common templates ready, you can even have a marketplace to sell these templates. But based on a common tech stack. Like Bubble and Zeroqode but using Heroku, Postgres, Ruby or Heroku, NodeJs, Angular that covers backend, frontend and possibly iOS and Android apps but built on bestpractice, API driven so I can outsource any important aspect. Or spend every cent I have on a designer but standard backend. I know this is somewhat Utopia but I think this would be helpful. I have signed up to the beta to see what BudiBase is doing...

    1. 1

      Thank you for your comprehensive response. I've shared this with my team. This is very encouraging as it aligns with the problem we're trying to solve.

      Budibase is open source and written in Node js. We aim to be frontend framework agnostic from the beta launch in September.

      If possible, It would be great to have a quick call with you sometime?

  2. 2

    I’m happy to chat, I started my business as a non-tech Founder. I still don’t or want to code.

    1. 1

      Thank you for responding. Coding is not for everyone. Did you hire a developer to build a prototype?

      1. 1

        We did a 'no code' type thing as long as we could (3-4 years). Took a while to convince my husband (a techie) to help custom build stuff. We now have him (part time) plus a permanent dev, plus a part time freelancer to help out.

        1. 1

          Sounds like a great setup. And I hope your time at Indie Hackers is awesome.

          Budibase is low-code but it is possible to build a product with no-code. We went with low-code and open source to reduce technical debt.

          Thanks for your responses and help. We owe you swag 😀 signup to Budibase.

  3. 2

    I started as a non-technical founder. and I had to become technical along the way. Not sure if I'm what you are looking for but certainly had felt the pains of not being technical to start with.

    1. 1

      You sound perfect! We're developing a low code platform and want to know:

      Did you build the product yourself?

      What was the hardest part when building your product?

      Would you consider using a no code platform if you were to do it again?

      Would you consider a low code platform if you were to build your product again?

      I really appreciate your feedback. Cheers.

      1. 1

        1- I did build it myself.
        2- DevOps was the hardest, spent a lot of time messing and understanding AWS settings and setup, SSL, provisioning. more than actual coding I would say
        3- Yes if it give me the flexibility to put together a prototype and took care of all the small details, yes. Currently using Meteor js. but I know that once we validate the asumtions of the mvp and are planning to scall I'm gonna have to migrate elsewhere. so the cheaper/fastest I can build prototypes and test value prop the better.

        1. 1

          Congrats on building yourself. Devops is a pain. At Budibase we are going to offer our users simplified hosting - AWS is confusing!

          Speed is crucial and that's basically our primary goal - to speed up the process of building, launching and managing web apps. Tough ask but we think it solves a problem.

          Thanks for your responses and help. We owe you swag 😀 signup to Budibase

  4. 1

    I am (not techy) currently a trying to build up start page with widgets/tabs etc. I have All the ideas and content & how it functions of what I want down. I just need the brains of someone who can put it all together.

  5. 1

    Hello!

    I'm a second time non-technical founder. Terrible relationship with an unreliable third party that licensed the software was the end of my first project.

    Just launched an MVP for second project and I'm getting decent traction. Literally paralysed because I don't know where to find tech talent. Seems like all people who can code are already working on twenty projects or expect to get paid twenty million dollars.

    I read and listen to an insane amount of books and podcasts, so I'd say I'm fairly strong now on the strategy, product management, user experience, etc. It's when it comes to finding the terminal on my computer that things go downhill. I've started learning how to code a few times but I always reach the conclusion that I am best at driving the business forward in other areas and I should let someone who is better at coding do that.

    1. 1

      Hey. Thanks for your feedback. Your comments made me laugh around the cost of developers. This is very true. The areas we're trying to solve for makers is to provide a solution which speeds up the development process, requires minor knowledge of coding, and allows users to have the flexibility to customise as much as possible. Hopefully, Budibase is intuitive and simple, but powerful enough to help users like yourself reduce the costs of paying developers. That's a key goal for us.
      Thanks for your response and help. Signup to Budibase and we'll hopefully be able to save you money , time and headaches in the future.

      1. 1

        That is a key metric at our office - LOLs per minute. Bit of humour is necessary to stay sane when doing so many tasks. I've registered my email in the Budibase website. Keen to learn more and test out the platform.

        AVB

  6. 1

    Hi Joe,

    Not sure if I can help but I used to be a non-technical founder (struggling getting any idea tested and off the ground) and then decided it would be worth my effort to just learn how to program, which I still see as one of the better decisions I have ever made (about 3 years ago or so).

    Good luck and if I can help answer some questions, let me know 🤙

    Valentijn

    1. 1

      Learning to code is one of the best skills anyone can learn. What language did you learn?

      Thanks for the response btw. Budibase is a low core platform for building, launching and growing web apps. Would this have interested you when deciding to build your idea?

      1. 1

        I just wanted to be able to build mvp's at the time, started with html+ css + js/jquery. And I just gradually started to build more and more complex things, venturing into some back-end languages when necessary. Anything that would have helped me building those mvp's but allow me to really customize (more than a template or two) in an easy way I would have enjoyed.

        Curious to what you guys will bring forth! All the best,

        Valentijn

        1. 1

          Thanks, and I wish you the best of luck with your product.

  7. 1

    I am also not a technician and I am paying for development and learning along the way

    1. 1

      Thank you for responding. What are you using to build your product? Did you try to build your product yourself? What do you find most difficult about development?

      I really appreciate your feedback.

  8. 1

    This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

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