Hiring a team of skilled developers can be an expensive endeavor, especially for a pre-revenue bootstrapped or mostly bootstrapped company. However, a growing trend is emerging to bridge this gap – the rise of low-code and no-code platforms, like Bubble, Softr, Glide, etc.
These no-code platforms allow you to build your SaaS (and feature requestsf.com/on-air-episodes/build-features-with-no-code) faster, and with little to no coding skills. Plus, since most of these tools have a drag-and-drop interface and detailed help docs/tutorials, it is possible to test a new business idea, build the basic features and get a MVP product to market in a matter of days, not months.
However, while no code and low code platforms are powerful tools, there is one major risk that isn't talked about nearly enough. That's platform risk. In this post, we're going to talk about what that means for no code SaaS apps and how you can mitigate it.
What is platform risk?
Platform risk is when you build your company on a particular platform. If that platform makes changes, experiences difficulties, or goes out of business, that can be anything from a minor speed bump to an existential thread for your business.
When it comes to platform risk, it's a factor that every SaaS application has to consider. Take hosting on Amazon EC2 servers, for example. While there are always risks associated with any provider, the likelihood of Amazon suddenly increasing prices, going out of business, or experiencing extended downtime is low. On the other hand, relying on a local web host provider with limited resources has significantly higher risks. The potential for them to vanish, go out of business, or face extended service disruptions is considerably higher compared to established providers like Amazon, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.
As a founder, it's essential to recognize the additional platform risks that directly impact you. Let's imagine you've developed a Shopify app and successfully placed it in their app store. Now, envision a situation where Shopify approaches you as your app gains momentum and demands a 30% cut of your top-line revenue, or they threaten to remove your app from the store. Surprisingly, their terms of service permit such actions, putting you in a challenging position.
Alternatively, platform risks can manifest in more unintentional ways. For instance, Shopify might incorporate the exact feature set you've meticulously built into its core platform and offer it to users for free. This could undermine your unique value proposition and pose a significant challenge to your competitive edge. Being mindful of these platform risks is crucial. They highlight how the actions and policies of platform providers can directly impact the success and sustainability of your business.
All of these things are things that you as an entrepreneur should be thinking about.
Four Elements of Platform Risk in No-Code Development
1. Pricing variations and switching restrictions
For instance, one of the prominent no-code solutions, Bubble, made significant price hikes not just once, but twice in the past 18 months. The Bubble community strongly protested the first increase, leading to its retraction. However, with the second increase, they offered an 18-month transition period and eventually adjusted the new pricing model to minimize the impact.
The challenge with no code arises from its proprietary nature. Unlike traditional coding languages like Ruby on Rails or PHP with Laravel, where you can host your code on various platforms, no-code tools tie you closer to their specific platform. In other words, if you're using Bubble and decide to switch to competitors like Airtable or Notion, it becomes virtually impossible to migrate seamlessly. You would need to rebuild your entire application from scratch on the new platform. So, when faced with a price increase, you're left with two options: accepting the higher cost or embarking on the arduous journey of starting over elsewhere.
To underscore the magnitude of the issue, let's consider a tweet by Ab Advany. In the tweet, he compares Bubble's workflow execution costs before and after the pricing changes. The difference is striking, with some customers experiencing a whopping 10x increase in their pricing. This serves as a painful reminder of the risks associated with building your solution on someone else's no-code platform. It highlights the substantial vulnerability that arises when you lack the flexibility to migrate your code to a different hosting environment.
While Bubble has since made adjustments to address these concerns, this situation emphasizes the inherent fragility of relying entirely on a no-code platform. The risks involved are significantly higher compared to having the ability to migrate your code to a new host when needed.
2. Irreversible user experience changes
A second element of platform risk specifically with no code is something that we have experienced. We have four or maybe five depending on how you count, full-blown SaaS apps that are built in no code on Airtable, Bubble, or Softr, and what we've noticed is that about every four or five months, Airtable specifically pushes out a big user interface change that we can't get around. So they recently moved our top navigation to side navigation and it doesn't work very well with what we've built. We have no way to undo it and no way to work around it because it's a no-code platform so we have to work within the constraints that they give us.
For us, these are internal apps that we use to produce this YouTube channel, to produce podcasts, and to handle incoming applications to the TinySeed accelerator so we just deal with them. But if I had an MVP or even a version 1.0 that was serving customers and suddenly my UI changed in a way that I couldn't control or wasn't notified about, it can upend your business and I would have a tough time not having that much control over how my users experience my software.
3. Shutdowns or acquisitions
A third risk is the platform you're using shuts down or goes out of business or gets acquired. There are a lot of things that can happen with these startups. If you think about no code, they are still startups, all of them.
And one might say well if you're hosting at Amazon or Google or Microsoft or wherever you're hosting, those are startups too and they're not right. These are 20, 30, or 40-year-old companies. The odds of them shutting down tomorrow or of selling or shutting down their web hosting features is almost zero versus if you're talking about a startup that is still early in its lifecycle. It hasn't gone public yet, and it is ripe for acquisition.
As these markets mature, consolidation happens and you see larger players gobble up the smaller ones. In no code, there are hundreds of players. That's not going to be the case in five years. These smaller ones inevitably shut down, get acqui-hired, get acquired, or get shut down, etc., and as that happens, you're either going to have to shut down your app or you're going to have to rebuild somewhere else which is going to be extremely time-consuming.
4. Limited value added for your customers
And the fourth and final element of platform risk is the limited customization and control. So depending on the platform, you might face limitations in customizing certain aspects of your SaaS application to meet unique requirements or to differentiate your offering and that lack of control over the underlying platform can hinder your ability to deliver a tailored experience to your customers.
The bottom line is if you build your app on a no-code platform, at a certain point it's very likely you are going to outgrow it and at that point what do you do? Do you start over from scratch building it in code? That might not be a bad idea and that's the beauty of no-code. The no-code platform risk element is how far can you get without having to write all the code, without having to learn to code, without having to find a technical co-founder, or pay someone to write the code.
But then the downside is once you get to that edge where you can't continue to innovate and you can't continue to build your product the way your customers want it, it's a pretty big reset that no code founders should be aware of when they start.
The lack of customization and control of a good chunk of the platforms, not all the platforms I would admit, but all the ones that we have used, may get to the point where you do have to leave that platform for something else.
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Ultimately, the decision of embracing no code or exploring other options will depend entirely on your business's unique workflow and growth aspirations. Under certain circumstances, no code can serve as a valuable tool to initiate and establish your business. However, it is important to acknowledge that no-code may not be the most suitable choice if you are looking to scale a multi-million dollar business.
