How to Start a Tech Company without Coding Knowledge?

Small steps can be terrifying when you are planning to start a business. Things can be more daunting when you desire to launch a tech company without a single knowledge about codes. Now you have got a concept of it, but the question is, how well do you know if the idea is going to turn out just fine? There are a lot of uncertainties like, what if you will misuse loads of time and money establishing it, and end up that no one will use it?

What is a Tech Startup?

The answer to the question, “what is a tech startup?” is simple and straightforward. It is nothing but a startup business whose purpose is to create and sell technology in different forms. These businesses create new technology or deliver existing technology in the market to the customers. In today’s time, many new tech startups are getting open and therefore, technology is getting advanced day by day. But how to start a tech company?

We hope the question, “what is a tech startup” is clear now. So, let’s proceed further and find out how to create a tech startup.

Is the Skill of Coding Necessary?

Especially people with zero coding knowledge must be wondering, is starting a tech company without tech background possible or not? Well the answer is yes!

With no code, anyone can start a tech startup without any problem. (Don’t know what is no code? Find out: No Code Development)

Now you must be wondering how to create a no code tech company or a tech startup.

Don’t Know Coding? No Problem!

No code web app builders and no code tools have promptly grown dominant in establishing both technical and non-technical creators. They are exceptionally suitable for quick and inexpensive stand-up web-based and mobile applications. However, the real question is, can a non-technical founder use no code tools to come up with an entire tech-based company?

The answer is a very big YES! 

The common stereotype for the tech company founder is a computer geek, always locked inside their room and roughly goes out of it. However, if you are a geek or an IT person, but you certainly dream of starting a tech business, of course, there is still hope for you! 

Many have done it, and here are some of the non-technical founders starting successful tech companies:

• Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, graduated from college with a degree in English.
• Airbnb founders Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky have design backgrounds.
• Groupon founder, Andrew Mason, graduated from Northwestern University with a music degree.
• Oracle founder Larry Ellison has a sales background.
• Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora in 2000, is an award-winning composer, an accomplished musician, a record producer with 20 years of experience in the music business.
• Jessica Scorpio, who founded Getaround, a peer-to-peer car-sharing company, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.
• Tim Chen, who founded NerdWallet, has a background in banking.

Being a prominent coder does not mean you don't have to work with your customers to make sure you provide something they need; of course, you still need to because this is essential for your business. Also, you need to promote your product, hire a team, serve your clients, maintain your business, and a lot more. Most of the skills required in starting are non-technical in the first place.

So, we hope now you know how to start a tech company without knowing code.

Also Read : How To Start Working as A No Code Freelancer

Essence of Establishing a Company Using No Code

Not being an IT person makes it pricey for hiring ones with the skills. Still, it is not the only reason or even the sole purpose for opting for no code.

One of the main reasons why it is essential to use no code is speed. With the help of speed, it can be possible for you to get new ideas into the market with a quality product that serves actual customers. As it turns out, no code can get you way past feasibility to profitability.

Whether your business is a no code, low code, or even mix in some actual code, you will need a base platform to pull it all together in a website or a mobile application. 

If in case that your technology is complex and demands a lot of processing power. There is no way of dodging the eventuality of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or another cloud computing service. Amazon Honeycode and Microsoft Power Apps give low code options that have unlimited processing potential.

Nonetheless, low code alternatives still need a bit of a learning curve. For non-IT folks, the learning bridge can be crossed later, and starting with the no code platform might be a more suitable option.

If your application still needs native mobile features, such as integration with the mobile device itself, there are no code options available. Flutter from Google merges code and no code into a single architecture. A brand-new service called Branded App by Wix, allows you to develop native mobile apps using no code.

However, not every app needs to be native mobile, and platform. Take into account that Bubble makes web-based apps that act as mobile apps on a mobile device.

No Code Senses? Let the Helper Apps Be Your Eyes, Ears & Hands!

Is it possible for a small company to act like a big company? Of course! Making your company known can be done through the help of automation. The more standard tasks you can reduce, the more your company can expand.

There are helper apps such as Zapier, Slack, and Airtable that can automate your data transfer, communications, and database, sequentially.

Early in Teaching startup development, whenever a customer purchased the product, some non-IT people used Zapier to communicate with several third-party applications, including a primitive database on Airtable. When customer issues arose, those issues went through Slack to real-time support.

This work still required a lot of manual labour before some non-IT people moved it all to Bubble. But it was quick to set up, easy-to-use, and allowed them to act like an actual company without having to spend a bunch of time and money building out a company infrastructure. 

Therefore, using no code tech to set up your tech company is a great and easy way!

Also Read: Zapier VS Integromat: Which one to Choose

Third-Party Services Help You to “Fake It Till You Make It”

Some non-IT founders, like the founder of Bubble, bent and broke every feature of Mailchimp that acted as a user interface and a database. They even used it to manage some basic application security. It did all of these technical tasks in their most primitive form and in a most manual way. They used Stripe forms to handle payments and hosted it all on a static web bucket on AWS. As you can see, before they built a real product and a real company, they wanted to test whether their vision had real market merit. 

Third-party services enabled them to go to market without the need for reinventing wheels. And those wheels were disfigured and a little flat, but they let them discover that what they intended to build was worth building. Now they have taken a strong, profitable, successful product from its promising beginnings held together by helper apps to a no code platform that serves hundreds of happy, paying customers with almost zero manual tasks. They figure that they can expand this by ten-folds or even a hundred-folds before it begins to under perform.  

Must Read: How No Code is Helping Freelancers and Small Agencies/Businesses

How to Set Up A Start Up Using No Code?

According to Benji Wakeham, here are the three key steps to effectively test your idea without the need to write any code. Take these seriously, and your dream company could be on its journey for success!

Step 1: The Mom Test

The ideal place to begin is with what we call the Mom Test. When an idea pops into your head, the initial action you may do is to communicate your concept to your friends. Do not be hesitant to share your idea because the odds of anyone stealing and eventually taking the credit for it are negligible, while the feedback is priceless. With friends, you will usually receive reassuring and gentle feedback.

However, before telling the homies to get feedback, the Mom Test is created to assist you in learning to raise questions in a way that generates an honest and valuable response. If your mom can understand what you are making and its relevance, you are now ready to ask everyone else.

With the example of the digital recipe book: ask if they use online recipe sites. Yes or no? Ask why and get to know their life and their problems. 

If your queries do not get positive responses at this stage, know that no harm was done. You can still reload and start again. On the other hand, if it appears like a valuable problem or seems sincerely interested, you can now proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Build a Basic Prototype

The basis of developing a prototype is to design a visual that depicts your idea. The essence of a prototype is to get as near to an actual product as possible. Usually, a prototype is similar to a slide presentation. However, with the prototype, the slides are built together that enable the user to demonstrate its usability.

Let’s quickly take a look at how a prototype is built:

• Create a Logo

A logo helps to bring your brand to life. Logo aids you in determining the style and colour scheme of your product, accommodating the consistency and the idea of reality. There are many no code tools you can use to create a logo, such as 99designs, Squarespace, etc. 

99designs is a crowd-sourced design website. 99designs enables you to write a brief description for the type of brand you are seeking to create and designate a cash price to it. Designers then compete to give you logos that fit your preference, with you presenting feedback on their designs and then declaring a winner through the service.

However, if you want the service to be free, there is a Logo Generator site called Squarespace, that has a logo building service that gets you a simple base logo in 2 mins. 

• Create the Screens

To do this without writing any code, you will need to create an individual screen that can then be put into prototyping software with hotspots or interactable areas kind of like buttons attached. It is also a natural way for you to start thinking about the actual layout and flow of the product, which then dovetails nicely into when you want to get it built for real.

You can use a tool named Balsamiq to create the screens. Balsamiq is a foolproof way of creating digital sketches for apps or software. This is your first port of call, it will get you thinking about how a product flows and create a framework of logic for what you want your product to showcase.

Another tool you can use is Pixlr. It is a great free piece of software for you to take your Balsamiq sketch and make it look more polished. 

Also, for designing buttons, you use a tool named Da Button Factory. It is a very useful tool for someone creating a prototype. It instantly creates button designs for you. Once you have designed the buttons, you can download them and add them to your Pixlr screens.

• Link Up the Prototype

Once you have created your screens, you can then use an online prototyping service to add touch points and bring your product to life. 

There are some no code tools that you can use, for e.g. PoP for building mobile apps. PoP is an amazing app that allows you to take photos through the camera of your phone, and build the prototype within the app. You can then share it with others via email that they can use on their phone or desktop. I also like to do this at the Balsamiq stage to help get a feel for the complete product user flow at its early phase. 

Another amazing tool is Invision. It is great for building web apps. Invision lets you upload screens directly into their builder, adding hotspots to then help knit your screens together. 

Step 3: Gather Feedback

Once your prototype is ready and the user flows that make it feel like a real app, get it into people’s hands. The idea is to get in contact with potential users or customers and take them through it. You won’t have any onboarding process, so don’t just send it to them - talk them through it until it’s polished enough for them to figure it out themselves.

• Find Potential Customers

You should have a good idea of who these people are, and you just have to find them. 

Tools for consumer products:

Facebook is powerful for seeing a complete list of your friends, then communicating and interacting with them initially to schedule a demo call. 

Tools for enterprise products:

LinkedIn is a brilliant search tool for different industries and jobs. Ideally, find people with whom you have shared connections. Then, send them a message relaying your idea for a product that you would like to get their feedback on. 

• Carry Out Your Feedback Loop

After finding some valuable leads, you want to set up a one-on-one call with the person. Remove all distractions to take them through the prototype, or better yet, let them use the product themselves and watch their interactions.

You can use Skype to carry out the feedback loop. Skype has a share screen feature. So you can start a Skype call and let them open the prototype on their screen and provide feedback. Or, you can open the prototype on your screen and talk them through the user flow. Both ways create different forms of feedback. 

Make sure you segment and write down all of the feedback you receive. You’re looking for natural responses of interest. One trigger to look for: if they ask questions that show genuine interest and intrigue.

Step 4: Pre-Sell

You can pre-sell to at least 5-10 customers. You don't need to get rich, but pre-selling can give you validation. Also, treat people at a significant discount for pre-ordering. Remember, do not offer lifetime discounted prices because it may become impossible to commit. Alternatively, give discounts for the next 1 to 2 years.

Moreover, you can restrict the period clients can pre-order and collect the discounted pricing. Some people even limit the number of customers who can pre-order from your business.

Also, show social proof and testimonials as you pre-sell. Quote, influencers, and customers who already bought. Let people feel the excitement about your products. If you can manage, give little freebies to those who pre-ordered. Premiums can be a t-shirt and the likes.

The Search for a Technical Co-Founder

Think of this as something like a lengthy job interview. However, don’t even talk about it as a search for a business partner. Alternatively, try to work with several IT people on small projects. Observe if there is chemistry. If you work excellently with someone, proceed on to the next small project. If the person is not an excellent fit, try the next person. Try to meet the programmer in person if you can. Technical skills are essential, but it is only part of the package you are looking for. You may want the person to have a personality that will be a good fit for the company you are starting. Always remember that no matter how good they are at their line of work, if they antagonise the rest of your team, your company will suffer.

Also Read : You Don't Need a Technical Co-Founder to Launch a Startup