No Code, No Problem: Easy-to-Build Apps for Everyone

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

No code, no problem. Today's featured case study found a way to build professional looking apps without learning how to code. The world of mobile app development has come a long way in just a couple of years even. These apps rely largely on visual interactions to build tools, functionality and automation without the need to do any real programming, which is pretty cool. So the guy I'm gonna tell you about, he earns a substantial side income in the process by doing this.

And you too can learn how to do it, either to make your own apps or offer them to others using a service like Fiverr. Now, fun fact, the side hustler in our story stumbled upon his business, this business idea at least, while waiting in line at a food truck. Hmm, now I know where I'm going for lunch. So I'm gonna work on that. But first, I'm gonna prepare this episode for you.

No code, no problem. Easy to build apps for everyone. Story is coming up after this quick shout out to our sponsor. [Music]

Sir Dar Azimov found his side hustle while waiting in the long queue for a food truck. It was a hot summer's day in Miami and he wished there was a way he could order his food in advance and pick it up when it was ready.

Or at the very least, be able to go stand in the shade while it was being prepared. As the CEO of a marketing agency, Sir Dar was familiar with the power of native apps for business, customers love the experience of using their smartphone to order food, shop for clothes, access content, or just share updates with friends. I mean, chances are you've already used one or two of those apps like that today, right? I mean, I have, but Sir Dar had a problem. He wasn't a coder and he had no desire to become one.

Now, one of the byproducts of the COVID-19 pandemic for Sir Dar was that he had a little more time on his hands than usual. Client projects at his agency had slowed way down, which allowed him to devote time to learning new skills. So he began exploring different ways to create apps that didn't require an in-depth knowledge of coding. And that's when he stumbled upon the perfect solution. Specifically, Sir Dar came across two tools called Glide and Adalo.

I'm gonna link those up in the show notes for you, of course. These tools allow creators to build no-code apps using their platforms. Basically, that means you can choose all the features, designs, and interactive elements of an app without ever having to input a line of code. It's a little bit like using a drag and drop website builder like Wix or Squarespace, but for apps. And it means that anyone can get started making a professional-looking app.

Sir Dar invested some of his new free time into learning how these platforms work. It took a learning by doing approach. He didn't spend any money on courses or education. Instead, he set himself the task of building a functioning app that food trucks in his local area or even around the country might be able to use. And this way, he could focus his time around a specific project.

The learning curve was a little steeper than one of those website builders because apps are a little trickier to build. So it took him a couple of months to get to grips with it. But it was a lot quicker than learning how to code and build an app from scratch. After a few months of casual learning by doing, Sir Dar had a working prototype of his food truck app that he wanted to showcase. But even though the product worked well, he felt the business model wouldn't be profitable.

So he decided to scrap that project and hone his skills of building other apps. He spent much of 2020 making apps for friends and clients of his agency. And that led him to start looking for other opportunities to monetize these new found skills. Sir Dar realized that if people were willing to invest in freelance developers to build apps from scratch, there might also be a market for his no-code approach. After all, it allows him to create apps much quicker or a much lower cost.

So he created a listing on the Marketplace Fiverr to offer his services. Sir Dar set the prices for the work based on two factors. Number one, the complexity of the app. And number two, the time it would take him to complete. He found that simple apps with just a few screens could be turned around in a couple of days.

So he charged a maximum of $1,200 for them. Still pretty good rate, right? Larger apps could extend to a couple of weeks with feedback and revisions and prices for those start from $2,500. These prices were still affordable in the world of app development, but were at a rate where Sir Dar felt comfortable and well compensated for the work he was doing. His listing on Fiverr quickly became a hit.

There was a large market of people who had tried to create no-code apps for their businesses, but ran into some obstacle along the way and needed someone like him to help them complete their project. There was also a market for businesses who wanted a bootstrapped minimum viable product for their app idea. And Sir Dar could offer them just that, a quick and easy way to test a product with their audience. So as time went on, Sir Dar used his marketing skills to tweak the Fiverr listing to speak directly to those audiences. As a result, Sir Dar now makes a good extra income from his no-code side hustle without spending any money on startup costs or marketing.

He's happy with the number of leads coming in being relatively small, especially as his day job picks back up. Next, he wants to look at how he can use his no-code skills to add another element to his agency. [Music]

Congratulations to Sir Dar. Really fun story, really fun project. And also just a quick note that Fiverr is our sponsor, but had no editorial input on this story.

It just came to us through our regular process, which reminds me, do you have a story? Have you been able to start a side hustle that we have not talked about yet on the podcast? Or if you know someone, perhaps this is a good referral for them, sidehustleschool.com/sidehustlesurvey with hyphens there, side-hustle-survey, or just go to our website. You'll see a link that says submit your story, tell us about it so that we can possibly feature you on the program. Since we started this podcast more than 1,700 days ago, the vast majority of our stories come to us from referral and directly from listeners who have been with us for a while and have actually started a project, which I think is so, so cool.

So let me know if you've got a project or if you know somebody, send them to that link as well and we can feature them. All right, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to Sudar's Fiverr listing, Glide apps, Adalo, anything else I mentioned that might be helpful for somebody who wanted to create a no-code app, just go to sidehustleschool.com/1709. That is for episode 1,709. Thank you for tuning in.

I hope you'll come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

- From the Onward Project.