Kasper's journey building toddle, a visual web framework

Meet Kasper Svenning.

Kasper is a product designer who lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. He spent many years in the hamster wheel called product development until he decided to break it with a project called toddle.

toddle is a visual web framework that helps software teams build software as a team instead of silos.

The story told by Kasper Svenning

The idea

Me and my co-founder Andreas (developer) have built software for decades and endured the painstaking handover process of translating Figma to code. The two systems work great in isolation but less so as a team. We both found it odd that the best tool for building visual web apps is a text editor that most designers don’t know how to use.

That is why we in 2022 set out to build a tool that allows developers the flexibility they need to conjure up complex features and a visual interface that designers can use to build compelling front-ends without the heavy reliance on engineers.

Not another page builder

We - the team (today a total of 9 people) - were not interested in building yet another page builder. We needed this tool to be as flexible and performant as the modern JavaScript frameworks without the usual drawbacks associated with no-code tools.

That’s why our first task was to build a tool in code that would enable us to replace code with a visual interface and instead bring in code to extend builds instead of being the be-all-end-all.

In other words, toddle is built in toddle, and the visual development tool enabled us to build a highly complex web framework. If you are curious about what that looks like, here is a video of me fixing toddle in toddle:

Launch + marketing

In less than a year we took toddle live in beta on May 1st, 2023, on Product Hunt. The first launch brought a lot of buzz around the platform, and within weeks, we quickly got our first 1,000 signups for the beta.

If you build it, they will come, right? RIGHT? Most founders think growth comes naturally. After all, you’ve built this incredible tool; everyone will want to use it, right? Well, that’s more of an exception than a rule. We quickly found that the early excitement wasn’t enough, and very few stayed to build. The tool was too complex, with little help, instruction, and documentation.

AppSumo

toddle got a small number of daily signups in the early days, but we decided to go for a campaign to boost the numbers; the first was AppSumo, a platform that offers lifetime deals on SaaS subscriptions. This platform technically got toddle its first 100 users, actually its first 400+ users, but this didn’t bring in long-term revenue, and most buyers on AppSumo turned out to be resellers who profit from getting an early deal and reselling it at a premium.

Unfortunately, toddle was built as a subscription product, and one-time revenue at a low price is not a sustainable business model. This is one of our biggest regrets. Back to the drawing board.

Building a community

We started spending time with our users to learn and understand who they were and how they valued the platform. This unlocked many clues about what to do next and where to focus our growth efforts.

We learned that we got early traction in the no-code community as the tool offered all the benefits of custom code and none of the drawbacks typically associated with no-code. Bubble, at the time, the no-code tool, had just introduced new pricing that made their customers rethink their approach. This opened the door to toddle’s first real customers and the pillars of what is now a healthy developer community.

The new wave of users started to build on the platform and contribute to the community in a way we had not previously experienced. They built apps in toddle and created content about it for their YouTube channels and podcasts, which in turn brought in more users.

New users mean different dynamics, and the toddle team leaned in. We spent more time with this group of users to unlock more traffic and learning.

Educating no-code users

Our first big growth play was content that would educate no-code users on web development. Many no-code developers have adopted practices based on outdated development practices, as most tools were developed at a time when these practices were bleeding edge.

We created content like No-coders are real programmers on our Discord community, YouTube channel, LinkedIn, X, and relevant subreddits. This content resonated with the more advanced part of the no-code community and quickly cemented toddle as the tool for advanced web applications and grew the community of makers who build in toddle.

Most tools offer a wide variety of templates to get users started. It’s an easy way to get users into your tool and have them build. It took a while for toddle to get there, and as a result, it had an incredibly active community of developers who tried to learn how to wrangle this complex tool.

We shared new knowledge daily, almost like seeing a puzzle unfold, and because toddle only offers support through the Discord community, all this happens in the open. This constant activity and sharing brought other builders to the community. That is how toddle got its first 100 paying customers and will probably be the source of our next 10,000 customers.

Developers coming to toddle

The no-code community has provided much value and will continue to do so. Still, we discovered that toddle probably only ever appeals to the top 10% of the most advanced builders in the no-code community, as most will settle for a prebuilt template with minor modifications, a solution that’s already available, and not something toddle wants to solve for.

toddle is built by developers and designers who have spent the last 20 years building bespoke apps in code for developers and designers who don’t want to live in the same hamster wheel. We solve for these developers, and these are the ones we now see come to toddle.

Development teams deserve better tools, and toddle is a visual web framework that takes the best from modern JavaScript frameworks and development tools and makes it all accessible in a visual interface that enables more developers to build fascinating stuff.

The business model

Toddle is a subscription service. You can build or host web apps for free under a “toddle domain” or you can upgrade. Plans start at $29 making it possible to use a custom domain.

toddle user interface

Get in contact with Kasper Svenning:

• Bluesky

• X

• LinkedIn