Newsletter for Software Engineers. Teaching how to solve career and life problems with first principles thinking. One email. Once a week.
3 No-Code Tools I Actually Use 🔧
Keep It Simple — Issue #52
3 No-Code Tools That Don't Suck
When I started programming in I remember my teacher said:
"Coding will be mostly drag and drop in 10 years"
I think his claim was fair, but it didn't go as deep as any of us thought it would. The"drag and drop" code platforms are useful for a handful of things, but the full no-code movement never really caught on.
For the most part – people still code.
However, I have come across some tools that change the way I approach solving problems. No matter how good you are at coding, these tools eliminate the simple tasks that take up too much time.
These are my favorite "work smarter not harder" tools and what I use them for.
None of these are sponsored. They are just tools I like.
Carrd
Build a landing page in 5 minutes.
Have an idea for your next app? Well if you know anything about building its better to validate your idea before you sink hours in to building out the entire application.
1) Build a "coming soon" website
2) Run some Facebook ads against it
3) See how many emails you collect for an intro offer
This is how most of the "indie hacking" community validates their software ideas without spending energy building a product that will flop.
If you need a simple website to display some information, advertise a product, or collect some emails. Carrd is my go to.
It's $19/year and you can create multiple websites super easily. It's what my main website for this newsletter (https://www.liamodonnell.me) was built on. Plus, $19/year is basically a steal.
You just create a website, add some text, add some images, and connect it to whatever email sending service you want using their guided steps. Other LinkedIn creators like Justin Welsh also use Carrd. There's no reason to try to code a landing page website like this yourself.
Just use Carrd and get your website up in minutes.
Zapier
Connect any applications together.
Want to make it so that when you upload a YouTube video it gets posted to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram?
Or sends out an email?
Or turns off your lights?
Or texts it to your mom?
Zapier can do any of that.
Any time you need to glue one application to another Zapier probably has you covered. They support a ton of applications and make it a breeze. I used it in the past to completely automate a software agency onboarding to get new customers and area where they could start submitting requests.
It's free to connect two applications to together, but bit pricey at $39/month if you want to connect more than two events. If you use it right and have enough things to automate it can a steal for the price.
Plus it's fun. You can create ridiculous sequences of things and connect almost anything together that is connected to internet.
Before you build an entire software service to glue to applications together it is worth considering if it could be done in Zapier.
Webflow
Stop fiddling with HTML/CSS to make a good-looking website
Webflow is my go-to any time I need to:
1) Make a pretty landing page
2) Make a complex web animation
3) Build a website for a real-world client
The live-feedback of dragging sliders, changing colors, and modifying CSS is 10x faster than changing and saving code. Even if your React project has hot reload.
The learning curve is pretty easy for anybody familiar with web design. It's basically all the features of CSS in an easy-to-understand UI. If you get the paid plan you can export your code too which makes it easy to get it from Webflow to wherever you need it.
Since I learned how to use it I rarely design front-end CSS/HTML with code. It is just a better format for modifying a website.
Plus if you do freelance web design they have an entire dashboard that lets set priyouces, charge customers, and give them a CMS (Content Management System) to manage the data on their website and change out simple things like images or text.
The pricing varies a lot but is generally around $30/month.
You can view their pricing plans here: https://webflow.com/pricing
Again, this newsletter is not sponsored by any of these companies. I just think these are 3 tools *every* software developer should know about.
The next time your friend's mom asks you to make a website for her cookie business. There's really no reason to write any code when tools like these exist.
Save the code for real innovative work. There's no need to make it harder than it has to be.
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Side note: This was supposed to go out on Saturday but I forgot to schedule it. Sorry if anybody was waiting, but better late then never. Until next Saturday ✌️
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Thank you for reading this week's newsletter.
I appreciate all of you who read to the end.
How I can help you:
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Until next week 👋
First Principles
Newsletter for Software Engineers. Teaching how to solve career and life problems with first principles thinking. One email. Once a week.
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