To test a startup idea, what's your best tech approach?

Edgar
32 replies
What do you guys think? Honestly, if I can achieve the things I want with no code tool, I will go for it! But it is not always the case.

Replies

Colin Johnson
We're going out with a demo well ahead of launch that we plan to use as a baseline for customer responses, then adjust as frequently and aggressively as needed
Adithyan Selvaraj
To test out your product will work or not, is the ultimate goal now. For that purpose, you need a simple MVP to share to your customers and get feedback. You don't need fancy websites or big tech tools at this time. Once you feel that your product is liked by others, then you can try out the most suitable tech tools.
Sebastian Gajek
@adithyan @edgar_neau Good point. But one of the challenges is also to find the market niche. So don't be frustrated if you don't receive much feedback in the beginning. Rather be motivated to solve the quest of finding early adopters for you product.
Edgar
@sebastian_gajek Indeed, it's hard to find the market niche for sure, but i do also like to have a nice product to show, even its just a mvp
Toby Benedyk
@adithyan I agree with this. Though often you don't even need an MVP. You can go some way to validating your idea by simply using a coming soon splash page with an email capture or just running an ad on facebook. If you're struggling to get any interest in your ad then maybe it's not worth spending time developing your MVP.
Adithyan Selvaraj
@tbenedyk I'm not talking about a product, it's just an MVP, an MVP should be a website or forms here. To speak in general, if you want to show that you're working on something, you need an MVP to showcase to your audiences and it'll create trust among them.
Satish Kumar Veluri
I think the mix would make more sense. We can always weigh on a particular side based on the requirements or make use of the best from the both sides.
Edgar
@satish_kumar_veluri True, i also believe a mix can be very powerful to remove some painpoint we can have using no code.
Jorge Moreno
I think that it depends on the solution you are developing. But if you can do it with a no-code solution, go for it. For example, I have seen a few new SaaS that are simplifying the development of Chrome extensions. I would try that if I could reach point A to point B in no time.
Edgar
@ccichat Good point, but it is also hard to know out of the box if you can do it with no code or if it will be easier with code without spending a good amount of time finding some solutions.
Lyubomyr (Lou) Reverchuk
Indeed, popularity of NOCODE solutions is growing every year. I liked Zapier, for example. However, at Echo we still like coding more. In particular, we've built recently (in 2 weeks) an internal tool which can evolve to a startup using only PHP (Symfony). So, I voted for #2.
Shawn Park
I think what's important is how fast you can create your MVP and speedily make adjustments to fully test your idea. So, no-code, hand-coding, or a mix of both may work depending on the depth of knowledge you have for either method. ๐Ÿ˜
MaheshVarma Kanumuri
I will prefer a mix of both. As most of the pain points will be addressed if we use mix of both.
Shaur ul Asar
I believe a mix of the code and no code tools would be more effective. We can weigh one side based on the requirements, or make use of the best aspects from both.
Nancy Talton
prefer a mix of both
Swapratim Roy
The more low code your product has, the better. But remember, the advanced users will still try to use the code part for better customizing. So yeah, build for both kind of users - easy will drag more customers, complex part will keep them for a long run.
Josh Edmond (xOracle, xGartner)
I've become a huge fan of no-code after several failed attempts and building a technical team. I think no-code can be very efficient at building an MVP, and it's the only way I'm doing it from now on. Best of luck.
Simona Stamatovska
Testing a startup idea is basically doing things that do not scale. 1. Build a landing page with a waitlist to capture emails and referral marketing (NoCode) 2. Create a social media profiles where your target is, start communicating your value, provide weekly updates to your audience 3. Get out and start talking to people 4. Build a prototype of your idea (NoCode; Figma) and start receiving feedback Doing all these steps takes time, but you will eventually know if your idea is worth investing more resources, time and money to scale. Imo start with nocode and when you're 99% ready (hint: you'll never be) then launch, learn, adapt and repeat!
Chetan Natesh
Make it clumsy , ugly with just the most important features working PERFECTLY, if people still use it , you're on to something ๐Ÿ™Œ
Philippe Touret
Mix of both can help the most
Dani Fernandez
I think the best approach would be whatever allows you to move the fastest. If you are used to no-code tools and they allow you to publish something that could help you test your idea, then go for it! Personally, I am a coder, so I am closer to react/next than wordpress, etc. There is no silver bullet and mixing tools to test ideas shouldn't be an issue either.
Khasan
Depends. Sometimes you need to implement a payments or develop an app to know a real interest from customers.
phprunner
Definitely start with no-code or low-code approach to build an MVP. More than that, just to validate an idea, you can build a simple landing page explaining what your future product will do and let people subscribe for a waitlist.
Andrew Dodds
I think to start its generally best to prove out your concept as quickly and cost effectively as possible. No code tools are great for this specific purpose. As product market fit is found, and initial success is repeatable, then the transition to pure code is necessary.