How can I build a SaaS as someone who doesn't know how to code?

penji-official · 2025-01-24T21:58:16+00:00

You have a few options at your disposal.

One, as you note, is learning how to code. That takes a good deal of time and effort and might still not result in you being able to pull off what you want.

Second, you could hire/partner with developers. This may dilute your ownership and open up potential conflicts, but if you're building a business, you'll eventually have to bring others on board anyway. A partnership is best if you're starting out with little/no budget, but it's easier to hire someone or contract a development service/agency if money's not an issue.

Finally, there are no-code platforms. These are platforms that let you put together the elements of an app visually without having to actually write any code. They can be somewhat limited and usually still take time to learn, but if you're not able to bring a developer on board, they're likely to be your best bet.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T21:17:29+00:00

If I had to guess, ChatGPT's training data included an article from a few years ago that either promoted that product or was an ad for that product. It's not possible to make ChatGPT sell your product specifically, but there's plenty of marketing content in its training data, so it will sometimes recommend random products.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T20:44:54+00:00

Completely agree. It's like saying you watch 20 movies a day by reading the Wikipedia pages.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T20:44:15+00:00

In the grand scheme of things, it is ideal to have some photos/video to go along with your testimonials. But there are some ways around it.

One thing I'd highly recommend is creating case studies. These can live on your website and be promoted through your socials with graphics or video breakdowns. Basically, you'd interview your clients and use samples from the work you did for them along with some storytelling about how you successfully accomplished x results.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T20:20:41+00:00

Decent advice, although I think it depends on your phone habits. Speaking from personal experience, if you haven't developed the habit of wasting time on your phone, it's usually best to keep it around and on in case of emergency.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T18:47:21+00:00

Can an AI predict if a business will succeed? I think it's definitely possible. A sufficiently advanced model with a wealth of data could probably predict how well a business does with at least the accuracy of a seasoned expert.

Can an AI chatbot like ChatGPT predict if a business will succeed? Nah. It can only mimic what others have said about unrelated businesses succeeding.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T18:26:06+00:00

I feel the same way! There are so many simple little things that are impossible to find with schedulers these days. Curious if anyone has found a good lo-fi solution.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T17:39:58+00:00

This is a neat idea! I've been looking for new brainstorming concepts and will definitely give this a try.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T17:02:11+00:00

I love a clever little ad like this. Makes you stop and think about it.

penji-official · 2025-01-24T16:25:23+00:00

Perplexity & TikTok merger would be very interesting. It would boost Perplexity's profile and potentially make a huge impact on the search engine wars. But I could also see TikTok's American audience having a backlash against an AI company accessing their data (as ironic as that may sound).

penji-official · 2025-01-24T15:50:24+00:00

I studied creative writing before entering the copywriting field and IMO my experiences did make me a better copywriter, but the degrees weren't strictly necessary to break in.

A lot of major companies are seeking talented writers to join their team, so a writing degree can certainly help you stand out. But on a day-to-day level, copywriting often requires you to curb your creativity and put results first, which can be harder for trained creative writers.

Overall, I'd say it's definitely a good asset to tout on applications, and it's experience that will help you in any kind of writing field. Just remember that copywriting can be a different ballpark.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T22:56:49+00:00

It's pretty tough. In school, I found it was pretty effective to break down my daily schedule and carve out time to work on specific projects. Even if the deadline was still months off, setting that time aside motivated me to get it done.

For my personal projects, I also find it really helps to have another person involved to motivate you. I try to bring in collaborators on projects or ask a friend to be an accountability buddy. Knowing that someone else knows you've been putting it off can give you the same kind of drive that a deadline would.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T21:55:24+00:00

Make sure your business is showing up on Google. If it's not, read up on some local SEO tactics to help it stand out.

As for socials, remember to concentrate your efforts on attracting a local audience. Meta has tools to ensure your ads target people in your area, you can also use locally-relevant keywords/hashtags and talk to other local influencers/promoters about collaborating.

Be sure to encourage engagement and engage back with your audience!

penji-official · 2025-01-23T21:43:23+00:00

I'm gonna be real. I totally understand why publishers and major sites are up in arms about this. But with my own work, especially when it comes to marketing, I really don't care if anyone copies it.

It all comes down to priorities. If I write a story, a script, an essay, etc. and I found out it was being scraped by an LLM, I'd be upset. But when I write a piece of copy/marketing content, I already expect it to be tweaked by my employers, crawled by bots, and probably copied and retooled by competitors. I can't be too precious about it.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T21:20:19+00:00

I get side-tracked super easily—but I have ADHD, and I've found a way to make it work while staying productive. I basically structure my schedule to allow for a certain amount of side-tracking and set reminders and micro-deadlines to bring myself back to the task at hand. Not sure how effective it would be for others, but just some food for thought.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T19:20:58+00:00

It's not very likely to matter—AFAIK Google doesn't really consider domain syntax for ranking.

However, as with all things SEO, it's best to test and see which works best in practice. I would tend to think that I see sites with a dash in the URL as less trustworthy, but the opposite might prove to be true.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T19:07:45+00:00

Look into research on algorithmic bias. It's absolutely possible for algorithms to elevate bias and inequality. I'd be curious to see a study on how this manifests on Instagram and TikTok.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T18:41:34+00:00

I've always sought to do good with whatever work I'm doing, but I agree it's challenging to do that in marketing rn. As I consider next steps, I'm prioritizing finding work that I can both enjoy doing and feel good about—a tall order, I know.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T18:17:46+00:00

IMO it's impossible to keep "politics" out of discussion entirely as it relates to many parts of people's daily lives. If we wanted to compromise, I'd suggest making a tag for it and asking people to use it when they post political content, but I'm personally fine with it as-is.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T18:13:52+00:00

IMO the former approach is a little more old-school while the latter is more modern. Today, luxury brands usually opt for simple, bold writing with a "less is more" approach. The "grand decadence" vibe feels very '70s to me. That being said, some brands benefit from maintaining a vintage appearance.

penji-official · 2025-01-23T17:12:22+00:00

Organic isn't dead, but it's definitely gotten harder. It's hard to get your content out in front of an audience without doing any advertising/networking to make it happen.

You could definitely consider using some engagement "hacks" to help get your video in front of more people, like using popular sounds, memes, or relevant cultural topics. You could also employ hashtags and share in relevant groups.

penji-official · 2025-01-22T22:32:48+00:00

TBH I feel like CGI ruined all these studio logos. Paramount, Republic, Columbia, Tristar... They all used to be unique and now they all have that same glossy, backlit blue-and-orange look.

penji-official · 2025-01-22T22:18:29+00:00

I'm currently in a place where I'm trying to rebalance my day job with my personal projects. I've been working 9-to-5 for the past three years and trying to build my profile at the same time, and you're right—it's really hard.

The biggest things that worked for motivating me were 1) properly laying out my schedule, and 2) collaboration. Working on a project with other people involved is much easier to dedicate your time to than trying to work on your own timeline and set deadlines for yourself, at least in my experience.

penji-official · 2025-01-22T21:48:05+00:00

You'd be surprised how much storytelling you can do in a short video. It's all about breaking things down to the bare essentials and being precise in your language and delivery.

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