Welcome to Edition #9 of Podcast Diary 📝🎧

“Today we curated theJJ Englertepisode with The Coda Guy

Where we extract the essential wisdom from top business podcasts and serve it up in bite-sized, actionable form for entrepreneurs and professionals on the go.

In this edition, we've handpicked 2 Actionable Ideas and 1 Key Learning from this insightful podcast episode that could transform your business approach.

TODAY'S FEATURED EPISODE

In today's episode, we pick the interview with Scott "The Coda Guy"Founder of the Coda Consulting Agency Simpladocs.

Key Insights Discussed:

• Scott's journey from frustrated high school teacher to accidental no-code consultant to building a 7-person Coda agency
  

• The strengths of Coda for rapidly creating tailored internal tools, but its limitations around data size and external sharing
  

• Their innovative Xano database integration to use Xano as a backend to overcome Coda's data limits while keeping its intuitive front-end.
  

• And more insights into the no-code space, agency operations, and founder learnings!

2 IDEAS FROM THE PODCAST Id#1:

Idea #1: Scott's Journey to Becoming a No-Code Consultant

Scott started using Coda (no-code tool) as a high school teacher to automate repetitive administrative tasks. After 3-4 years of using it personally, people started reaching out for his help building solutions on Coda. This led him to start consulting, initially charging just $15/hour. Over time, his consulting business grew into an agency of 7-8 people working primarily with Coda but also integrating other tools as needed to solve client problems.

• Scott had no tech background initially, he just wanted to automate paperwork to spend more time teaching

• He stumbled upon Coda which allowed him to build solutions with no coding

• People started offering to pay him to build things on Coda for them

• He went from consulting while teaching, to taking a full-time job using Airtable, to being laid off and deciding to go full-time consulting after a 6-month trial period

Idea #2: Coda's Strengths and Limits

Coda excels as an internal tool to build custom workflows and solutions tailored to a company's unique processes and culture. However, it has limits around data size (50k-70k rows per table) and external sharing/security that may cause clients to outgrow it over time. To address scaling needs, they have developed an integration with Xano database to use as a backend data store while keeping Coda as the front-end.}

• Coda allows embedding company rituals/culture into custom tools in a way off-the-shelf software can't

• Red flags they watch for: need for robust external sharing, data sizes over 50k-70k rows

• Released Xano integration to allow using Xano as backend database when Coda data limits are reached

• For very large data needs, they can pull slices of data from Xano into multiple Coda docs

1 KEY LEARNING

Scott explains that when a company has an "institutional habit" around using certain software or following particular processes, there is significant inertia and resistance to abandoning those familiar ways of working. Employees get comfortable with established tools and rhythms, which then become entrenched in the company's culture over time.

Attempting to deprecate those habits by introducing brand new systems tends to be extremely difficult. Scott notes how hard it is to break institutional habits that the entire organization has adopted. There is natural pushback to disruptive changes that demand employees relearn everything from scratch.

This learning underscores the importance of integrating with a company's existing processes and rituals when introducing new tools, rather than forcing radical process overhauls. Scott's approach with customized Coda solutions embraces the unique workflows and cultural elements organizations already have, updating and streamlining them without requiring teams to completely uproot their habits.

This episode offers a fascinating look behind the scenes of a truly unique founder journey and business. Did you know that despite no technical background, Scott was able to build an entire consulting agency around the no-code tool Coda? His story of pivoting from frustrated high school teacher to pioneering custom workflow solutions is equal parts inspiring and insightful.
Thank you for reading! 📩

So what do you say? Let us take you along Scott "The Coda Guy" entrepreneurial path, exploring the art of tailoring no-code solutions to match companies' unique processes, cultural quirks, and scale needs.

Have any podcast suggestions or topics you'd like covered? Just hit reply to this email and let us know!
We're listening.

Until Tomorrow,
Podcast Diary 📙