The impact of no-code on digital product development

TL;DR

This paper investigates why entrepreneurs use no-code platforms for startup development, highlighting benefits like speed and cost savings, while also discussing challenges and implications for product management.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into the motivations, benefits, and challenges of no-code adoption in startup software development through interviews.

Findings

Speed and cost savings drive no-code adoption

Challenges vary based on platform and user skill

No-code impacts traditional product development frameworks

Abstract

Low- and no-code platforms (LCNC) have become more popular than ever (Kulkarni, 2021), with low-code broadly adopted to optimise internal business processes. Increasingly, startups build their primary software product using no-code platforms (Palios, 2022). This paper explores why entrepreneurs choose no-code platforms to build, launch and scale a software product, what benefits and limitations no-code has, and why they might transition to custom-developed solutions later. Ten semi-structured interviews with successful projects and no-code startup founders were conducted. The results show that speed, cost savings and the lack of coding knowledge are the primary reasons entrepreneurs choose no-code initially. Challenges are diverse and depend on the no-code platform, the maker's skill and the product. The impact of no-code on established product development/product management frameworks and the maker's role are discussed.