The Early Days with Benoit: Building ncScale

Welcome to The Early Days: a series checking in with kickass Founders sharing honest lessons, tips & tricks and a sneak peek into building from the ground up, in public.

👋 Meet ncScale - The GitHub for No-Code Applications
We're spotlighting ncScale - a platform designed to provide maintainability, scalability, and security to your no-code app development. It's essentially GitHub, but designed for no-code. ncScale streamlines the development process for no-code applications.

This is Benoit's story of building a product that helps you streamline your no-code development. Say goodbye to the headaches & woes of managing your no-code apps.

🛠️ Journey into Entrepreneurship

My entrepreneurial journey began at 14, as I constantly sought new avenues to innovate and build. By 16, I'd already established a web hosting company, driven by my passion for technology to create novel solutions. Our CTO, Kevin, a full-stack developer with over seven years of experience, has a similar story. Both founders are driven by the concept of creating something unprecedented, fueling their drive for entrepreneurship.

🔍 Challenges Along the Way

One of the first hurdles I faced was identifying the ideal co-founder and team members, a critical component for any startup. To overcome this, I cultivated a continuous flow of potential candidates, ensuring that we wouldn't miss out on any talent.

💡 Developing Entrepreneurial Skills: Resources and Mentors

Our entrepreneurial skills were honed through a constant cycle of testing and learning. Numerous startups embody this MVP (Minimum Viable Product) culture and guided us towards adopting it. We had to embrace quick failure to progress. No-code technology is remarkable for facilitating this. It enables rapid prototyping and iteration, allowing quick testing of ideas and learning from failures, which leads to quicker progress.

👥 The ncScale Community and its Role in the Business

We believe the key to a successful startup lies in addressing a specific customer need. Our ncScale community, which began with the NoCode France community of 10k no-code users, plays a pivotal role in this approach. Their feedback has been instrumental in crafting a product that best addresses their needs. We've noted many no-coders complain about their apps' maintainability. That's why ncScale focuses its first features on addressing no-code observability.

🔮 The Future of No-Code

We see no-code mastery as a significant competitive advantage. Companies harnessing the power of no-code will outpace competitors in speed, securing the win. With AI, no-code is becoming increasingly accessible. This trend will make low-code applications even more accessible, possibly rendering some no-code applications obsolete due to their closed nature, with no option for code export.

🎉 Success Stories with ncScale

An investment fund based in San Francisco uses ncScale to auto-document their no-code infrastructure. ncScale enables them to check dependencies before implementing changes. As a result, onboarding new team members has become easier. A startup that raised $8 million to focus on repairing and reselling used appliances, has shifted a large portion of its manual documentation from Notion to ncScale to save time. A no-code agency uses ncScale to monitor all bugs in their clients' apps, immensely helping their support team fix issues before clients become aware of them. A real estate marketplace that raised $16 million last year, has enhanced its monitoring capabilities with ncScale across their entire no-code stack.

🔎 Staying Up-to-Date with No-Code Trends and Best Practices

We stay informed through various resources. We read newsletters from all no-code tools, along with notable ones like inside.com/nocode and nocodenews.dev/. Being out in the community and attending events is also a vital part of staying informed.

🥇 Acquiring the First Customer

Our first customer was a gym network software. The connection was established through the invaluable no-code community.

💼 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs 💼

Listen attentively to client needs and be prepared to fail quickly. Learn and adapt from these failures.

🌟 Future Plans for ncScale 🌟

Our future vision for ncScale involves integrating with all tools through a partner integration system. This will revolutionize the industry, empowering power users to scale their operations using no-code tools and ncScale.

⚡️Lightning round

• Favourite Tool
  Bubble is a current favorite, with FlutterFlow expected to take the top spot soon. The all-in-one tools (database + automation + UI) are my favorites because they provide a real shortcut for MVP.
• Productivity hack?
  Daily objective-setting
• Book recommendation?
  The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo
• One-liner for a business idea?
  An app for pizza truck orders to avoid phone calls and track pizza readiness.
• Person you would like to have a coffee with?
  Hotz from comma.ai

🎯 Closing Thoughts

Our conversation with Benoit, the co-founder of ncScale, offers us a glimpse into the dedication and resilience required to build a successful startup. The journey is filled with trials and tribulations, yet it's also ripe with opportunities for growth and learning. Benoit's passion for innovation and technological advancement shines through in his entrepreneurial journey, as well as in the development of ncScale.

Benoit's advice to aspiring entrepreneurs resonates deeply - attentive listening to clients' needs, quick adaptation from failures, and consistent learning. These insights not only reflect the values of ncScale but also serve as guiding principles for those embarking on their entrepreneurial journey.

As we continue exploring the world of no-code with 'The Early Days' series, we are eager to learn about more groundbreaking innovations that are shaping this space. Stay tuned!

Keeping up with Benoit 👀

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ben_deMontecler
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benoitdemontecler

Do you have an idea that you're itching to share? Post here and watch your seeds grow into a forest. 🌲🌳🌲🌳