Episode Transcript
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 0:15
Once upon a time, there were 10s of 1000s of makers struggling every day they built for hours and hours but didn't ship and did not earn enough income. One day, they know Caldwell's podcast came to help them find a way. Because of this, makers became founders and live the lives they deserve. Because of that, founders live lives of abundance, freedom, and creativity. That's what I'm really all about. Hello, my name is Aziz and from being a poor boy born to a single mother in North Africa, with no opportunities just cheer hard work, to failing multiple startups, yet learning a whole lot to barely escaping alive the war in Ukraine, even living as an illegal immigrant. I've lost everything twice. And now I'm rebuilding my life one more time. 1%. Today, sharing the wisdom of luminaries have interviewed on this podcast from Google executives, Goldman Sachs, the Financial Times, Forbes, Technology Council, World Economic Forum, Harvard University, and even a priest from the Vatican church. Everyone is welcome, here. So let's begin. My guest today is Barse. Gaurav Bharath is an official Webflow experts since 2020, and a self taught web designer and Webflow. Developer he started as a freelancer under the brand name Digi hotshot. Now him and his team of five are creating beautiful websites for startups and design agencies on Webflow. Barth, how are you today?
Parth Gaurav 2:06
I'm feeling great, pretty much excited for this podcast. And this is my first podcast. So very excited about this. Well,
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 2:13
I'm lucky. I'm grateful. I'm happy to have you here. And to begin with this question, how would they discovering an ACO tool like web flow? it change the way you think, or your perspective? Or what is possible for you? I know, it's a big word to say it, but how did no code tools change your life? And what is possible for you.
Parth Gaurav 2:39
So before like, before coming into like, knowing about what Webflow is, I used to create website using Wix or not for clients, for just for me, I had a when I was in college, I had a website for car reviews. So I had that I had created that entirely on Wix. Then, one day, I discovered on one of one of Indian entrepreneurs channel, whose name is Warren, Maya, he created a video on web flow in collaboration with web flow. So I got to know about it. And I loved like how seamless it's to create a site on web flow. But the learning curve is hard. So I looked John's just jumped on the ship. It was difficult for like one or one and a half years. But I consistently did what I did, like what I learned throughout the Cold delivery meeting and all these things, and then the ball started rolling.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 3:33
I love that. So you persisted for more than a year, in order to get fluent with web flow or good at it. What would you recommend? Okay, let's say there is a business owner who thinks if my non technical people can learn no code tools, automation tools, web flow, process, SEO, whatever it is, but how long should they expect them to train before they will be good enough? Will it need one and a half years or more for them to learn it? Do you believe that now there are a lot more resources that allow that learning and what's your advice to people who are learning Webflow or such tools in order to learn better, faster and in a good way.
Parth Gaurav 4:18
So it didn't take me like one and a half years to learn it, but I took around one month to get started on web flow i i started in like in June 2019 Then I got my first client and to the like, in July, I got I got some knowledge of a flow so that I can just create something but to get like really fluent on web flow, you need to have a strong fundamentals which is a stable and CSS and then you can start jumping on web flow so that you know like all these things like on the on web flow you have on the left side HTML panel and on the righteous CSS. So you know how to you know structure it if you know HTML and CSS. So it depends on how much time you give. I guess, the best way is to, if you like, don't have money to expand on any course, you can just started to get started with web flow University. And then after that, sorry, before web flow university, you can learn HTML and CSS, I learned it from Code Academy Pro. And then you can get started with web flow using web flow university. But if you can spend, then the best way would be to get a course from expert. I took a course from Ron Seagal. So it really fast and adapts the whole learning process.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 5:37
Thank you. And I'll ask you about design. I was reading on Twitter today designer was saying, you really need to spend the time learning design theory and you need to become a designer who is not really self taught. But who has official education? Because if you don't know design theory, maybe your designs look good, but they're not UX optimized, or the users will not they don't meet the user experience and design theory should inform everything you do. Do you agree with that? Or do you believe you are there are people who have the correct instincts for good design, and therefore, they can do it without the official training and being self taught can make you very good.
Parth Gaurav 6:23
I don't agree with this. The number one example that I have in mind is there's a company in India, based called Unacademy. So their education platform and their design had been of Chikara is a self taught designer. So he will have enough secara was the design head back and like I think last year or last year, last year, until then, so he was completely self taught. And you can learn the fundamentals on like YouTube and all and then just start practicing. And if you know the fundamentals, you can there are a lot of courses as well, on YouTube on, let's say there is one person Alexander has. So he has a course on typography and all so if you get these things learn from YouTube, and I think that's, that's a really good start for it.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 7:10
Thank you. This is very interesting. I will ask to about India and you as someone who is developing in India, and you're doing your IT work and all that. Do you feel just understand that perfectly that there is somehow this new country that is called the Internet where anybody whether you're from India, you're from Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, the US or whatever, you have the same opportunities to create your income, your future, your business? And all that? Or do you feel it's not really that way, you still are restricted by whatever is in the the legal situation, the money exchange situation, I don't know what it is. And therefore, it's not totally that you can live in the internet and make your business there. It's just big at all. Tell me what's your perspective,
Parth Gaurav 8:06
I think after COVID, everything has changed in terms of, let's say about the money. Previously, the case was whenever a company outsources to an offshore developer, they considered pricing. And right now, I've worked with only US clients, and I've worked with them for like two years now. And I haven't had a single client who judged my pricing based on my location. So I don't think pricing depends on the location now.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 8:36
Thank you. So if I understood you correctly, before COVID, if you're from India, they think the cost for life there is lower, and therefore they expect you to have lower prices. But now, it's not about the pricing. You can be in Denmark, or Canada or India, if you can get the same, like fees or price for your work as long as it's good work and high quality, correct.
Parth Gaurav 9:02
Yeah, that's that's what I have experienced so far. And I have, in my knowledge, a lot of developers who are living in remote places and making a really good income for themselves.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 9:13
Thank you. And you have created your team of five Correct? Yeah, yeah. So what do you look for in good team members? What criteria will let you know, this person will be a great team member compared to someone who might talk in a good way, but they're not really skilled, or they don't do the work
Parth Gaurav 9:33
first. Like, the most important thing is if you get like go to five when you first talk, so if I get a good vibe with them, that's the first checkmark. And the second thing is, in our case, is the workflow part. So in Webflow, I usually take a look at the read only links of how they've structured their site, if that's good, because when I create sites on web flow, I give the client a lot of rights so that you they can expand their sites. They can scale their sites in the long run. So if the structure is not good, the scale the site is essentially not scalable. So that's the two things that I look for.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 10:09
Thank you. I love this. And I love your experience as someone who's building a team, and working for agencies, and probably you have an agency yourself or for founders or people who need beautiful websites. Do you feel that the usual or the typical situation of freelancers and agencies where either they have clients or they have no clients and have to look and search and prospect a long time? So it's like feast and famine cycle of up and down? Is your usual situation? Or do you have a marketing strategy or a sales strategy? Or there aren't so many workflow, good workflow developers that we always have clients, and it's not a problem getting new ones? What's your perspective? And what's your advice to people who might think about learning no code tools, in general, in order to become freelancers about getting clients,
Parth Gaurav 11:07
I think the marketing aspect you should keep in mind like you should at least give some amount of hours, at least in a week to give to that marketing, like marketing side of things I have, in my feed, I have lots of really good founders, who I think one of them you tweeted that he has one like set of hours per week, where he scheduled all his tweets for the whole week. So you need to get like the time, the number of hours for marketing side as well, that you have the products every month.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 11:42
Thank you. I love this. And then to ask you, some people within who criticize no code, they say, Okay, if you build a website with web flow, it looks nice and all that. But if people or companies grow enough, and they need a really unique website, they should use coders who coded from scratch. Because Webflow or any Norco tool is not as powerful as coding it uniquely. And specifically, while others say that's not really true, maybe that was two, three years ago. But now, all the tools are so powerful that you will never really need to hire coders to do it from scratch. What's your perspective on this?
Parth Gaurav 12:24
So specifically, in Webflow, you there are times that on like design, design side of things, you hit some limit limitations of a flow. So in that case, you need to have a strong, like, that's what I said before as well, you need to have strong foundation in terms of HTML and CSS. And you can use custom code to like, expand their function and expand the functionality of the tool. So I can give you an example. So web flows, a native slider tool is not good. So for me, like most of the developers, and most of the good developers use, like custom sliders on their websites. So it's editable. In Webflow. The content is editable, it's easier for client, but the building part the functionality is there what the design team has planned. And one more thing to add. The no code tool also like reduces the time frame as well, in building a site.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 13:22
Thank you, that's really well said and well explained. And then to ask you, as someone who has this team building beautiful websites, do you still do things yourself? Or are you evolving as all entrepreneurs do, where you're taking care of the marketing of the administration of the management of the leadership, rather than doing the technical and workflow work yourself? And what's your perspective on that, that many people say, if you have a team, you should not be doing the work because you can hire people to do that you should focus on the founder skills, which are building relationships, or marketing, like branding, all that stuff.
Parth Gaurav 14:11
So I really like to do a lot of things myself as well. So I can give you one structure, like how our team is structured. There's me. And there's one other Webflow developer, and then there's one Junior web developer. And then there's one designer, and then I have one like CFO, so in this in this structure, so the workflow, the CFO, Delavan me, we like divided the projects in terms of complexities, how we are going to plan the projects. So that's how I do it. Like I like to do most of the things in Webflow. I really like enjoy developing sites.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 14:48
Thank you. And what's your perspective on automation? Do you have automation tools within your business? Do you use automation? Do you offer automation services? What's your whole perspective about it.
Parth Gaurav 15:02
I offer like, like, I'm not very much proficient in that I offer like small, small automations, using Zapier and all, but I'm not really proficient with that. But I really love like how these there are tools to automate a lot of processes. That takes a lot of human effort.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 15:22
Thank you. And then I'll ask you another question. You could have been an employee in a corporation or in a company and built a career and all that. And now you're working as a solo entrepreneur, taking the risks needing to go out there and get clients and get everything and risk making mistakes, and all that is your personality created for this. And therefore, if you had a career, you will not be so happy, or it was just luck that made you become a workflow expert, and therefore you just kept with it. But it's not something that you would have chosen if you had a good job. So
Parth Gaurav 16:07
I started with the whole workflow journey just after my college just after I got the degree, just after I finished my exams, I started this whole thing, there are two reasons I wanted to have something of my own one is, I have control of my time. I can go wherever I want, anytime. And the second thing is, I believe that if I have done a job, I cannot get my dream car sooner. So that's that's the like the main reason if I if I if I had done job, and I was like in a position right now, I wouldn't have the car that I have right now. Which I bought, like last year, so and I'm focusing on my goal to get my dream car. So I don't think that would be possible sooner with if I have done a job. It's my opinion.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 16:58
Thank you. This is absolutely fantastic. And let's say one of the viewers or listeners want to discover more about you about your team to learn more and use your services. Well, what are the social media or websites for them to go and I will write some of this information in this episode description.
Parth Gaurav 17:20
I'm very much active on Twitter, and Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube as well. I have just posted a video just before our podcast. I posted a tutorial after a long time. So I will drop that link as well.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 17:36
Thank you. I really thank you for everything. This was my privilege, my honor, and I wish you to keep going to get your dream car and thank you again.
Parth Gaurav 17:47
Thank you so much for having me.
