We are fortunate to have a vibrant community of hundreds of members from all different places across the globe. We come together to talk about tools, tech, no-code and new ways to make creating & building even more productive than before. 

At Makerpad we love sharing our member’s journey through learning no-code, using new skills in their workplaces, building projects and even launching businesses. 

Each week we’ll be highlighting a member from our community and sharing their story, background and previous projects through our Member Spotlight blog post series.

This week we are chatting to Curtis Cummings from Ontario, Canada. 

Curtis is a Senior Software Engineer at On Deck. 

Hey Curtis, great to have you be part of the Member's Spotlight. Can you give us some background on how you got into no-code? How long have you been using no-code tools and what got you first interested?

I found the no-code community in March of this 2020 after coming across some of Bram Kanstein's work. I dove in and have been loving it since.

I've been a Software Engineer for over 15 years. I just joined On Deck at the end of last year. My role is as a Senior Software Engineer but it’s a mix of engineering and no-code operations.

On the engineering side, I'm working with Andreas Klinger to build the internal tooling and products that help run On Deck's cohorts. On the operations side, I'm working with Brandon Taleisnik to build high leverage no-code solutions, streamline ops, and increase the team's no-code proficiency.

I became aware of the role after KP oinedOn Deck and sent out a tweet about the no-code operations role. It was exactly what I was looking for, no-code with a mix of code. I applied but didn't hear back. So I knew I had to get the attention of Brandon. So I created a Twitter bot using Integromat and a bit of code to quote tweet Brandon and convert his tweets to emoji.

It worked! He messaged me and we talked. I started with On Deck in November 2020 all because of that project. I’m super grateful to have joined On Deck. I've had the privilege of watching the team operate behind the scenes and can't wait for what is ahead in 2021.

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That’s a great way to get noticed using the skills that you need for the role! So can you take us through some of no-code projects have you built in the past and what tools did you use for them?

I’ve built a few no-code projects! 

Share a Coffee is a daily newsletter that highlights creators and buys them a coffee. The creator gets to nominate the next person featured. It has had over 35 issues so far and around 100 subscribers. It was built using Carrd, MailerLite, Airtable and Integromat

Notecard Tweets is a silly tool that turns your tweets into a notecard. Inspired by Whit from Bad Unicorn VC who decided to write his tweets on notecards for a week. 

So far there have been close to 200 notecards created. It was built using Carrd, Airtable, Bannerbear and Integromat. It was a bit of a speed build and an exercise in building in public. I had a short gap of time to build it and get something live! I’ll be adding an option to send a real postcard version of the tweet very soon. 

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Happy or Not is a fun app that detects if your cat is happy or not by using their photo. It’s incredible but 5000 images were uploaded in just 2 months and it has a few hundred active users. This was built with Adalo, Google Sheets, Integromat. It is a progressive web app that I built for a client and they wanted it in under 2 weeks. The app would allow you to share your results on social media. I evaluated the various tools and picked Adalo. I was able to learn Adalo and deliver the PWA within a week.

I also have lots of other projects that I’ve worked on in the past that you can find over on my website curtiscummings.me

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It’s so good to see both fun and interesting no-code projects being built and being successful!  So let's bring things up to the current day, what are you currently working on and what stage is it at?

I’m continuing to feature creators every day with Share a Coffee. I’m also working on an enhancement to Notecard Tweets that will let you pay to send a real postcard version of your tweet to someone. I have a cool idea for how to get the recipient's address without exposing it to the sender. 

I’m also working on Shoutout which will allow you to add a pinterest-style wall of positive tweets to any website. Shoutout helps you to save, highlight, and showcase all your social proof in one place. This is what everyone does today using Twitter embeds but way more streamlined and performant. Of course I’ll also be working at On Deck to bridge no-code and code, increase the team's efficiency with no-code tools, and build high leverage prototypes.

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Lots of projects in progress there as well as your full time role! I’m sure you’ll get so many more project ideas working at On Deck too! Thinking more of the future, what are you looking forward to seeing happen in the no-code space in the years to come?

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I love watching the community grow and seeing the explosion of new tools. I really want to see version control, dev environments and testing tools to be added to more to no-code. These are things coders have leveraged for years that are sorely missing in most tools.

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As no-code matures it’s certain that it will develop more structure around build environments like traditional development has. Do you have a favourite no-code tool? And what's the next no-code tool you're thinking of trying out?

It’s difficult to choose a favorite no-code tool. I regularly use Carrd, Airtable and Integromat for a lot of my projects. I think it’s a tie between Integromat and Carrd being my favorite. The next tool up to be tested is Retool.

Thanks so much for sharing your story with us Curtis. We look forward to hearing more about your journey soon! 

Keep an eye open for our next Member Spotlight blog post coming soon!