Yeah maybe a retail/ecommerce website sticky taped using off the shelf parts with glue, but definitely no tech startup. A landing page offering something which isn't built yet might also work using wordpress et al. However you still need some tech knowledge to get this setup.
Being in a position to build an idea is a lot more powerful then raving on about not needing to write code to build a startup. For those that have read Founders at Work will know that ideas change. This means iterations. Many many iterations. Very fast. Testing the waters with a MVP... usually that requires writing code. Unless of course you want to move slow then yeah don't write code and hope for the best with the glue.
Also, if you look at his YC application, it is clear that he had written the first version. -> YC application => https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27532820/app.html
We've discussed some ideas we could start developing, but in each case, we've always been able to come up with a quicker/cheaper way to test the relevant concept without development work. Sticking to a "no code" strategy has been a good way to focus our efforts on activities that actually matter. We both like to code and would probably be happier spending a week hacking instead of taking sales calls, but the latter is more important to our company right now.
Just because you can write code doesn't mean you have to.
I'd guess: consultants: hackathons, personal network, customers: personal network, conferences
For consultants, we've had a lot of resonance with various social media channels. It's really nothing fancy or surprising, just making a consistent effort to engage with various communities (like HN) has been fantastic.
This strategy was my only option. My BA is in Psychology and my MS is in Finance. I'm 29 and I spent the last 8 years in the Marine Corps (just got out in October as a Captain). I had no technical background, but on my last 12-month deployment to Afghanistan (returned in April 2013) I spent my free time building the first version on a $300 duct-taped laptop while teaching myself to code. For me it was a mental escape. I was on a small Marine advisor team living with Afghans. So sure, it's not revolutionary, but I did the best I could with what I had. And to this day I'm still a self-funded single founder and my costs are so low that even if I never got another customer I can stay alive indefinitely. I even have investment and acquisition interest from some companies in the space. Luckily I'm in the financial position to turn it down to keep focusing on my long-term vision.
When I started working on this in early 2012 I never imagined it'd be this hard, but I also never imagined I'd get this far. Even two years later I absolutely love it every day. I'm still passionate about the industry and have massive plans for the future. I want to change the way small businesses work and how they use websites. And look how it all started, just some dumb Marine that had an idea in 2012 a few weeks before deploying to Afghanistan for a year.
In order to hack together inexpensive tools and make your website look decent, guess what, you need to KNOW a couple of things such as HTML/CSS/PHP (wordpress) or Ruby (octopress), Python (Django) or whatever.
The examples described offer kind of services that can be build with wordpress plugins right? Okay, but even to make these plugin work properly together, you need at some point someone who knows how to write code.
Knowing how to write code, is a standard knowledge for startups, because is what turns ideas into products taking away one of the biggest expense: Development. If you have enough money, or investors you could outsource that, but for me makes not much sense. Being leader and developer at the same time, gives you a unique view top-down and down-top of your product. You can understand the dynamics of the entire operation.
