In our latest episode of El Periscopio, Lúcid's podcast, we talk to Alex Bernardo, founder of NocodeHackersthe largest No Code community in Spanish.
With him, we immersed ourselves in this world without codes, we got to know in depth the No Code movement, all its benefits for digital product design and we reflected on such interesting things as product culture, the power of the tool in the design process, team management and much more!
As usual, we are writing this summary article of the episode where we share with you the highlights of this conversation between Alex and our Head of Digital, Guillermo Lucini.
We start the conversation with an introductory question, asking Alex to define what No Code is. He has a clear answer: "It's not important what No Code is, but who it's for.
According to Alex, "No Code is for all those people who have no idea of programming, but have the ability to execute ideas, giving them shape in an easy way". At the same time, it is also a movement for developers, who are able to work on ideas more quickly in order to put them into practice.
Alex recognizes that No Code is a nascent movement, which is still largely unknown in the world of product design, the evolution of which depends on the community behind it. Alex gives the example of the Webflow community, one of the largest in the movement, and explains that the tool works largely because of the great work of the community, which collects all the knowledge that users generate as they use it.
"The tool changes how we design", Alex quotes this phrase from Máximo Gavete to explain the impact that No Code tools have on the design process. "They are tools designed for and from the product and this facilitates and streamlines the design process".
Alex divides the tools into 3 large groups: web product design, where he highlights Webflow and the websites of large groups such as Mango and Iberia, both designed with this platform; app design, where he highlights Glide, BravoStudio and Flutterflow as favorites; and a third group that he calls operations, where he recommends Bubble, Softare and automation tools, including Zapier and Notion, which he defines as a productivity tool.
In the initial phases, it is essential to have room to iterate and No Code tools are faster and more efficient to achieve the product's objective without wasting too much time and resources.
"In 90% of the initial design phases, No Code should be essential, as the speed of iteration it gives you is brutal," recommends Alex.
This reflection on iteration preceded another great topic of the podcast: product culture, a term often used by our Head Of Digital, who dared to ask Alex about how he understands this concept. Once again Alex is clear: "Product culture is that failure is rewarded".
"Starting from the premise that we don't know anything, testing and always relying on data to make decisions is having a product culture," says Alex.
"You don't have to bet the whole company on every experiment," Alex continued, "but you do have to give independence to other departments like Marketing and Product so that, without development, they can do their experiments. This is a great idea.
When asked about the limitations or disadvantages of No Code, Alex talks about the native limitations of the tools in terms of functionalities. Even so, he explains that each tool offers its own solutions and again mentions the importance of the community to solve problems that may arise, since it is there where all the knowledge generated in case of difficulties is accumulated.
Speaking of the future horizon of No Code, Alex anticipates that it will be a major standard in companies. Specifically, he talks about a bidirectional transition from Marketing to Product and vice versa.
"No Code is a paradigm shift in many ways. Among many other things, it has a direct impact on business models and also on work processes," concludes Alex.
