Tara Reed

I started building without code in probably 2014. I had an idea for an app that was going to help people find an affordable art for their homes. And this was really before a lot of the no-code tools today. So my first experience building code was taking tools that were not intended to be app builders and kind of hacking them to create an app-like experience.

So for the app whenever someone signed up, they told us about what kind of art they liked, for example photography or like paintings. And then we would ask about their taste. But we would use the survey software to show and hide different things based on their previous answer. So that was my first no code experience — taking a survey and hacking it to kind of create an app-like experience for my customers, and using it dynamically show them art recommendations. People would actually email me back and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, your app is so cool!'  We made our first $35,000 with that hacked together survey.

It has to be something that you previously had to do with code, but you no longer have to do or recently don't have to do and because of that it’s surprising or unusual that you don’t have to code. So the benchmark moves, right. So like five years from now, there will be things that we'll be saying like, of course, you no longer have to code for that. And I think we'll kind of have a moving needle of what no code is.

Creo que tal vez Vlad de Webflow es la primera persona a la que escuché decir que no había código. Creo que antes lo llamábamos de diferentes maneras, a lo que me refería es como construir algo sin código. Pero creo que Vlad es probablemente la primera persona a la que he oído en Webflow decir que no hay código, específicamente.

I personally like no space code just for an accessibility and marketing perspective. No dash code feels like a, almost like, the nerdier version. I think the no dash code one only sounds acceptable to people who are already in the tech world.

Just getting started entrepreneurs is who I get to work with a lot. So I just see a lot of those folks, who previously thought that they had to put their idea on the back burner because all they could do was pay $20,000 to have someone build the app for them, or spend like a year or more learning how to code — those are the options. So for them, there's a big incentive to learn this and that's really exciting.

For enterprises, I remember when I worked at Google, I spent so much time building out dashboards on marketing and operation teams, building out dashboards and hacking Excel and different tools to create things and being able to build internal tools like that, I think is a second greatest opportunity. I think it just requires a bit more buy-in at large enterprises.

Los diseñadores de UX tienen la mayor oportunidad, porque son capaces de cerrar esta brecha de: yo lo diseñé, pero ahora tienes que ir a enviar a alguien más para que lo construya o enviar este diseño a otra persona para que lo construya. Son capaces de cerrar ese círculo y casi iniciar negocios de diseño o prácticas de diseño más completos al tener acceso a estas herramientas sin código. Hay tanta similitud entre cómo funciona una herramienta de software sin código y cómo funcionan las herramientas de software de diseño que encuentro que los diseñadores lo aprenden muy rápido.

The speed with which we're able to build out apps for clients, and the price point we're able to do it at are going to change really dramatically. I think that we'll probably see traditional developers move a lot more slowly to adopt it. But I think we'll see new types of development shops, as well.

I think one of the common misconceptions about the no code movement is that we will no longer need code or we will no longer need traditional development. I think that it'll stay in place. But I think that those sorts of shops, those sorts of people, who are doing that freelance work will start to see clients come in to them that are a little bit further along because they've made version one of the product.

For non-dev consultants, I think that they have so much from a resource perspective in terms of hiring developers that I think that we probably will see them maybe later on, jump on to this just from an urgency perspective and a need perspective.

I think it'll mean a lot for underserved populations. For example last year at Apps Without Code, we had our curriculum at Illinois Tech, at Stanford, and at Wharton. And on their campuses, we had high schoolers come in for the summer, and they were able to not only have college experiences but they were also able to learn how to build apps without code, and even augmented reality apps, using our curriculum.

And that program was primarily for Black and Latino young people from high schools. And  it gave them a whole other world of opportunity and leg up.

I would go seven years.

I think in three to four years, I'm already seeing it happening. So three to four, for it to be common.

I'm going to go with two years.

Three years.

I would say like three to four years.

Probably the same time range (as a popular product), three to four years.

I would push that out pretty far. The reason I push it up pretty far is because I think there's still more website agencies that use code than no code and that have been using that technology for a long time. I would give it like a 10.

Yeah, I think that in about two years, we'll start to see a lot more of them using the technology. So the reason I think that is because I have a lot of the students in my program, white label their apps, and I have a few that work in this space, that white label their apps to politicians organization.

So I say a few years and I think it'll show up like they're using it as a way to keep their own costs low and produce products.

Lo que más me entusiasma es ver a los emprendedores que ganan dinero por sí mismos y que realmente les gusta comenzar nuevas carreras para sí mismos o revitalizar sus carreras. Así que puedo pensar en dos, por ejemplo, acabo de trabajar con un emprendedor que está creando una aplicación para agricultores, y tiene toda esta comunidad que está usando su aplicación. Es realmente divertido y no es algo en lo que pensaría como un caso de uso, pero es genial ver que se expande fuera de nuestra burbuja de la industria tecnológica.

Y también hay otra persona que ha pasado por mi programa de bootcamp, que creó una aplicación para ayudar a las plantas de fabricación a ser más eficientes. Así que me emociona mucho ver a la gente que está llevando sus aplicaciones a organizaciones y las está etiquetando en blanco o a personas que están creando ingresos reales para sí mismos.