#1: Mainstack
created for badasses who want to show off their badassery.
🎉 Theme of the Week
Unsurprisingly, our first-ever theme of the week is no-code products. I mean, I work at Webflow 🤷♀️. Outside the hype, I think no-code tools have a place in my heart because their main motive is making the web more accessible to non-technical folks.
The internet is a world on its own. With the advent of web3 and conversations about the metaverse, it will only get more complex. What I find absurd is that only about 1% of folks *in the entire world* are technical enough to build on the internet. Isn’t that crazy? This is where no-code tools come in. They help bridge the gap and make it such that the remaining 99% are not helpless. They try to empower them to do some things, which is better than nothing at all.
People in the west have been raving about no-code for years and talking about empowering everyone. As someone who cares a lot about African representation, I was curious to see if I could find no-code tools built by Africans and surprise, surprise, I found our two products of the week. I’ll introduce one of them today and the other in the next issue. So let’s dive in!
Product Profile
Name: Mainstack
Website: https://mainstack.co/
Countries Served: Worldwide
Product Area: No-Code Tool
Pricing: Free
Founder: Ayobami Oyaleke
Company Funding Stage: Undisclosed
Year Founded: Undisclosed [Public beta launched: January 2022]
Currently Hiring? No, but you can enquire at [apply@mainstack.app]
In their own words:
Mainstack is a no-code tool which allows you to create a customizable web page that harmonizes all you want to share with your audience/followers. With Mainstack, you can accelerate the discovery of your personal brand, business or services; including building a mailing list and getting more views, audience and subscribers.
You can use Mainstack’s web page to:
Share your services, products, passion, projects, testimonials and social profiles.
Introduce yourself and what makes you amazing.
Highlight your latest and greatest work.
Build your mailing list and keep your community updated about your work, services and products.
Launch your new business idea.
Receive new consultations and clients.
Get more views and listens on your Video and Podcast platforms, turning your followers into subscribers.
Get remunerations from your followers and admirers after a well-rendered service.
Sample Mainstack Sites:
Dumss’ Review:
1 I got to play with the product a little and decided to share some of my thoughts.
Onboarding was seamless. They might benefit from having a product tour or onboarding checklist for new users, but I don’t think the product is too complex for people to figure out.
I love that your dashboard shows you key analytics at a glance. I also love that you get to see how what you’re building looks like in real-time on desktop and mobile devices.
They support the use case of people who teach courses and sell things, which I love. There are some nuances with these two use cases; I love that they were able to identify and build for them.
Their features supporting personalization are surprisingly robust. For a product that has been public for less than a year, they support a lot of use cases, and I like it. I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much personalization.
What people are saying about Mainstack:
In Conclusion:
I found this particularly interesting. The founder tweeted this about five months ago, and I’m sure the numbers have significantly increased since then. It shows that there is demand for their product. But what I love the most about it is that they’re not limiting themselves to the African market. It’s so great to see. I have a lot of faith in the product, and I can’t wait to see where they go with it.
If you like what you’ve seen so far, you can check Mainstack out for yourself here.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about Mainstack! You can drop your comments here or on Twitter. Don’t forget to tag us in your posts @vizibleafrica!
Bowing out:
That’s it for this issue! I hope you found it insightful. If you have feedback on how we can improve the newsletter, please send it to me here.
If you have any products you’ll like for us to feature, you can nominate them here.
If you have theme ideas, you can drop them in the comments, mention us on Twitter @vizibleafrica or drop them here.
See you in the next issue. What do you think the next product will be? Tell us on Twitter, and be sure to tag us at @vizibleafrica.
Yours in Product Discovery,
Dumss
Caveat: This is not me recommending or endorsing the product. This is just me dropping my thoughts as an end user. This is not a paid or formal partnership.