Building Discover NoCode — with NoCode!

Written by Rosson Long
Reviewed by Sterling Long

In this Newsletter

• 🚀 Updates to Discover NoCode that should help you!

• 💭 What’s coming for Discover NoCode.

• 🧐 How we built it and how long it took.

🚀 Updates _{^{— Publishing Tomorrow!}}

We just updated our tools section!
Each tool now has a description along with the following categories.

Builder Types:

• App (Can build the front-end that your users will interact with)

• Backend (Can host your data for you)

• Automation (Can automate actions/functions on your data)

Cost Limiters:

• Hosting

• Seats/Connections

• Records

• File Storage

• Reads (API/In Software)

• Writes (API/In Software)

• Automations

Awards:

• SaaS Certified - When a platform earns this award from DNC it means the pricing and scalability would allow you to easily build a profitable SaaS platform on their platform.

• Editors Choice - This award is given to platforms who are leaders in their space. Many NoCode platforms exist in the same spaces, we want to make sure that you can find the best-of-the-best in that space.

💭 What’s Coming

In the next month we will be building new resources for you to access for free!

Leaders — Release: May~June

We are compiling a list of every leader in the NoCode space who is making waves and helping people discover specific platforms!

These individuals are often entrenched in a specific industry making them more difficult to find, but they also are using and leveraging NoCode tools to build their platforms and are leaders in the space.

Why? — Learning, Content & Courses.

Learning
When I first started exploring NoCode platforms it was often difficult to learn the platform. The newer/more niche they are the more difficult it can be to find leaders and content in that space. This will give you resources for these platforms that are exceptional.

Content
There is some amazing free content out there that these leaders have made available on platforms like Youtube and Vimeo. We hope to help you speed up your search for the perfect tutorials and we’re excited to build this list up over time.

Courses
Many leaders in NoCode have made courses and certifications. A great example of a platform where many of these courses have been made is Bubble. There are security courses, app-building courses, and even custom courses for how to build systems for specific industries.

These courses often cost money, but I have found that they give examples and specific use-cases that help you learn how to use the platform in real world scenarios and are well worth the cost.

Stacks — Release: June~July

Stacks are groups of NoCode platforms with exceptional synergy.

Stacks will help you and your team make better decisions by learning which platforms go well with each other and which you will need to connect manually via platforms like Zapier.

NoCode platforms are working each day to improve compatibility with other platforms, we will do our best to keep things up to date and we appreciate any updates to our team when documentation on a platforms compatibility has fallen behind.

🧐 Building Discover NoCode and how long it took.

Why

During my journey of researching NoCode platforms I found so many tools it actually became more difficult to make a choice. I felt as though I had to learn each one before I could make a confident decision.

After 8 months of researching different platforms it occurred to me that they frequently had different and unique purposes. Depending on your industry and needs, the exact NoCode platform you need may have already been created and you just don’t know it because it’s either new, or niche.

When I attempted to prepare a LinkedIn post nearly 3 weeks ago covering and highlighting all these tools, there was just too much content to cover and thus, the idea for Discover NoCode (DNC) was born.

How

Discover NoCode is a love letter to NoCode platforms all around the world. The underlying goal is to only use NoCode platforms to build this repository of information.

So, I first started by deciding on a Stack with a high number of synergies:

• Softr (website) — 3 hours*

• SmartSuite (data center) — 20 minutes

• Zapier (subscription automation Softr ←→ beehiiv) — 1.5 hours*

• beehiiv (newsletter) — 1.5 hours

• Fillout (scheduler) — 45 minutes*

• Discord (community) — 15 minutes

• MEE6 (discord bot) — 2 hours

*I learned this platform for the first time while I was building DNC’s NoCode stack.

Softr — 3 hours
A simple frontend designed for a high influx of visitors that makes it easy to share lists of data from SmartSuite.

SmartSuite — 20 minutes
I recently met the team at SmartSuite and I chose to go with them because of how attentive, community driven, and kind they are. Tara and John Darbyshire along with the team they have created is one of the most impressive things I have seen. They deliver what the community is asking for fast.

SmartSuite’s data can be edited like a normal Excel sheet. Data is saved and updated as you go along and CMD/CTRL + Z functions as expected along with a recycle bin to catch yourself if you make pesky mistakes editing or updating your data.

Share your views publicly like we have on Discover NoCode or integrate your data directly into Softr and make it searchable on the site in just a few clicks!

Zapier — 1.5 hours
Their platform had the best support between Softr & Beehiiv (we initially tried to make this with Make!) Softr made it extremely straightforward to ping Zapier’s webhook and Zapier programed itself with the data being sent.

Then you map the variables consumed from Softr into the beehiiv connection!

beehiiv — 1.5 hours
We selected beehiiv because of our prior experience with the platform! Sometimes familiarity trumps convenience and with Zapier you have the freedom to make those kinds of decisions!

Softr is natively compatible with: Mailchimp and Mailerlite

beehiiv’s editor is straightforward and intuitive with it’s block system. They are the backbone of one of the most powerful newsletters in the world: The Morning Brew and after using it for a couple months, I understand the attraction!

Another popular platform that we like and may adopt in the future is ConvertKit.com. Their tools for interacting with your subscribers and website visitors to gather information about what people want to see and read about are really neat and intuitive!

Fillout — 45 minutes
Scheduling forms is the newest feature of their platform! Fillout’s scheduler is exceptionally simple to set up and is embeddable like the rest of their forms are!

Their free tier is extremely generous as well giving you 1000 submissions before you need to upgrade. — I’ll let you know if I somehow burn through all of these.

Discord — 15 minutes
I run a few Discord communities and it’s also LZTEK’s internal operations primary communication method. Setting up the Discord community was a simple copy-paste of the other communities I manage.

MEE6 — 2 hours
This bot connects to Discord and allows you to add all sorts of things to the community like levels, support tickets within the community, private voice channels, moderation, and more! Their platform is extremely comprehensive and I always set up a custom bot when I endeavor to create new Discord communities.

Wrapping Up.

Creating ecosystems on NoCode SaaS platforms is now so easy that you can create the bedrock of your entire operations in a single afternoon. Even when you may not fully know or understand the tool!

As you approach your own business idea and back-office operations there is likely a NoCode platform or a combination of them that will match your needs and save you time as you run your business.

We’re excited to keep building apps and systems in public and we’ll keep you up-to-date on our new additions to Discover NoCode as we go!