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This. I've just built out an internal CRM for my travel company using Airtable+StackerHQ.com and for my business, it's hands down better than anything commercia

This. I've just built out an internal CRM for my travel company using Airtable+StackerHQ.com and for my business, it's hands down better than anything commercially available... because it covers all the nuance of our individual situation. 2 months ago, I was a bit down on no-code, but the experience on building on Stacker was good enough to change my mind. Softr.io is also getting there, too.

lwhi 5y ago
> because it covers all the nuance of our individual situation. Without wanting to downplay your achievement, I've worked for organisations that did the same thing with MS Access back in the early oughts. The 'custom' application grew with the organisation. Features were bolted on over the years inelegantly. It was impossible to integrate easily with other systems. The quirks of the system were known by long time employees who developed work arounds that were convoluted and took time. UX wasn't a thing back then; but if it had been people would have definitely said it had terrible UX. We've been promised these solutions for a long time. In my experience, they overpromise and underdeliver.
- dagw 5y ago
  overpromise and underdeliver. Something that under-delivers is much more useful that something that doesn't exist. In most situations and most companies the the choice is never between the ugly Access thing and top quality software written by team of highly educated professional programmers. It's a choice the between the ugly Access thing and an ad-hoc collection of text files and post it notes.
  - lwhi 5y ago
    > Something that under-delivers is much more useful that something that doesn't exist. No. I disagree. Sometime a badly constructed solution is worse than no solution. > It's a choice the between the ugly Access thing and an ad-hoc collection of text files and post it notes. I think this was definitely true before the advent of SaaS products.
- liveinspain 5y ago
  I understand your point. The reality is that no solution will ever be perfect, be it an off the shelf SaaS or my homebrew no-code build. There are a few things here which help us; - Airtable has all the integrations a human being could ever need. Our stack is Airtable + Stripe + Zapier + Wordpress + ActiveCampaign. - General awareness of the concept of UX. You need a product owner who fiercely defends the product. And .. you need a company culture which treats employee satisfaction as something that actually matters. I know that these things not common. - I have no viable alternative. SaaS companies in the tour & activity space struggle to make money and struggle to invest in their product. - A community of contractors. Airtable has a large community of able freelancers and contractors who can come help us out, if needed.
mark_l_watson 5y ago
Thanks for your comment, I just looked at AirTable and StackerHQ. A quick question: is there a way to export your data to standard file formats, just in case you wanted to move off the platform to other vendors or write everything yourself? I think that getting started quickly on a system that you will likely never have to leave makes a lot of sense, but it is good to have an exit strategy. Like with Heroku: keep running small projects there, but being able to move to alternatives.
- liveinspain 5y ago
  Yes, Airtable is exportable. That's part of the reason I chose this solution. I'm big on redundancy.

lwhi 5y ago

> because it covers all the nuance of our individual situation. Without wanting to downplay your achievement, I've worked for organisations that did the same thing with MS Access back in the early oughts. The 'custom' application grew with the organisation. Features were bolted on over the years inelegantly. It was impossible to integrate easily with other systems. The quirks of the system were known by long time employees who developed work arounds that were convoluted and took time. UX wasn't a thing back then; but if it had been people would have definitely said it had terrible UX. We've been promised these solutions for a long time. In my experience, they overpromise and underdeliver.

dagw 5y ago
overpromise and underdeliver. Something that under-delivers is much more useful that something that doesn't exist. In most situations and most companies the the choice is never between the ugly Access thing and top quality software written by team of highly educated professional programmers. It's a choice the between the ugly Access thing and an ad-hoc collection of text files and post it notes.
- lwhi 5y ago
  > Something that under-delivers is much more useful that something that doesn't exist. No. I disagree. Sometime a badly constructed solution is worse than no solution. > It's a choice the between the ugly Access thing and an ad-hoc collection of text files and post it notes. I think this was definitely true before the advent of SaaS products.
liveinspain 5y ago
I understand your point. The reality is that no solution will ever be perfect, be it an off the shelf SaaS or my homebrew no-code build. There are a few things here which help us; - Airtable has all the integrations a human being could ever need. Our stack is Airtable + Stripe + Zapier + Wordpress + ActiveCampaign. - General awareness of the concept of UX. You need a product owner who fiercely defends the product. And .. you need a company culture which treats employee satisfaction as something that actually matters. I know that these things not common. - I have no viable alternative. SaaS companies in the tour & activity space struggle to make money and struggle to invest in their product. - A community of contractors. Airtable has a large community of able freelancers and contractors who can come help us out, if needed.

mark_l_watson 5y ago

Thanks for your comment, I just looked at AirTable and StackerHQ. A quick question: is there a way to export your data to standard file formats, just in case you wanted to move off the platform to other vendors or write everything yourself? I think that getting started quickly on a system that you will likely never have to leave makes a lot of sense, but it is good to have an exit strategy. Like with Heroku: keep running small projects there, but being able to move to alternatives.

liveinspain 5y ago
Yes, Airtable is exportable. That's part of the reason I chose this solution. I'm big on redundancy.