Advantages and obstacles using Webflow CMS for your website

What is it:

We spotlight those who walk together to condemn racial discrimination and highlight unity across America and beyond.

What did I learn:

1. No-code tool feature: Webflow - The advantage of using a tool like Webflow is that you can create really emersive, engaging and cutting edge experiences than most any other web page builder. Meaning you can do this easier, because of their vast template library and photoshop style build that allows you to create anything. Truly no limits.

Perhaps nothing is better demonstrated by its power and ability than what this Maker Sako can do by recreating actual video game experiences using Webflow. To see how incredible this is, take a look at Sako's Twitter handle to be able to see what is possible. He is known on Twitter for creating truly exception experiences.

I haven't seen another webpage builder be able to do these things.

Sako is an expert at building with Webflow. I would recommend not starting off with Webflow if you have not shipped a no-code project before. But once you have established what you need, investing in Webflow might be a good way to increase the functionality and flexibility of how you want to tell your product's story.

2. No-code tool feature: Native webflow forms - Sako does a great job of making it super simple to engage the user to both get value from the content and contribute to it to help the site library grow. He placed a "Share your walk" button in the middle of the hero which opens up a native Webflow form.

The advantage to this is there won't be a better matching design experience than using a Webflow form. And because it's native it will connect seamlessly to the Webflow CMS that will show the content in the UI.

3. No-code tool feature: Webflow CMS - Personally, I thought Webflow CMS had a higher learning curve than most CMS. Particularly when trying to configure a backend like Airtable or Google Sheets.

Webflow takes a little bit more of a learning curve but there are great examples of folks who built with Webflow. For example Makerpad uses Webflow and the Maker Ben Tossell was very proficient in using Webflow and built out custom projects for years before he launched his project. So his proficiency was greater and at a high level before launching his project.

I would recommend that there are easier to build landing pages and web apps that are very powerful to use. For example using Bubble is one of them. The biggest difference between Bubble and Webflow is all of the workflow logic, plugins and tools to connect to Bubble live inside of Bubble. Where as for Webflow they exist outside of Webflow which makes the learning curve higher to be able to connect and create an experience because you have less of learning community around it. You have less people using that stack results in it being harder to fix when you get stuck.

The hardest lesson I have learned when creating is using a tool and trying to learn it for a few weeks and finding out it is not going to be the best path forward for making your idea. There is nothing harder than losing that momentum and starting over from square one again.

That is the pain that I want to help you try and avoid. That is the purpose of the database so that you can get started on the right build and the fastest road to validation.

Validation>building. What is the easiest way for you to create value for someone. Once you understand that whatever it is, then you can build an experience and product around it because you will know exactly who you are building for. You know where they hang out on the internet, you'll focus on your first distribution path and be successful because you're designing it for someone. And wherever you find one person you can find more. Which is all you need to get momentum to grow your product.