Starting and growing a new business is hard enough without having to worry about designing, coding, and maintaining your company website. As a lean startup founder, you need to focus your limited time and resources on validating your idea, acquiring users, and finding product-market fit. Thankfully, the rise of intuitive drag and drop website builders is making it faster and easier than ever for startups to create beautiful, functional websites.
In this post, we'll explore the benefits of using drag and drop site builders like Unicorn Platform to empower your startup website build.
Introduction
Building an effective website is crucial for startups - it's often the first touchpoint for capturing new users and customers. But coding a custom site from scratch is complex, time-consuming, and requires expensive developer resources that early-stage companies lack. This is where the simplicity and flexibility of drag and drop website builders comes in.
Tools like Unicorn Platform allow anyone to create elegant, mobile-friendly sites through an intuitive visual interface, not code. With drag and drop builders, startups can launch beautifully designed websites in days or weeks, not months. The best solutions offer designer-made templates, one-click integrations, and easy customization to match your brand.
Let's dive into the advantages of using drag and drop builders for startups and how to choose the right solution for your needs. We'll also cover tips for getting started with Unicorn Platform specifically. By the end, you'll understand the power these tools give startups to build winning websites faster.
Defining Drag and Drop Website Builders
First, what exactly are drag and drop website builders?
They are software platforms that allow users to create and publish websites visually, without needing to write any code. The key features include:
- Drag and drop editors - Easily add and arrange content blocks, images, text, videos, and other elements by dragging and dropping them into place.
- Template libraries - Professionally designed website templates provide starting points for customization.
- Integrations - Connect your email marketing, payments, forms, analytics and more.
- Responsive design - Websites work on all devices out of the box, adapting layouts for mobile.
- Customization - Tweak templates by changing colors, fonts, styles to match your branding.
Compared to traditional HTML/CSS coding, drag and drop builders dramatically accelerate website creation for non-technical users through their simplicity and flexibility.
Who Can Benefit from Using Drag and Drop Builders?
If you're a technical founder with advanced coding skills, a drag and drop builder may limit you. But for the vast majority of startups and small business owners, they provide huge advantages.
Ideal users of drag and drop website builders include:
- Startups and SaaS companies who want to launch quickly without a dev team.
- Small business owners seeking an affordable, self-service website solution.
- Marketers who need to prototype and test landing page design concepts rapidly.
- Teams that want to collaborate visually on website creation.
- Anyone who values speed and ease-of-use over total design control and custom code.
The bottom line? If you don't have robust web development resources, drag and drop solutions streamline website creation tremendously.
Key Advantages of Drag and Drop Website Builders
What makes drag and drop site builders so valuable for resource-constrained startups?
Intuitive visual editors - Simply drag, drop, and arrange elements to build responsive page layouts. No coding required.
Templates - Professionally designed templates act as starting points for customization.
Speed - Create great-looking sites far faster than traditional web development.
Ease of use - Intuitive editors allow anyone to build and edit sites, not just devs.
Self-service model - No reliance on overworked developers or waiting on agencies.
Affordability - Budget-friendly packages tailored to early-stage needs.
Scalability - Build MVP websites now, expand with advanced features as you grow.
For startups with more ambition than resources, drag and drop solutions provide huge speed and efficiency advantages compared to DIY coding.
Common Use Cases for Drag and Drop Builders
Drag and drop website builders excel at serving key startup needs like:
- Landing pages - Quickly create landing pages to capture leads and drive conversions.
- MVP websites - Launch minimal viable websites to start building your audience.
- Prototyping designs - Rapidly iterate on concepts for A/B testing.
- Brochure sites - Make basic "online brochure" sites to establish brand credibility.
- Splash pages - Design high-impact splash pages to kickoff product launches and campaigns.
The flexibility and speed of drag and drop platforms empowers startups to quickly bring sites to life for diverse use cases.
Key Considerations When Choosing a Drag and Drop Builder
With many options available, focus on these factors when evaluating drag and drop website builders:
- Core features - Robust drag and drop editor, templates, integrations and customization options.
- Startup specialization - Templates, components and features tailored to startups specifically.
- Learning curve - Sufficient educational resources to ramp up quickly.
- Support channels - Email, chat, forums to help you build your site.
- Scalability - Ability to add advanced functionality as your needs grow over time.
- Reviews - Feedback from current users on ease of use, quality, and value.
Prioritize solutions purpose-built for the unique needs of early-stage startups and SaaS companies.
Comparing Top Drag and Drop Website Builders
With those key considerations in mind, let's compare some of the top drag and drop website builder options available today.
Wix
- 500+ designer templates for diverse use cases
- Drag and drop editor to customize sites
- Mobile optimized designs
- App market adds functionality like forms, payments, etc
- Lots of freedom for creative site designs
- General purpose, not focused specifically on startups
Squarespace
- Beautiful templates with polished, modern aesthetics
- Powerful ecommerce functionality built-in
- Scheduling, membership and marketing capabilities
- Better for creative portfolios vs quick MVP launch
- Some find interface complex and less intuitive
Webflow
- Robust design features and animation builder
- Prototyping capabilities make it great for MVP iteration
- Library of multi-page templates from the community
- CMS and hosting features for advanced management
- Steep learning curve compared to other options
Unicorn Platform
- Specialized components and templates for startups
- One-click installation of key integrations like forms and payments
- Easy drag and drop editor with inline text and image editing
- Affordable pricing plans tailored to lean startup budgets
- Library of startup-focused content and tutorials
Key Takeaway - For startups specifically, solutions like Unicorn Platform with features and templates built for SaaS provide advantages out of the box.
Must-Have Features in a Drag and Drop Builder
Focus on these core website builder features to empower your startup:
Intuitive Drag and Drop Editor
Look for a drag and drop editor that is simple enough for non-technical users but still provides advanced capabilities. Test how easy it is to:
- Drag and drop elements like images, text blocks, buttons, etc
- Resize, align, and format elements
- Edit text, fonts, colors directly on the page
Unicorn Platform strikes a great balance between an intuitive interface and powerful functionality.
Templates and Design Options
Leverage professionally designed templates as starting points for customization. This saves huge amounts of time compared to coding a design from scratch.
Ideally, your builder should offer:
- Mobile-optimized templates
- A wide variety of template designs
- Ability to fully customize colors, fonts, layouts
- Industry-specific templates (like SaaS for startups)
Unicorn Platform has a template library tailored specifically to startups and SaaS sites.
Integrations and Connectivity
Assess how easily the builder allows integrating key third-party tools like:
- Email marketing
- Forms
- Payments
- Live chat
- Analytics
Look for one-click integrations and avoid patchwork solutions. Unicorn Platform comes built-in with the core tools startups need.
Onboarding and Support Resources
To ramp up quickly, check for:
- Tutorials and documentation
- Community forums to connect with other users
- Email, chat and phone support options
- Blog posts and videos that educate users
Unicorn Platform focuses heavily on customer education through documentation and startup-focused content.
Scalability and Growth Features
Make sure the platform you choose can expand with your needs over time by offering advanced capabilities like:
- SEO and metadata optimization
- Email marketing and automation
- More complex page and template designs
- Site management features and permissions
Unicorn Platform aims to grow with its users, meeting both immediate and long-term website needs.
Evaluating Your Specific Use Case
With those key criteria in mind, take time to evaluate your startup's unique goals, audience, timeline and resources.
Clarify Your Goals and Objectives
- What business goals will your website help you achieve? Lead gen, sales, etc?
- Outline your high-level vision, strategies and metrics for the site.
Having clear goals will inform your builder choice and how you use it.
Understand Your Audience
- Who are you trying to reach and influence with your website?
- Map out your target personas - their challenges, needs and motivations.
Choose a platform that can easily create sites optimized for your audience.
Evaluate Your Timeline and Budget
- How quickly do you need to launch your site MVP?
- What budget and resources do you have available, both now and ongoing?
Prioritize must-have features and templates that fit your timeline and budget.
Assess Your Ongoing Site Management Plans
- Who will keep the site updated after launch - founders, marketing, agencies?
- Ease of use is key if you have limited internal resources.
Pick a builder with site management capabilities that match your team's skills and bandwidth.
Compare Builders Hands-On with Free Trials
- Don't just compare specs - test builders out yourself with demos and free trials.
- Assess their UX and capabilities with your actual use cases in mind.
Hands-on experience gives you confidence in choosing the right platform.
Getting Started with Unicorn Platform
If you're interested in trying out Unicorn Platform specifically, here are some tips:
Sign Up for a Free Trial
Register for a no-strings-attached 7-day free trial to access all features and start building. No credit card needed.
Browse Templates and Pick Your Design
Browse Unicorn's SaaS-specific template library and pick one that fits your brand style. Tweak it to make it your own.
Add Your Content and Connect Integrations
Paste in your own text, images, videos and start connecting your email, forms, payments, etc using built-in integrations.
Iterate and Optimize for Conversions
Publish a basic landing page, gather data on user response, and continuously iterate to increase conversions.
Leverage Unicorn's Startup Resources
Make use of Unicorn's library of documentation, guides, forums and support to accelerate your learning.
Conclusion
Creating an impactful website quickly is crucial for startup success. Coding from scratch isn't realistic for most founders. That's where intuitive drag and drop website builders come in - they empower startups to build effective sites themselves in a fraction of the time and cost.
Solutions like Unicorn Platform provide user-friendly visual editors, designer templates optimized for startups, built-in integrations, and educational resources specifically tailored to lean startup teams.
If you're looking for a fast, affordable way to get your SaaS or startup website up and running, drag and drop builders like Unicorn Platform are an excellent choice. Sign up for a free trial today and start building your web presence!
