Build an automated no-code web app

What is it:

Get free no-code stack recommendations.

I created this app to help with anyone who wants to get started with making a no-code side project. By entering in your idea, skill level and complexity of your build, it will return to you a custom recommended stack of tools to use. All no-code stack recommendations are based on successful no-code projects.

Maker Insight: I created this app to help with anyone who wants to get started with making a no-code side project. By entering in your idea, skill level and complexity of your build, it will return to you a custom recommended stack of tools to use. All no-code stack recommendations are based on successful no-code projects.

What did I learn:

1. No-code tool feature: Zapier - The hard thing about Zapier is that it is expensive. Zapier also happens to be one of the most user friendly tools you can use without having to do a tutorial. And as a no-code Maker it is hard to justify the cost. So that is why you would need to build quickly, put your thing out there and validate.

One surprise I learned about when building with Zapier was a feature called polling. Polling is the actual API call that Zapier will make to another application to run a job that you set up. A job can be anything that you tell Zapier what to do like go check to see if a new row of data has been added in my Airtable base, then bring that information into another place or start a new workflow that you have set up in Zapier.

In my app Get Stackd, I set up a zap to send an email everytime a Maker submits a no-code submission through the Typeform that I create. Once a user submits to typeform, I have a native integration that is part of the Typeform plan that sends that data to Airtable. Once a new row of data is created in Airtable, Zapier then takes that and sends an automated email to the user. The problem is polling frequency. Because Zapier is not automated polling, they limit the frequency that you can poll for data. This rate limit is imposed on by their pricing model. To get 3 minutes polling, you have to be on the $64 dollars per month plan. This can get expensive quick.

When I first started creating my automated app, there was not much information on Integromat. I would have definitely research more into it had I known what I know now.
1. Polling is not automatic and is expensive to just get down to 3 minutes
2. Now that I have my app created in zapier, my switchig costs are high. It would take a good amount of effort to switch over to Integromat because I don't know for sure if Integromat can perform as well as Zapier with this function and I don't know cost as well as feasibility.

These are some of the things that make no-code hard.

2. Product Strategy: You can't validate an idea but you can validate and measure what happens when you make something. When I first created Get Stackd, I had no idea if it was something that people would try. To me the obvious thing was that because I knew all the no-code tools to use, this product wasn't that interesting. But to my surprise when I sent it out into the wild I discovered that there are people who are not as familiar with no-code as I am and have no idea where to start.

When I chat with some other folks in the no-code space, like KP, he constantly reminds me that people have no idea what no-code is about. I may not view myself as an expert but compared to someone who just started out there is a massive knowledge gap.

What I learned was that I was no longer the user of my app. And that is the thing that so surprised me when I first made public by tweeting out what I created. I think that is a good signal obviously, but the point is that sometimes building a simple tool to better organize or simplify your knowledge that you have gained is really helpful for someone else. And that is a great place to start in you product making journey. It was for me.

3. Product Strategy: What is it that you can do that gives you a unique advantage or talking point that can be summarized in one sentence? This isn't just the one sentence of what your product does, but what makes it different?

I have learned with this product that being able to say that the recommendations this app gives out is based on the data from actual no-code projects is a great selling point.

Look for those selling points to be able to tell the story of the thing you made. Often when people ask me what is the thing that I made there are 3 things that I tell them. I gradually became good at these after repeating so many times. And this really helped me get focused on what value my product does and why someone should care:

What problem does it solve?:
How do you know what no-code tools to use for the idea you have?

What does it do: Get a free no-code tool recommendation based on your product idea, skill level and complexity of build.

Why does this matter?:
Get Stackd is based on data from 150+ successfully built no-code side projects to give you the best starting point.