Mid-July update: Learning from early customers

It’s been 3 weeks since I launched this blog.

I originally planned on sharing a month in review post for June. Since my last post was actually near the end of that month, I’ve decided to share a mid-month update for July instead.

In the previous update, I said I would reach out to 10 people and do at least 1 onboarding call per week…

Well, I made some good progress with Nocodelytics in the first 2 weeks of July!

Highlights:

• Got my first 2 paying customers for Nocodelytics!
• Did 4 onboarding calls (2 per week)
• Nearly 50 waitlist signups so far (mostly Twitter)

I also did a lot of shipping based on super helpful conversations I had with people in the no-code community.

Product updates:

• Big design update switching a lot of components from Bootstrap (friendly but simple UI) to Ant Design (friendly yet more suited to an analytics tool).
• Added new user properties providing visit info and the email (if membership site)
• Overhauled the onboarding flow with a clearer 3-step process that 1) walks new Nocodelytics users through every step and 2) checks if the setup is complete before proceeding.
• Added form tracking to show what people submitted for each of the values in a form. Useful for segmenting and analysing user behaviour!
• Updated the website landing page with in-app gifs and a screenshot. I’m curious to see how this impacts conversion from visitors to signups to the waitlist.

What are the main things I’ve learned in the first 2 weeks?

Speaking with people in the no-code community is fun

In the first half of the month, I had several conversations with Webflow users each week. I learned a lot about what they’re working on and it’s exciting seeing the fun new projects people are coming up with.

I knew things move quickly in the software world but this feels especially true in the no-code space because of a) how easy it is to build things and b) how encouraging the community is to new and evolving ideas. There’s always some interesting new project or update being shared on Twitter.

The cool thing is there aren’t just a couple of known voices dominating feeds but a bunch of makers bouncing ideas off of each other. For example, TheFlow - run by Glenn who’s a really cool guy - are working on a new marketplace for no-coders. Also, Isaac Medeiros recently built an MVP for a mass SMS tool in just a few weeks, got loads of interest and shared a guide on how he did it all.

Having conversations with different members of the no-code community also helped me understand more about how they work. Specifically, how Webflow fits into their work, other tools they use and, of course, a deeper insight into how they measure and understand user engagement on their sites.

I plan to have lots more of these chats each week!

Twitter is a great way to share and learn from other makers

Sharing my progress on Twitter is a good way to stay engaged with the no-code community.

Still, I’ve been thinking about ways to add more value outside of just product updates.

The main way I plan to do this is to write about examples of what to track on no-code sites and share a summary on Twitter.

These will sit on the Nocodelytics site (great for SEO!) and I aim to have the first live in the next week.

It’s worth investing in another organic growth channel

Something I learned from my other project Space Bandits is the power of SEO.

After the site went live with the first few interviews in April 2019, it only took a few weeks for some of the links to start ranking on the first few pages. Now, if you search for one of the earlier companies interviewed, my interviews sit on the first page.

Shortly after that, I started a directory where I had a curated list of space startups. A few months later it broke into the first page for the term “space startups”. Now, it fluctuates between the #1 and #2 positions.

The plan is to start sharing helpful guides and articles on Nocodelytics’ blog soon so that it can rank well enough in search engines a few months from now.

I also need to set up various types of emails on Nocodelytics including welcome emails and product updates (thanks Isaac for the suggestion!).

So, what’s next?

Goals for the rest of July

Here’s what I’d like to work on for the rest of the month:

• Speak to at least 10 more makers. I want to learn about what they’re working on and their frustrations with analytics. Let’s call this my Customer goal.
• Share 1 post on the Nocodelytics blog. I’m not sure what this will be yet but have a few ideas (probably share examples of what metrics you should focus on for different types of sites and how to do that in Nocodelytics). This’ll be my Marketing goal.
• Ship 1 key feature (Funnels) and set up emails. The first is something that’s been requested by a few users and the second is just good practice.

If you’d like more frequent updates, you can follow me on Twitter where I tweet regularly about what’s on my mind, things I’ve learned and what I’ve been shipping.

See you in August!