Hey, welcome to this episode of Compressed FM.We're happy to have you here with us today.I am Becca.I'm the DevEx lead at Open Sauced here.And today we have my co-host James with us and our very amazing guest Ray Dex.
I'm going to hand it over to James for a quick intro and then it'll go to Ray.
This is the most different intro we've had, but I like it and we'll keep it.What's up, everyone?My name is James T. Quick, and I am a developer, speaker, and teacher.Our guest today is Ray Deck, founder of StateChange.ai.
Web development and design, who would have guessed?Well, we can do them both, even add a little zest.So turn up the volume, get ready for the best.Let's get it started in this episode of Compressed.
Ray, welcome to the podcast.Do you want to introduce yourself and tell people a little bit about your background?
Yeah, sure.Thank you so much for having me on.My name is Ray Deck.I've been building software companies and teams for about 25 years now.
I was originally trained as a data scientist, so I always came into this coding thing from a slightly weird angle.
Most recently, I've been building StateChange AI, which is a membership and accelerator program for people working on the hardest 5% of no-code, low-code, and AI projects.
I love that, Ray, that idea of no code, low code, right?Because I think it gives access to so many more people in the industry, people that don't necessarily have technical ability.
So I'd love to know a little bit more about what the breakdown looks like for you.
who are people in the industry that are joining the things that you're doing that have a deep understanding of technical capabilities, and the other people who are not technical founders that might be finding they're able to push so much further in the things that they're doing with non-technical capabilities through no code and low code.
Yeah, I think that's such a key point that it's about expanding access.And it has a lot just to do with, I think, changing demographics.
Like if we were having this conversation 20 years ago, right, it would have been unusual for someone to be, you know, relatively senior in their careers and know how to use a desktop technologies or what have you, and certainly be able to build with them.
But anybody now who might be a little more senior in their career, they've been living with an iPhone, which has been a product for the last 16 years, right?And they've been hearing there's an app for that.
And then eventually, they've been living with computers, and they start to think, wait, I can control this computer.And I can use tools to make what I want to have happen.
And not only is that there can be an app for that, there should be for an app to that, and then I can make an app for that.And that entitlement around technology is why I think of no code, low code being more about
attitude and the way that we're treating technology more than the state of the individual tools themselves.
Because visual development per se has been around for quite a while, but this idea that more people can do it, it doesn't just have to be this specialized thing that only very weird people who live in the basement do.
That idea that can be anyone is the new idea that I find really exciting.
I've always said the coolest thing about being a developer is being able to build.
And I talked a lot about this, especially early on in my career, because I kind of went through this transition of looking at something like you mentioned, like we're used to having an app for that.But what if there's not one and most people
are consumers of technology, of applications, etc.And they're not builders.So they consume apps, but they never think about like, well, I could build that or how would I change that?Or what would I do differently?
And with the skill set of being a developer, you have the ability to actually answer those questions and turn yourself from a creator to a builder.
But as we're talking about, it's even less specific, the requirement of being a developer per se, and now more just generically a builder.
So one of the common questions I think that or concerns that people have is maybe limitations of low-code, no-code tools, like really purist developers.
What's kind of your take on where we are as a whole with low-code, no-code tools and how we're able to build maybe some pretty powerful experiences?
Yeah, I will sometimes hear it's not real code, you can't make a real app that way.And I'm not really sure what a real app is.But you know, some people are concerned about scale, some people are concerned about like very high level of control.
And yet I know designers who build absolutely world class stuff using Webflow, because using the tool lets you get leverage, right on whatever your special skill is.And that's kind of true for all tools, right?
And those are the ones where I would focus attention, right?If you know how to do design, why would you get a machine that does more of the design for you? but you want something that's going to magnify your special talent.
And I think that a lot of this is about the fact there are so many tools out there that picking the ones that are going to complement you where you're really great is where we need to really focus more of our attention.
And it's not like you either build in code or you build in no code.
It's like which part of the job you're using what level and what kind of tooling to do to get the longest possible lever on your strength, so you can get more productivity out of your expertise and out of your time.
You know, we sometimes talk about like the shopper's mindset over at state change, because it's about picking the right tool that's right for you, right for you doing this particular job.
And at this particular time in your journey, because all of this is also having a feedback loop of making you smarter and more knowledgeable, both in terms of the business side, as well as the technical side.
And I think sort of getting on that wheel is the key to all of us becoming more structured and being able to create really great stuff.
I feel like there's this mentality that's preventing progress in the low-code, no-code space of what it means to be technical, right?
I'm a boot camp grad myself, and maybe some of this is biased information, but, like, you have to build the thing, right?When I built my first blog, I did it in Jekyll.I designed it myself.It was very terrible.
I was not equipped to do all of the things, and now I still have it in Jekyll, but at least I use a template, right?Like there's a designer there.
And I feel like low-code, no-code kind of like goes along that pathway of maturity almost, of like recognizing that there are tools out there that you don't have to create yourself because it's much more efficient to do it in that way.
The mindset shift that I'm trying to think of is sometimes you can roll it out yourself, and it's totally fine to roll it out yourself, right?
But if you look at the tools out there, it's gonna be much more efficient and effective if you utilize low-coder, no-code tools. And so, you know, I'm like wondering what your thoughts are on that, Ray.And also, like, how do you make that decision?
Is it worth rolling it out myself?Does it make sense to make the decision to low code, no code?And how does that affect my reputation?Because especially for new folks coming in, I think that they tend to see it as a cop out or an easy solution.
But where I tend to see it as that's a mature decision.
Yeah, I think low-code, no-code is just tooling.I mean, there's the marketing stuff and like, Hey, we're going to go raise more money.We're going to call it no-code, low-code, but it's just developer tools that are well-marketed.
And when I say well-marketed, it's because we're being marketed to people who aren't traditionally developers, right?Who usually have an appetite to pay for these things.Whereas I find developers have a very hard time paying for things.
And so like, if you are looking to sell developer tools, actually one of the best places to sell them is to non-developers. But when it's looked at just through the lens of being tools, like it doesn't need to be a cop out.
Why would you not use the best tool available to accomplish the job that you want to accomplish?And then also changes the question, like what is the key skill for the job?
And I find this really exciting because it makes the key skill being the understanding of how it's going to connect to business value. Right?
Like there are lots of details that 10 years ago, you would have needed to understand in order to bring an application to bear.And now the number of those that have been sort of pulled away has gone up and up and up, right?
Like 10 years ago, we might have been toiling, just making things in Objective C. And now there are things like SwiftUI, there's React Native, there's Flutter Flow.
And then there's a layer on top of that, there's gonna be like DraftBit and Flutter Flow, which are two services that sit on top of React Native and Flutter, respectively, offering more of a no code environment.
And it's just about increasing that scale and making it so that you don't have to be a dedicated mobile developer with all the expertise in mobile in order to make a table stakes mobile app.
Now that person who has that deep expertise can make a really exceptional mobile app or get a lot of leverage on that.And other people who are more connected with how is this app going to affect my business, they're able to make more of those things.
And so it just sort of, I think changes where the center of gravity is of where the job really creates value. And that, of course, is the tricky part, too, because it changes what the job is.
But it also unlocks a whole lot of value for the people who start being more intersectional about the job that they're taking on, because they're at the middle.They're between the business value and the tool.
The more you can unlock that connection between the two of those things, the more exceptional value you can create and deliver for your employer.
Yeah, it's kind of cool to think about the two different potential audiences.You've got the, I say non-technical, and I feel like non-technical has a little bit of a negative connotation.That's not at all what it's meant to be here.
But you have a non-technical audience who's enabled by no-code, low-code tools to build something that they wouldn't have been able to do previously.
And then you also have the people with technical programming background who could maybe build that thing, but now you're enabling them to build faster, stronger, whatever adjectives you want to use.
So I'm wondering, do you have any examples of conversations, maybe not specifics, but if you're trying to pitch a developer on like, hey, this may may or may not be the product that absolutely is going to change the game for you.
But here are some things you should consider.How would you approach that conversation with a developer that's maybe interested, maybe skeptical, maybe just trying to really understand what they could get out of some tools like this?
Yeah, sure.I think that you put yourself in the non-technical person's shoes.
And it's funny you should say that like some technical people might describe non-technical founders as a little bit pejoratively, because non-technical founders describe technical people pejoratively, because they don't trust them, right?
They have this sort of arcane knowledge.I don't understand what's going on over there.And the opportunity with the tools is to bring the two together.I sometimes talk about no code allows you to have speed and ownability.
So if you're a putatively non-technical founder, you can be working with a consultant, you can go build it yourself, whatever.
There are a few different ways, but you have more of a connection to that technology, and that allows you to just gain more control and have more trust over what's being built here.
So instead of going and hiring a third party developer who's going to go make whatever they're going to make and then ship it, you know, ship it over the transom to you, and then you're kind of stuck with it, right?
And then if you want to make any changes, you need to go hire that developer again, you're able to make more of those tweaks themselves, that really extends a lifetime, the value of it.
And so when I talk to developers, I'm kind of talking about the same thing, because people are technical in their domain. Right.
So I can talk to a data scientist and data scientists might be saying, well, I need to have the front end, a user interface.How do I do that?
And they are excited about the idea of using something that's a little bit more low Cody for the front end, because they don't want to go take on that concern.They want to be maximum data scientists.They want to build the best AI model possible.
And they want to get leverage on that. Or talk to someone on the front end who's like a great designer, but they want to make an app and that app is going to have a networking or communication abilities or a shop or something.
And then being able to use the tooling to connect that to the front end.So instead of them rolling that on the backend, they are making use of service and bringing it closer to where they have special expertise, which is closer to the design.
just being able to unlock where that value is.So I tend to find that people who, particularly technical people, find they're using more of these low code tools to fill in the table stake stuff, right?
So that instead of being reliant on like, I've spent a whole lot of my time doing this, or spend on labor hiring people to do this, I can use tools.And that allows me to go a lot faster while still staying focused on the part that I do really well.
And that's basically the same story for someone who is putatively non-technical, right, because they're thinking about the business value.
Someone who is like a data scientist type, more like me, someone who is more of a designer type, just allowing you to fill in the rest without having to learn how to do it all, you know, artisanally.
There's a cool example from a friend of mine from college.
We went to school together for a year before she ended up transferring, and she worked for BuzzFeed for a while and was like really successful and growing videos for BuzzFeed and left and was doing her own thing.
And I saw that she started this product, this company called PopCut. And it's a place for people to go and find video editors.
So she had worked with so many video editors, had done so much video that she was kind of building this group where you could go and have a platform to search for and find and work with video editors.And I was like, oh, it's so cool.
Like, how did you build the site?And she said, well, I worked with a developer to do it.And I was like, oh, so cool.And my technical, I was like, oh, well, what's the tech stack?Like, what's it built with?
And I actually don't remember what the technology is, but it's a low code, no code tool. And it's like, you look at it and not that there realistically should be a giveaway that it wasn't written by hand and code, but you wouldn't know.
It's got fully functioning authentication, fully functioning payments, fully functioning search, like fully functioning all these things.And it's built with the tool that for that developer, for that project made the most sense.
Yeah.I mean, in a way, I mean, you can look at things like Astro or Eleventy or, you know, Next or, you know, these various frameworks that we use and all of those are just putting a higher level of abstraction right on the underlying tool set.
And you can sort of think of these things as being stacked on top of each other.Like there's this thing called, I think I alluded to before, Flutter Flow.This is on top of Flutter.
This is on top of Swift, which is then running on the iron of your phone. We just keep on adding more layers that makes it easier for us to work with these things.
And when we add those layers, we expand the universe of people who can directly interact with it.And that's, you know, something I find really exciting that sort of removes the gate and more people can express themselves.
So can we talk for a minute?I think that there are some times when low code makes sense to use and there are some times where it makes sense to roll out your own solution.
Do you have advice for folks who are like kind of in that process of trying to identify what makes most sense for them and the things that you should look at as you move forward in that process?
Yeah, if you have special expertise in an area, the greatest thing about using the tools is taking the rest of it off your plate, right?
So if you are a brilliant data visualizer, I would not say you should use no code, low code tools to do your charting because you should be dialing into that, which makes you particularly great.
And then let the rest of it be what you're going to sit on top of a tool stack.
So I would sort of ask where is your special brilliance and then be able to really dial in on that part or where you have a very strong opinion about how it's going to work that's different from everything else.
But one thing I'm often saying is the somewhat unfortunate expression, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. the part that's really special, you use code for the part that's most important for you.
And then you can sort of bring in the other tools to sort of be the rest of the application.And I think that's why in enterprise circles, it's not no code isn't the leader, low code, no code is usually the way it's described.
LC NC is like the whole term enterprise, because you're mixing those two things.
and is picking your battles, which parts should be code and which parts do you want to tool away because it's not as important that you have that very fine grain control over the entire way that thing is going to be shaped.
But that's usually the trade-off.The more you use the tools, the bit of less control you get, because usually there's a trade-off between ease of use and control or opinionation.
And like where you have a very high level opinion, yes, go as low level as is meaningful for you.But where you have less opinion, man, let's do it the cheap way.
There's so many good points about that.I've talked about A.I.and people.So a separate conversation about people like fearing A.I.It's going to take our jobs, blah, blah.And the reality is like A.I.is a big one, but it's just another thing.
Like we've gone through technological advances for the entirety of humanity and we've adapted like jobs have changed.Yes.But also jobs from a technical perspective has changed in the last 10 years, five years, year.
And you talk about things being abstractions like I go back to
deploying an application now with Netlify or sell Cloudflare and compare that to what I would have had to have done 10 years ago, where I'm actually deploying a server, managing a server or 15, 20 years, and I'm actually having a physical server that I'm having to set up and maintain.
And those are just abstractions that have taken more and more away of that.And I do love kind of circling back to an original point of it enables more people to build more.And I think that overall is a really good thing.
It's really a joy for me as someone who does a lot of coaching and mentoring to see people unlock.They have this idea in their head for a service or a tool or a product that they want to bring to the world.And many of them think they can't do it.
I actually gave a talk to the Founders Institute a few months ago.And one of my slides was two non-technical founders talking about NoCoLoCo tools. And my third to last slide was, you're all technical founders now, right?
Because you all have the capability to build.Maybe you don't have the capability to build every single thing that you want, but that's why you're composing, getting help, using good tools, and putting your own time and brains to work.
I think that's super important, right?You have the technical capabilities to do the things that you want, but maybe not everything.I think anybody that is technical doesn't have the capabilities to do all the things they want, right?
Especially if you're a front-end developer, you might not have the ability to do back-end.And right now I've got a blog post that's about back-end as a service.So I've been like looking into that.
And then I have a blog post that's about open source scientific research. so all of the ideas of the posts that I've been putting out, I have 29 days of open source alternatives.So I've been doing a lot of different research on different things.
But the idea is each of these provides a pathway for people to improve the things that they're doing without necessarily having the technical skills to do those things.So somebody that might be
super proficient and front-end might use back-end as a service to make sure that they have that application out there and that they can thrive in that space.
And so I really love this idea of it doesn't mean that you're non-technical if you use no code or low code.It means that you recognize that you can ship faster or that
There's a technology out there that can enable you to do the things that you want to do in a different way that you don't have the technical capabilities for.
And I think that's one of the things that we need to dispel when we talk about low code, no code is that doesn't mean that you're non-technical.It doesn't mean that you don't understand technical capabilities or what your users needs.
What it means is that you're able to totally understand what your team can accomplish, and that you can make good decisions about what should happen with your technology based on that.
I think that's a really, really, really smart point.You know, somebody in the comments was just saying, was just observing that OutSystems, which is one of the three big enterprise loco noco players, was founded in 2001, 23 years ago, right?
And a lot of these things are just about the tools.The tools aren't really all that new.A lot of these have been sort of gestating in these more enterprise environments.
I think a lot of it just has to do with the idea, Becca, that it's okay to do these things, right?And if you are a dev, you're allowed to use tools to get leverage on that.
And second, if you're a not dev, you are allowed to go into this previously, you know, arcane layer of the wizards, right?Where code gets created because these tools are for you as well.
And the more we have that, I think the more we got the meeting in the middle, that's really exciting in terms of where value gets created.
It's also why OutSystems and Mendix and Microsoft, those are the big three on the enterprise side, have been doing really well because they put the tools in place and then like the demographics change, right?
Because now you have more people who are more familiar with technology.They come in and they start their careers and they think, this is the way I should do things.Oh, of course, there's a tool that allows me to create more of an app.
I will start using that.And that just allows you to create more and more and more value.
And now we're seeing a lot of that in like the small to medium business market now too, with tools like Xano or Flutter Flow or WeWeb or Webflow, and many, many others.
I've already seen some that are open source as well, that all just get pretty exciting, that allow more people to express and create, you know, useful technical products.
There's a call out on chat about a very similar idea to CEOs, like a CEO can't do everything and they're not an expert in everything.And I think about like with what I do doing content and a few other things full time as a content creator.
I don't have a background in filming video.I don't have a background in editing.I don't have a background in design.I don't have a background in marketing.I don't have a background in all these things.And I can do some of them to a certain extent.
But I also look at I've been working with a small set of people to fill in some of those gaps for me because I need them.
I'm working with an editor on the majority of my videos now, and I'm working with a designer for not only like my personal site and my learn, build, teach community site, but also these other projects that I'm working on, because one of the most stressful things for me is sitting down with a blank canvas.
I can build the functionality all day, but the design is the thing that like overwhelms me and takes the fun out of it, honestly. because it's so hard for me.
So working with a designer to have like, here's the thing I need to get started and do my job makes a really big difference.And again, these are all just gaps that need to be filled.
I think one of the key points you were just raising is a point I sometimes call own ability, but just about communication.
like your designer who's using Figma and then Figma is making a first class consideration of making sure that they can communicate the design with you and that you have less friction to put it into the technology or what have you.
And that idea of like reducing the friction between the tech person and the putatively less tech person or the design person putatively less design person, is where I think that these tools really start to really show their quality.
And it's going to be where we are more intersectional and able to unlock that knowledge of the experience you want to have for your customers and the designer who's able to say, I understand how to express what you want to make happen.
And then being able to bring those two things together.That's still an emerging frontier, but I think that's where they really unlock a lot of value.And I thought that was just a really great point.
Yeah, I think that's that's always been a fun back and forth designers and engineers and figuring out how they work with each other.
I would love to be a good designer.And it took me a while to figure out I'm not.So it's better for me to find a designer to do the things that I want.And I think maybe there's a breakdown of no code, low code here that we can chat about.
And, you know, some of that is design, right?Like it doesn't mean that you don't have a designer.You can have a small team of people, but it's still valid to bring low code or no code on.
to help design things because of the amount of responsibilities that your team has, right?So it doesn't mean, like, if you have a designer that you should never low-code or no-code a design.Sometimes it's helpful to take pressure off of a designer.
And it's not just designed for low-code, no-code.There's back-end as a service.There are many other options for low-code, no-code.And maybe we can try and break down, what are the different options that you see for low-code, no-code out there?
And what are the most likely uses of those technologies?
Okay, we're thinking about like front-end versus back-end, that kind of question?
Yeah, I think so.I mean, anything that you can use it for, because I think that maybe a lot of people that I know are just stuck in this mindset of, like, it's this one thing.But low-code, no-code is not one thing, right?It's not just front-end.
It's not just back-end.It's a whole lot of things.
Yeah, I often think of it in terms of front-end, back-end, and automation as sort of being the three big areas I consider.
And if anyone's looking to look at one no-code tool and only one, I'd recommend Zapier every day of the week because it allows you to do things that previously you just weren't doing at all.
I love it as a business because you can work with it for about five minutes.
You become a customer for life because you create an automation that's going to immediately improve your life of, hey, whenever I get an email from Becca, make sure I get a text about it because that was important.
Or, you know, whatever else might be sort of useful for you.And you start to create more of these things that improve both your personal productivity and then also your business productivity.
And it sort of expands your mind to think about what can be created for you.That you didn't have to go create a whole webhook server.You didn't have to, you know, make a bot to go do this for yourself.That you can drag and drop a few blocks.
And it's going to be about how you understand how they work to be able to make all that technology create value for you.I would say automation is definitely one of the ones that a lot of people sleep on and I would totally recommend.
There's the front end.And the front end, if you're a good designer, you can express yourself much more quickly.Or if you're not a great designer, you both have tools that allow you to communicate with great designers.
Webflow and Figma are really good for this.But also tools that allow you to do table stakes design.They take more of it off your plate.
And those become more like website builders, but also web app builders that can do a lot of stuff for you that I find to be pretty exciting as well.
And certainly I make use a lot of use of because I'm not a great designer and I do not have even have the taste that James is already displaying with his backdrop here and people on the podcast can't see that.So there's definitely front end building.
So as someone who is more comfortable on the backend or are on the data side, being able to make use of those tools is actually something I really look for.
Although I also make heavy use of react and other front end frameworks for when I want to create more complex experiences for my customers. And then third is back-end.
And I think back-end is an area where a lot of front-end developers don't feel that comfortable and they feel like, wait, we need to go hand that off to someone else.But it's a great opportunity for tooling.
There are tools like Xano, which is a fantastic no-code back-end.There are tools like Buildship or FastGen.They actually have a little bit more code to them in terms of what they hook up. that are pretty great for just letting you move faster.
None of these things cost a lot of money, especially when compared with hiring someone to do that job and allows you to ship more faster.
And then the faster you're able to get into the market and get better understanding what's going on, the quicker you can figure out what actually needs to happen and keep that learning wheel turning that creates a lot more business value.
And also it's easier to communicate. So you could go hire someone to go build stuff for you, say in Xano or Zapier or whatever, and then you could look at those things and actually understand them, right?
It's not like you need some new bespoke documentation system.I mean, documentation helps, don't get me wrong, but because they're made out of the big Lego blocks, their structure is more evident. And it's easier to communicate and transfer that.
And that's why I talk about being ownability as a key factor there.So I think those are like three sectors to think about.
And then with all of them, you have not just the no code part of I'm going to give the job to someone else, but you have the composition part.
If I'm going to do front end work, great, can I sort of get Webflow do the baseline, okay, layout the page, and then I'm going to build in, I don't know, Vue.js, the actual dynamic part. And these things actually work together really well.
I mean, actually view is better than react for this job in many ways, because it sort of works inside the domain object model.And if you have an existing one, you can add more interactivity and have it do cooler stuff.
Just linking together your JavaScript code from view with this layout, you might have already created in say your web flow or whatever your designer is and get to where you want to be much, much faster.
And that's the kind of thing I find really exciting is not just being able to take the things that aren't your core and move them off stage, but take things that are your core and be able to niche down even more.
Your code time is spent on the part that is really, really special and high value.
Love all of that.I also just got an idea of something I never considered low code, but totally is.And it's the idea of a headless CMS.
Headless CMS is doing so much for you and it's providing this interface that alternatively you would have to build yourself.And most developers don't have any pushback from using that.It's like a natural progression and it just makes sense.
But it's the exact same example of like, there's a piece of this that I don't want to or need to build myself.And I can offload this to something else.I also love the automation piece of Zapier.
Automating things, whether it's in code or just like with other tools, is one of my favorite things.Like I'm like nerdily excited about being able to automate things and not having to do it manually every time.
I've got a few things that are set up in my Discord.This has changed now, but a cron job that would automatically schedule events for the upcoming a week.
And it would post them in a discord and I never had to worry about it after that because the code would just run.So I love the idea of automation being a big section of those categories of where these tools can fit in.Yeah, totally, man.
This is like kind of an aside, but I talk frequently about being a mom.I have four kids.And so like, I work a full-time job.I do full-time mom.There's not enough hours in the day.That doesn't add up, right?
And so I have an ongoing conversation with ChatGPT about what can I be doing to automate tasks to make my life easier for me, right?
And so you don't necessarily have to be a developer or somebody that's on a team to utilize no code or low code, right?
I think that for me, one of the things that has been most fulfilling is to find ways to alleviate the stress or the pressure that I feel as a mom using automations
be able to remind me or to remind my kids, like, these are the things that need to be done every day.And then we're able to do so much more because of that.And I'm not someone that thinks like, oh, productivity, that's the ideal.
But at the same time, there are things that we can put into place without technical capabilities or with low technical capabilities that allow us to decrease frustrations or challenges in our lives that allow us to do so much more.
And so I just feel like it's worth pointing out that you don't have to be deeply technical.We say no code or low code.And I feel like maybe we all know that.
But it's worth mentioning that it doesn't have to be within code that we're no code or low code, right?Like, doesn't have to be on a tech team can be outside a tech team, it can be within our own lives to find ways to
create space for ourselves by automating these things.
That's not what I was saying, right?
We're not becoming cyborgs.We're finding ways to be more efficient in the things that we're doing.Or like, I don't know, also like I have ADHD.Like there are things that I'm not good at, right?
And low-code and no-code becomes extremely helpful in doing those things because I can automate so many of those processes that I know that despite how hard I try, I can accomplish them.
Can I give you a real-time example of Becca's ADHD?
I sent her a logistical DM about what we're doing right now, and she responded with, you should move the Q from behind your head to the side because it looks like an O instead of a Q.
Okay, so look at James and straight above his head.That's definitely a Q, but it's not in the frame.It's an O. While having this conversation, I was like, move your Q over.
I just I just imagine Becca and the whole time we're talking like in the back of her head.She's like, It's an O. It's an O. It's an O. I am going to.
Like did not strike me that that was a Q. Yeah.
Until I like happened to move.
I'm planning on getting my actual logo, which is Q with like kind of tails on it that implies speed like quick and get that as a wood cutout thing with LED stuff, LED lights on it, which will will be strategically placed Becca when I have my new setup.
So thank you for that feedback.
Mine is going to be better than yours though.
Something better than you.
Thanks.Thanks for the clarification of that.I appreciate it.
Ray, we haven't talked as much specifically about state change.We got a few more minutes.Do you want to get a little more specific into what does state change offer and what are the benefits that people would get?
And how does that factor into the whole conversation that we've had today?
Yeah, sure.So, I mean, like no code is about being intersectional, not getting out of your comfort zone.And so I find it's really about growth.
And, you know, people go in, they think they're just going to be building an app, but what they're really doing is frankly, just building themselves.They're learning things that people who are less technical are becoming more technical.
And people who were more technical tend to become more business aware.And they have these things that they just don't know yet, or that are a bit hard for them.
And these no code tools keep promising, oh, you will do all this stuff without writing a line of code.And this is all going to be so easy.But what I found about 80% of it really is easy.
And then about 15% of his work, and then 5% of it can feel just totally impossible, because that part is more foreign, right?
Either on the business side, if you're a more technical person, or maybe a technical problem, because you are a front end tech person is about the back end. or it's going to be that you are a less technical person or came in as less technical.
And there is some aspect of this that would be easier to understand if you understood how the computer thought.And so the job of state change is instead of a, Hey, we're going to go build this whole thing for you.
It was sort of built off me trying to find like, where are the hard puzzles in all this and finding that even in a world where the toolmakers are making promises about all being easy, there are still hard parts.
And we still focus on, we call it the hardest 5% of the project. What is it that's going to keep you from shipping?Because you can do 80% and you don't need to worry about that.You got that covered.
And there's another 50% that you probably have covered because it's work, but you could go faster.It's like, where are the really hard parts in no code?And a lot of the time it's about where you exit no code and you'd have like a little bit of code.
And how do you bring that in from a technical point of view?Or how do you assemble the right set of tools?Cause you thought you were going to build the whole thing and say, I don't know, bubble, which is another no code builder.
That's the one from the project I mentioned earlier.Sorry, just wanted to jump on that.That's the one that they used.
Yeah.And it's a perfectly fine tool.But then you find that like for doing this particular piece of it, I sometimes get the question, but yeah, but how do I do this in bubble?I said, why would you ever do that in bubble?
And you bring in this other tool, you compose stuff in. sort of giving people permission to compose and sort of think more about how to be solving the job to be done.And also sort of build a mental model about how to think about the machine.
And also just think about the journey that they're on beyond just the immediate transaction they're doing.Like, I'm trying to ship this app as quickly as possible.Okay, but what are you doing to learn?
because it's through that learning that you're going to ship the first version that's going to create the second version.Another one of our principles is you're going to build this again.
And then how are you taking those lessons to be able to increase that?So that's what we do inside our community with office hours every day where people bring their hardest problems.
And we use those problems to sort of surface what are the mental models that can allow
both professionally trained developers and become better product creators or toolers or what have you, and help people who describe themselves perhaps as non-technical become builders themselves of technical products.
I love all of that.The last 5% is the most relatable thing for me ever. And I am not the most detail oriented person and everything I do, I do pretty well about 90 percent.Like anything I build, I get like 90 percent of the way there.
And I'm like, I'm not that into it anymore.And having the help with whether it's just the last 10 percent, the last five percent or the most difficult five percent, the enable of actually finishing something.
And that's what I always talk about in advice for portfolio projects and all these things.You got to have something tangible that's deployed somewhere.You got to get to some version of done.I love that some version of done.
Ray, I honestly don't know if you recommended this book to me or not.The Seven Working Geniuses.Do you remember?Does that ring a bell at all?Seven Working Geniuses?There's a number about the number of working geniuses.
I don't know what the number is.It could be like five. Okay, well then I don't know who recommended it to me, but somebody recommended it to me.But it seems relevant here.We all have strengths, essentially.
So the working geniuses part is we all have strengths for different parts of the development process.I like to think of it like baseball, because I'm a baseball fan.
You have a starting pitcher, you have a reliever, you have a closer, and then there's others that are in there doing the things.I think that low code and no code
really plays a role in those parts of the game because you might be really good at starting a project.You might not be really good at finishing that project or developing that project.I think it's valid to say you don't have to be all of the things.
There's this weird, I don't know if it's weird,
There's a thought out there that people need to be all of the things, but in most aspects of business that I've studied, you don't have to be all of the things because there are different strengths and there are different abilities.
that you're required to develop to be very good at those things.If you see that you're very good at starting a project, it doesn't mean that you're good at the rest of it.And low code or no code can be a really good opportunity to advance yourself.
If you really think about the things that you're good at, like, hey, I'm good at this thing.I'm bad at this other thing.It's OK.It's OK to be bad at a thing.It's OK to have a weakness.
and a thing, and other people might feel that weakness, but also low-code and no-code might feel that weakness and allow you to move forward.
Yeah, I think you look at no code, low code in two ways.We sort of think about it professionally.One is it's a tool to allow you to do your existing job better.And second, it's an opportunity to redefine your job.
I know plenty of people who are in the tech industry.They're working in these large tech companies and many of them having a tougher time.
And I think it's partially because of the prevalence of no code, low code, not as a tool set, but as a demographic shift, that there are more businesses where people are expecting, hey, we should be able to build these things and more people who want to be making progress.
And so like the center of gravity of tech is sort of shifting from like a few large tech companies to being spread out across all sorts of little companies.
James, you were just at that conference and you're talking to people who aren't just based in Silicon Valley.You're talking to people who are all over the country and people who are all over the world.
And the businesses that are using them are just much more distributed.
And that's where I think the really exciting opportunity is for people who self-identify as developers and have gone through technical training and have this expertise, is that there are lots of customers out there who have challenges.
And you can bring your expertise with a lot of leverage into that market and drive a lot of value.I will tell you that I talk to people who will say that I'm having a hard time finding a job working, quote, in tech.
And then I go around and talk to people who are trying to build in no code, low code, and like these various companies, whatever they want to make this product exist.And they're having a hard time finding people to help them with it.Right.
So the people who they're finding are people who don't have technical training or sort of just come up with the first time with the tools.
I think there's a wonderful opportunity, but strength against weakness for a lot of people to be helping more businesses by using this technology, not just to help them with their existing projects, but as the potential for a whole new market that can make you go from a position of weakness to a position of strength.
I love that.I think that's a good one to end the main section on and we can move into our picks and plugs section.Pick is anything that you've enjoyed recently.
Some of you watch spot on Amazon podcast, something and a plug, anything that you want to share from the community, from yourself, et cetera.So. I can go first.
I'm going to go the old person route and I'm going to pick inserts for your shoes from Amazon called power step inserts.And they're like 40 bucks, but I think they're pretty high quality for what they are.And I added them to my.
fancy Cole Haan shoes that are not really meant to be super supportive.So it makes them a lot more supportive for everything that I do.And it's one of my favorite pair of shoes.
So I'm glad to have like a new pair of inserts to make them so comfortable as I wear them around.So they're like 40, 45 dollars, depending on which one you get, I think, which is, I think, pretty good because you can spend hundreds on inserts.
And then I will plug, I'll do the learn, build, teach community at learnbuildteach.com.We just shipped a brand new redesign homepage.We're doing multiple events per week in Discord.
And recently we've had a good amount of momentum of that sort of stuff and been having a blast doing that.So if you're interested in joining us, it's at learnbuildteach.com.
I will go next.So my pick this week in direct response to James is Flux Footwear, which is a zero drop shoe for walking, weightlifting and running.
They're on my feet right now, but I feel like it would be weird if I hold my foot up while I'm sitting in this chair.I have four pairs of Flux Footwear.Really, really love them.And I take them to every conference I go to.
flex footwear is good for me and my bad hip.Because once you hit 35, you probably have a bad hip.And my plug is I'm currently doing a 29 days of open source series on dev through open sourced.
So I'm looking at proprietary software and finding the open source alternative to that proprietary software.So today I don't have a post out yet, but it's going to be on backend as a service and I'm going to be highlighting app right.
So you can check that out over on dev.to slash open-sauce.And I'm going to hand it over to Ray.
First, for anyone who hasn't checked it out yet, that is just an amazing series.As you discover, all of these products you've been paying perfectly good money for have some pretty cool open-source alternatives.
And it's in that same spirit of pretty cool open-source alternative to something you might otherwise pay for.
I'm going to recommend OLAMA, which is an open-source system for running large language models, sort of the cool new AI models, same as that you would use for chat GPT, locally on your computer.It's completely open source.
You can take a look underneath the covers.I'm giving a talk about it and like other apps that it has spawned next month in Massachusetts.
It's just very, very cool stuff that I think allows you to take ownership of AI tech that's otherwise can feel very scary or like something that only Sam Altman could do. But you can do it too.
And for my plug, I suppose I'll plug StateChange and particularly I would recommend people to the StateChange YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash at StateChange, where we talk about the hardest projects in no code, which I think would be particularly appealing for a developer audience, you know, because it's going to be where we get more technical about getting a lot of value and interestingly hacking these tools.
Awesome. Love it.Well, hopefully that gave everyone their fill of both practical as you get older necessities and technically interesting content and platforms as well.Ray, thank you for joining us and introducing.
We talked a little bit about in the past, but going a little deeper, I think, into the idea of the realm of no code, low code.We appreciate you being here.
For people that are listening in the podcast version, if you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and review so that we can continue to do more episodes and have more amazing guests on like Ray.In the meantime, that's all we got.
