The rise of the product maker
By: Alexander Thomsen
Tags: Product Management, Software Development, No Code, Career, Product Design

The Rise of the Product Maker

I remember spending countless hours trying to learn Python, NodeJS and React with the feeling that I didn’t really get much further than Print (“Hello World!”). I also remember being introduced to no-code tools like Bubble that allowed me to build a Minimum Viable Product in a few days!

Interest in no-code is exploding and for good reasons. There are now hundreds of tools that help you build software without coding. Whether you dream of building a marketplace, mobile app, internal tools or automation, there always seem to be tools available to help you out.

Source: obviously.ai

“As creating things on the internet becomes more accessible, more people will become makers” by Ryan Hoover from Product Hunt

Citizen Developer

This newfound power has meant no-code has further democratised the building of technology products. No-code tools are significantly reducing the amount of time and expertise you need to translate an idea into a viable and lovable product. No longer can just a small group of software engineers give life to digital ideas, now truly every individual is becoming a maker, a “citizen developer”.

That being said, I think there is a limit to what a citizen developer can create. For exceptional and higher complexity products it requires a strong working knowledge of software development. You can build a simple mobile application in Glide or Thunkable but if you want to build more custom solutions you will need to look to use something like Adalo or Bubble and Backendless. These are still drag and drop applications, but also offer a more diverse selection of options and more complex logic builders where an understanding in APIs will pay off.

“The future of coding is no coding at all,” says Chris Wanstrath, CEO at GitHub

Rising Usage Of No-Code

We are seeing a rise in usage of no-code tools in companies. At Sparrow Ventures, which is a leading Swiss venture builder, no-code is often used for prototyping and to launch quick Minimum Viable Products (MVP) to the market. It’s really great to use when you want to validate user desirability and get quick feedback in a cost-efficient and speedy way.

In our venture teams, the Product Owner is responsible for building the applications either alone or together with a development team. When building with no-code there is a certain expectation from the venture team that this means it will be super fast to build and get to market. Using no-code is indeed faster, but to build exceptional products it requires an advanced understanding of the tools. You have to identify what tools are optimal for your objectives, what type of functionalities do they offer, how to integrate, what database structure is required and so on.

Product Maker A New Job Role?

This is no simple task for a Product Manager/Owner to do well especially with the speed no-code is moving these days! A Product Manager/Owner does have many of the capabilities for a specialist maker’s role. However, as no-code starts to offer more complex functionalities, I could envision a new role at companies, called the “Product Maker”. The purpose of this role is to bring complex digital products very quickly to market specifically using no-code tools. The individual would be an expert in knowing exactly what to use and how to use it.

General Skillset Of A Product Maker

Tech: Require a strong working knowledge about APIs, database structures and well-versed in general engineering concepts like objects, variables, and application logic.

UI/UX: Good sense about best practices, know-how in wireframing and prototyping and which tools to use.

Toolmaster: Toolkit of no-code tools for every type of situation, while loves to explore new ones.

Hustler: A go-getter and problem solver doing whatever it takes to get a workable product launched.

Product Maker In The Product Lifecycle

The main strength for now of no-code is the ability to put a digital product together 5-10x faster than traditional software development. I think the Product Maker’s main focus is to build and launch MVPs quickly to validate the desirability and viability of a product. The individual can also be part of the prototyping stage, but shouldn’t be the owner, as the Product Designer has the expertise and the tools to do that well. Once the product starts to move from market validation to scaling, depending on the product, it’s likely that the setup needs to be restructured and a development team will take it over.

Product Maker In An Established Company

Product Manager, Product Owner, Product Designer, Product Maker….How do all of these fit together? Most assume, no-code is mainly for startups, but I think we may see also more established companies use these tools to create experiments to test for new solutions. We are already seeing established companies moving into this space, with Amazon’s Honeycode and Microsoft Power Apps.

In larger established companies where there are many product roles, I could imagine a potential setup like below, where the Product Manager will identify the opportunities and depending on the type, an existing scrum team will do the implementation or a Product Maker is needed for quick and low-cost experimentation.

Wrapping Up

Will a role like the Product Maker come along? I got no idea, but I think it’s an exciting thought as we are seeing an explosion of new tools. As the no-code tools mature, they will allow for more custom and complex product building that non-specialist won’t have the time to fully utilize. The Product Maker will need to be a true tech hustler, finding smart and cost-effective ways to bring products to market. Just like we have AWS specialist, we may see no-code specialist, that allows for quicker product development than we are seeing today.