How to build in public and build your no-code app at the same time

What is it:

Disruptive list of resources to learn product design - check out his tweet detailing the making of using Webflow and what he had learned: https://twitter.com/WeirdoWizard/status/1137321786339545089?s=20

What did I learn:

1.Product strategy - do things that don't scale, don't automate. This is going to sound odd, but you don't need to automate everything at first when you are building out your side project. Darshan provides a great example of this with his stack for Product Disrupt.

Upon initially launching Darshan did all the updates to the cms manually through Webflow. This allows you to do a couple of things. Quality control, becasue every entry is manually entered. Why spend the time figuring out how to automate something if at the beginning the value of your product is quality? Skip that step and spend time on something else. Secondly, now that you can ship faster skipping an automation step (seems counterintuitive) but wait to scale something until you absolutely have to. There is value in that. Currently Darshan updates the CMS through Netlify. If he decides he wants to set up a process to scale, he can do that.

Building a side project isn't about automating everytihng. Its about taking the minimal amount of steps that cover the most amount of ground to get you to the START line of launching your product. Product Disrupt proves that.

2. Building in the open:
Darshan is also part of the build in the open movement. You can see his notes as he built it here: https://twitter.com/WeirdoWizard/status/1137321786339545089?s=20.

Inside The Lean Side Project I list dozens of examples to Makers building the open so that you can follow them as they build in the open and I list example threads to learn from. Building the open can mean many things:

1. You can share progress milestones
2. You can share revenue numbers
3. You can share what you are learning as you build
4. You can ask for feedback openly
5. It can be lengthy tweet threads
6. It can be short videos
7. It can be screen shots
8. It can be just an update

Choose whatever you feel comfortable with doing. A default to fall back on is just sharing what you are learning and progress you are making on the thing you are doing.

I absolutely believe there is an art to this and a timing. For example I did not start sharing in the open Get Stackd until I tweeted it out on Twitter and then launched shortly on Side Project Stack. Then once I launched it I tweeted openly as a way of marketing my product by sharing what I was doing and how I was doing it to help others.

3. No-code tool feature: Paperform - Is a form builder that appears to be lower cost and very flexible: Here are some features that it can help you with:

1. Flexibility in look and feel to be more of a landing page instead of a form embeded on a landing page which means it feels more native
2. Handles many forms of payment and other types of paying plans like subscriptions and donations
3. Takes bookings so that you can connect your google calendar
4. Logic rules so that you can present different questions based on a users answers
5. Integrate with many other apps
And Much more...If you are considering a form this may be a good option.