Brian Luerssen

I've been doing some version of no-code for a while. I've worked in a lot of different industries, and in each we had some version of embracing no-code or low-code tools. And when you look back at when I was first getting into technology, I would building websites with Dreamweaver or Visual Basic.

We started building Draftbit after trying to build a different business — a mobile app. We were sort of just frustrated, even with great co-founders, at hard it was to get the first version of our mobile app out the door. We realized that we really were passionate about making it easier for us, or anyone, to get our first version out and iterate on it.

It's interesting to talk about no-code, because at Draftbit we also give you the source code — so we live in this weird gray area between code and no-code.

I think the terminology is one thing, but what I really think about is this whole space is helping everyone build. There is enormous value in enabling the billion people on the planet who use software to be able to create their own, whether they're technical, semi technical, non technical, whatever level of technical they are — there's going to be a tool and a platform that will help them actually build their own software.

I think the reason this category is exploding is that in the next couple years, there will be a billion people that grew up using software. and they don't want to be beholden to people that can create software. When we started in 2018, we didn't even call it no-code, we just wanted to help people build mobile apps faster. I think that the "low-code" or "no-code" terms are less important than just empowering people to build real products and give them leverage to create.

You can start a business for cheaper, you can iterate faster, you won't have to raise money as early or its easier than ever to bootstrap businesses without investors.

The other benefit of a no-code platforms is that, for all different types of businesses, you can focus on being good at your core business — you can skip becoming an expert at all things software if that isnt important.

Further, the ability to create personalized software is super interesting and something we don't talk about enough. What if people could create their own personalized CRM, their own personalized sales workflow, their own personalized warehouse management tool, their own personalized order delivery platform? Would they rather create their own rather than use someone else's off the shelf platform that's not quite true to their business? We'll see.

Finally, for many builders inside of large companies, we hear that they don't have access to engineering resources, or IT resources, or consulting resources — so they will just have a team of three or four people. They can use no-code platforms to make progress quietly. I think we're going to have people who can make their careers in large enterprises by cutting through the bureaucracy — no-code platforms are a huge tool to allow people in big companies to have a big, big impact.

I know a lot of people in these roles might start by asking: "Am I going to lose my job because of these platforms".  I don't think so — no-code platforms are coming about because there's such a shortage of software engineers and designers and product managers — and everyone wants to build. I dont think these roles will go away — I think people in these roles will always be necessary to build something truly great, but they may not be needed to build something basic. The future of no code is empowering developers and designers to focus on the things they're good at and not worry about the things that are not worth their time.

Further — what you actually get with the no-code world is true collaboration, allowing teams to skip so much of the "queuing up of work" work — and just do the work themselves directly. In most software companies, 98% of the people in the organization are just queuing up work for engineers to complete. For example, if you're doing design work, you end up creating stories and specs, and it just goes into a tracker for an engineer to implement. That's so inefficient — why not just implement the design changes yourself? True collaboration means building together. I think no-code and low-code tools enable all of us to actually work together.

I think bad dev shops will fade away. I think good dev shops, good agencies, good consultants will be building more, better, faster with these tools.

The dev shops that just bill you based on hourly — those are actually staffing firms. And I think those things will go away because no code will just eat into their ability to overcharge you for a billable hour of an engineer’s time.

On the other hand, I think there's a ton of small agencies and companies with very creative people, or very smart consultants who know a specific industry, who will be empowered to build their own tools and platforms instead of contracting with others. And I think they become better consultants and better agencies when they directly build what they want.

I'm so excited by this — the ability to build personal apps and tools is something that's never been possible unless you were a software engineer. So that means we'll see people building things like small group apps, or a family app that just helps your family stay organized and have fun together, etc. Things like that.  I think those capabilities are really compelling and interesting, because it lets people create the tools they need to solve their problems instead of wait around for somebody else to create it for them.

Re: Kids —  I think you'll see people creating toys and games, new social networks, and new all kinds of interesting things that, frankly, are hard to predict right now.

Re: Economic Disparity — I think the ability to create software is something that is super important for everyone. And because software is going to touch everything, it shouldn't just be available for an elite group of people to be the ones building — it should be possible for everyone to have access. The tools we create for humanity needs to be accessible to everyone. I think more people will become software developers, but I don't think you should have to become a software developer to build an idea.

Very quickly. Why would you present someone something like if you could just have them experience it directly? Why would you build something that's fake if you could build something that's real, right? I  would say five years. I think it'll be that fast.

We have schools asking us now — so maybe zero to six months from today. Certain people are going to take to learning software and logic and complicated algorithms and other people are not and there's many students out there who can build great things, but who will never be interested in becoming software developers.

I don't know. This is a hard question because over time I'm not sure you'll ever be able to tell the difference.

We're naturally more in the low-code space currently — and I think we'll see both types of platforms add features from each other. The more and more “consumer” you get, I think people don't want that much code, right? But the more you need to build something complicated, with logic and business rules, etc — you're probably going to want some code in the mix.

If we're all doing our jobs well, hopefully soon. It takes time for businesses like that to grow and become that popular, regardless of their technology choices. Turbotax didnt become dominant overnight. I would say within the next two to five years.

I think we should all make this a goal for it to happen in the next 10 years.

I think it's much more likely to be 10-15 years.

I think it'll depend on what type of leader we have. I think there will be newer elected officials that will build apps as a way to grow their footprint. And certainly their teams will be using these platforms very quickly to build and iterate faster.

I don't know that I have any one particular story that stands out — I think we're in the early days. We have a Draftbit user who's a young kid and he's just figuring out how to build stuff, but he's not a software engineer. Those are the types of people that we love, because they're trying to build and they're trying to make progress. And our platforms are early and incomplete and don't always work and they keep trying also we love them for their passion.