Communities of Practice: How No Code Ops Built a Thriving Community for No-Code Operators

It started in 2020 as a newsletter for professionals wanting content and information on no-code tools.

Fast forward two years and No Code Ops was on its way to becoming a leading resource for over 10,000 no-code operators worldwide, providing them with a weekly dose of info on tools that would help them create and innovate without having to write a single line of code.

But Co-founder and CEO Philip Lakin and his team wanted to take it a step further — to offer their subscribers a more interactive way to connect, learn, and network.

So the No Code Operators Discord Server was born and Claudia Cafeo joined the team in 2022. As No Code Ops' first Community Manager, she transformed what was once a newsletter subscriber base into a thriving community.

Here, she discusses her passion for no-code tools, how she found herself in community, and how No Code Ops has evolved.

Making the pivot to community

Claudia: My journey into no-code and, subsequently, No Code Ops started with the founding of my own community, Floxies.

In 2020, I worked as a primary school higher-level teaching assistant, supporting children with special educational needs. This was my career for over eight years, and I absolutely loved my job. Unfortunately, the pandemic made it highly unsustainable for me to continue working on the front line, so I started looking for a job that would allow me to work remotely.

That's when I started to do some research and found UX design and no-code. I spent most of my nights learning as much as possible before eventually stumbling upon Webflow. As a result, my life completely changed.

During my learning and discovery phase, I noticed how male-dominated the tech industry was and still is. So when I started looking for design mentors on professional platforms, I had to decline some offers that, unfortunately, had nothing to do with design.

This was disheartening for me, but I didn't want to give up. I still wanted to change my career, so I kept at it. Eventually, I landed two internships (one unpaid), and I learned a lot during that time, but one of the most important lessons was that if you really want something, you need to keep pushing for it. You need to keep trying.

This experience got me thinking that there may be other women just like me who needed a way to find mentors and make their career pivot. So I used a social media platform to ask a few women if they were interested in creating a group to study together.

That little study group turned into the Floxies Community — a community of over 1,300 women all over the world who support one another and learn UX/UI Design and Webflow together.

This was what ultimately led me to No Code Ops.

My work with Floxies caught their attention, and they decided to reach out to me to revamp their existing community offering. It was an excellent fit for me because of my existing no-code background and desire to steer my career in this direction.

My journey with No Code Ops started about seven months ago. After creating a community strategy, initiating weekly live events, and building an engaging Discord server for them, we are now the happy home to over 500 no-code operators and counting.

What is it that they say? Choose something you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life. That's how I feel about community management. I don't find running both the Floxies and No Code Ops communities stressful. It's work I believe in.

The rise of no code

Claudia: No code empowers so many people. Research shows that only about 0.5% of people worldwide know how to code, which leaves 99.5% of people who will probably turn to no code to innovate. No-code tools are also browser-based, so users don't really need a super-powerful laptop to use them.

Right now, no code is more common in the US as a technology, but I am really excited to see how it's also starting to impact Europe and other countries. I was particularly impressed by France and its huge no-code following. In October 2022, I attended my first No Code Summit in Paris, and it was absolutely incredible to see over 1,000 no coders gathered there.

Soon, people won't need to rely entirely on code to have an idea and see it to fruition. Instead, they'll be able to develop it using these tools, and that's powerful.

I still think coding will always be helpful to the future of no code as a technology, and I would always encourage the two things to co-exist.

Having a basic knowledge of code could really help any no-code learning scale up even faster and understand it even better.

No code will shape our future in the next five to 10 years, and No Code Ops will be at the forefront — giving people access to a community of like-minded individuals who can connect, support one another, learn, and build the next revolutionary idea together.

The evolution of No Code Ops

Claudia: In terms of converting our newsletter subscribers into community members, a strategy that has worked well for us to turn has been to share our highlights from the community in a short section of our main newsletter.

This is not only to share some value extracted from our conversations within our Discord but also to highlight the fact that we do have a community now, and people are more than welcome to join us.

Our community has a free and paid-for membership, but it still operates as a single unit. You can't put a price on knowledge; that's why we still provide value to both our free and premium members.

Our free option offers access to our community on Discord and Twitter, our newsletter, and any free events we may host. This is still a great deal because we're not limiting members from experiencing the best parts of our community.

Having a paid membership option allows community members to benefit more from the service a community provides, while enabling those who run that community to keep providing the service. It's a win-win.

That's why it made sense for us to introduce a paid option as a part of our offering. We charge $99 annually, and our premium members get access to special discounts for their no-code tools, private Discord channels, exclusive deals on the No Code Ops swag, and much more.

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