Hey guys ๐๐ฝThis is Sharath a no-code maker, design nerd, product enthusiast, mindfulness perceiver. So far I shipped 4 projects using no-code tools. Today I wanted to talk about a particular project which is special to me.
The Angel Philosopher is a compilation of Naval Ravikant's wisdom, knowledge and thoughts. Naval is regarded globally as one of the greatest thinkers and entrepreneurs of this generation. He often shares his insightful views on Mindfulness, Startups, Crypto/Blockchain and more on Twitter. With quite possibly the largest collection of original content created by or featuring Naval Ravikant, the platform serves on an average of 20,000 user visits a month.
It was built using Table2Site, Airtable, Notion, Twitter, Typeform and the whole internet ๐
"The site right now is acting like a home for all Naval's content. It is on his twitter bio. The site is up-to-date and attracts an average of 20,000 users visit a month."
I'm a big follower of Naval Ravikant on twitter. He made a profound impact on me in many levels ever since I started my journey in tech a few years ago. I have been following him on Twitter for almost 2yrs. Every time I came across his content, be it interviews, podcasts, blogs etc., it always made me more curious and taught me something new. So I used to bookmark and save the links in notes for future reference. But because of the sheer volume and the multi-dimensional nature of his content, it kept getting harder to lee up with the latest and also in an easy accessible way. I spoke to other makers who follow him on Twitter and they wished if there was an archive of sorts. I looked around and didnโt find one single destination for all of his content so I started building one myself.
Since this is my second no-code project, I naturally leaned towards the no-code tools I used before. Table2site is one among them, it is an elegant, simple tool which uses Airtable as database for content storage. It contains beautiful templates for multiple use-cases. Once I got to know that thereโs a potential for a site, I immediately started gathering the content I have and it took me more than 2months to gather all the content from the internet. I used the leverage of twitter by asking Naval's followers to send things like blogs/podcasts/interviews they came across. I learned a ton communicating with people across the world. When I announced that I'm working on this project, it gained massive attention and the community started helping me. With help of typeform I have collected new content from many people. Using Notion I stored all Naval's quotes. Building all this is one of the best experiences I had. After a solid 60days I felt I have all the content and started connecting the dots. I designed the site, wrote copy and started filled the database with all the content I have.
In the process of making the site I emailed Naval himself seeking for feedback. After multiple design iterations, few inputs from him and adding some quality content I went to launch The Angel Philosopher. Working with Naval is an amazing experience. Thanks to him and many people who made this site possible.
The site right now is acting like a home for all Naval's content. It is on his twitter bio. The site is up-to-date and attracts an average of 20,000 users visit a month.
What are your thoughts on the no-code market?
I strongly believe no-code is going to be the future. Be it building side projects, making MVPs to test ideas or just making something fun. There used to be an elite group who do this type of stuff. With no-code everyone gets a chance to build something from scratch, all you need is a problem and a solution. No-code enables and empowers people to make things, no qualifications required. Companies like Webflow, Zapier, Glide are pushing boundaries of no-code. People like Ben Tossell and Vlad Magdalin are making bigger bets on this market. Many of my friends made products with no-code tools. It's only a matter of time to see no-code going mainstream.
What are the limitations in your experience of no-code?
As great as the market is, we are still in the early stage. There are definitely some limitations which stops us as makers to go beyond. The flexibility to build account management, functionality like chrome extensions, seamless API integrations are still in progress. Right now most of the no-code projects I see are curation-based, meaning we gather some information which provides value to the community and give a home for it. We still need to breakthrough the functional aspects of making products. It will only happen when no-code goes mainstream. Glad people like Ryan Hoover, Brianne Kimmel and many VCs are showing interest in this market. Again, it takes time to get there and I have a strong hope that we are not so far.
What would you want to do differently?
Recently Webflow made an incredible move of announcing a no-code conference. Personally I appreciate Vlad for initiating and showing his vision on no-code possibilities. I would want makers who experienced no-code capabilities come out and spread the power and educate the opportunities. We need more podcasts, successful stories and interviews. Twitter plays a huge role in this. I also think Product Hunt and Indie Hackers meetups should consider no-code as a topic to discuss.
"There used to be an elite group who do this type of stuff. With no-code everyone gets a chance to build something from scratch, all you need is a problem and a solution"
Thanks a lot to Ben for bringing these stories to light. And thanks to everyone who read this post. I'm always on Twitter and you can find me here and all the projects I worked on are here. Hit me up if you have any questions and I'm always happy to help. Cheers ๐๐ฝ