The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

How build an interactive and responsive website from scratch

RazorCut

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
358%
May 3, 2014
2,032
7,269
Marbella, Spain
Totally what @Jon L said. Especially utilising existing plugins. There are literally 1000’s out there. Much quicker and easier than starting from scratch.

You can go the bespoke route later once you have customers and an income stream but in the meantime look at launching something lean and add the bells and whistles as you go.

This is how so many of the best apps and SAAS services got started, minimum viable product then expanded from there.
 

Jon L

Platinum Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
272%
Aug 22, 2015
1,649
4,489
Bellevue, WA
Before you write one line of code:
1) Figure out the business problem(s) your site is going to fix
2) Figure out the best (most cost effective, attractive to clients, quickest to implement, etc) way to address that problem. The answer may not be a website or software.
3) If you still think you need a website, lay everything out logically. Tell a story with your layout.
4) Install WordPress and cobble together a bunch of plugins to accomplish what you want. This is easier than learning coding.
5) Sell the thing to customers
6) Build from there (learn to code at this point, or hire it out)
 

Jon L

Platinum Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
272%
Aug 22, 2015
1,649
4,489
Bellevue, WA
Totally what @Jon L said. Especially utilising existing plugins. There are literally 1000’s out there. Much quicker and easier than starting from scratch.

You can go the bespoke route later once you have customers and an income stream but in the meantime look at launching something lean and add the bells and whistles as you go.

This is how so many of the best apps and SAAS services got started, minimum viable product then expanded from there.
I'd suggest doing the WordPress thing even if you were an expert coder. If there are plugins out there that can do most of what you want, using something that's already thought-through, coded and tested is far faster to implement than writing something from scratch.

There's always 'fake automation' too. A button on your website might send you an email to perform whatever complex action the user requested. The user doesn't need to know that there's nothing on the other side except a human. (Clearly, this doesn't scale, but it sucks to invest time and money into something that no one wants.)
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

YOUNGRICHANDFREE

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
233%
May 2, 2020
18
42
London
Hi. I have little knowledge about HTML and last year i went through and introduction to Python. But now i urgently need to start building an interactive website and possibly an app for a community business start up. I don't have the funds to hire someone to do this for me so i want to design and code it myself. I imagine the task is enormous for someone who's not an IT profession. But am hoping there is a way i can do it with minimal mistakes and setbacks
Please, i welcome any ideas on where i can begin.
Start by focusing on what you can do.
Divert you attention away from what you can't do.
Believe me, if you have a burning desire to accomplish something. You will find a way, not make excuses.

I hope someone below can offer some practical advise. I can only provide mindset shifts.

Get to work :)
 

astr0

Grinding
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
140%
Dec 3, 2017
356
500
36
Lviv, Ukraine
Python is a backend language. It shines for machine learning, but won't help much in build the frontend of a responsive website or web application.

For the website, you'll have to learn HTML, CSS / SCSS. Starting with a theme or a UI framework can save some time, and you can tweak the theme without too much knowledge of the code itself. There's also WordPress, Wix, and other CMS/platform that require zero programming knowledge for most of the basic actions.

For an app, you'll definitely need Javascript/Typescript. jQuery can add some interactivity but it's a dead-end if you really need app and not just some popups and animations. You'll have to learn a frontend framework like React, Vue, or Angular. React is the best in my opinion, still very trendy and popular. Vue might be easier to learn, especially if you already know HTML.

Everything from the above takes some time to learn. Of course, you shouldn't be learning in a vacuum and it's best to learn while doing. There are some no-code application builders too. They promise that you can create quite complex applications without or with minimal programming knowledge and experience. I haven't tried them, only heard rumors that Bubble.io is quite capable and people do make real apps with it (not affiliated with them in any way). They must have decent competition too, it's one of the ideas every programmer want's to turn into a startup :).
 

EdLotan

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
29%
Jun 19, 2020
7
2
Pretoria
Python is a backend language. It shines for machine learning, but won't help much in build the frontend of a responsive website or web application.

For the website, you'll have to learn HTML, CSS / SCSS. Starting with a theme or a UI framework can save some time, and you can tweak the theme without too much knowledge of the code itself. There's also WordPress, Wix, and other CMS/platform that require zero programming knowledge for most of the basic actions.

For an app, you'll definitely need Javascript/Typescript. jQuery can add some interactivity but it's a dead-end if you really need app and not just some popups and animations. You'll have to learn a frontend framework like React, Vue, or Angular. React is the best in my opinion, still very trendy and popular. Vue might be easier to learn, especially if you already know HTML.

Everything from the above takes some time to learn. Of course, you shouldn't be learning in a vacuum and it's best to learn while doing. There are some no-code application builders too. They promise that you can create quite complex applications without or with minimal programming knowledge and experience. I haven't tried them, only heard rumors that Bubble.io is quite capable and people do make real apps with it (not affiliated with them in any way). They must have decent competition too, it's one of the ideas every programmer want's to turn into a startup :).
I appreciate all the insights. Thank you
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

EdLotan

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
29%
Jun 19, 2020
7
2
Pretoria
Hi. I have little knowledge about HTML and last year i went through and introduction to Python. But now i urgently need to start building an interactive website and possibly an app for a community business start up. I don't have the funds to hire someone to do this for me so i want to design and code it myself. I imagine the task is enormous for someone who's not an IT profession. But am hoping there is a way i can do it with minimal mistakes and setbacks
Please, i welcome any ideas on where i can begin.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

EdLotan

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
29%
Jun 19, 2020
7
2
Pretoria
Before you write one line of code:
1) Figure out the business problem(s) your site is going to fix
2) Figure out the best (most cost effective, attractive to clients, quickest to implement, etc) way to address that problem. The answer may not be a website or software.
3) If you still think you need a website, lay everything out logically. Tell a story with your layout.
4) Install WordPress and cobble together a bunch of plugins to accomplish what you want. This is easier than learning coding.
5) Sell the thing to customers
6) Build from there (learn to code at this point, or hire it out)
For a better execution and outreach purposes i need a website. Thank you for these useful tips
 

EdLotan

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
29%
Jun 19, 2020
7
2
Pretoria
Totally what @Jon L said. Especially utilising existing plugins. There are literally 1000’s out there. Much quicker and easier than starting from scratch.

You can go the bespoke route later once you have customers and an income stream but in the meantime look at launching something lean and add the bells and whistles as you go.

This is how so many of the best apps and SAAS services got started, minimum viable product then expanded from there.
I'm realizing it now. I appreciate your addition
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top