As a non-technical person using ChatGPT for code-related tasks, I find myself trying to create scrapers on replit.What other types of things should everyone (non-programmers especially) be looking at learning?
(I’m the founder of a company, Makerpad[*], that teaches people no-code)
Glide[1] - lets you create apps from a google sheet. Set up the template connected to your data and as it updates, your app will too.
Stacker[2] - build web-apps without code. Supports Airtable and most recently, Sheets.
Softr[3] - similar for websites but using Airtable as the data source. I think Sheets support will come soon.
Sheets2Site [4] - website builder with google sheets.
For GoogleDocs you can use parameters in the doc that change using something like Zapier (disclaimer: they acquired my company last year). I haven’t explored it the other way around eg. Data into a google doc updating something elsewhere.
[0] https://www.makerpad.co/ [1] https://www.glideapps.com/ [2] https://www.stackerhq.com/ [3] https://www.softr.io/ [4] https://www.sheet2site.com/
I was full-time on it with a small team for 18 months when we were acquired by Zapier in March this year.
Our revenue was public in 2019/2020-ish and pulled in around $420k/year
yeah we had a 50/50 split agreement and applied to YC on that basis too.
I've been able to hire a few folks to join the company, ship features faster, increase revenue to new heights and are always there as my first point of call as a solo-founder. It's a tough job but the support has been super helpful. From other founders in the same position as me as well as from the mentor network.
From the inside, the other founders are growing each month and bringing in more and more revenue - so based on the way they invest it looks like everything is going in the right direction.
I'd recommend it as a current Earnest-backed founder for sure. Happy for others to reach out if they're considering it too.
Josh Miller shared his chrome browser history tool. Avg. 126 sites/day. 45% of sessions start w/ a Google Search. Visited Twitter 4.7K times in the last 6 months!!
It's not that reassuring for someone just starting out wanting to test a random idea that you have to do these big things in order for it to see the light of day.
No-code tools are becoming so powerful that you can build all sorts of things and I built a site with lots of tutorials for that purpose[1] (It's a membership site, some tutorials are free). Things like a marketplace app like Airbnb[2], an Instagram like app[3], eBay marketplace[4], tools for product/market fit[5], membership sites and a lot more using a number of tools.
Now I know lots of people have their opinions about cloning sites but personally, I think if you have an idea for a specific site which would work like X then I don't see why using the user experience of a similar site can't be the starting point for where these non-technical folk start testing their ideas.
Also, I think it's powerful for professionals to be able to build themselves small tools in order to increase their workflows, productivity etc without relying on dev resources especially in an increasingly remote workforce.
[1] https://www.makerpad.co/ [2] https://www.makerpad.co/tutorial/airbnb-mobile-app-clone-plu... [3] https://www.makerpad.co/tutorial/instagram-clone-using-glide... [4] https://www.makerpad.co/tutorial/creating-a-marketplace-app-... [5] https://www.makerpad.co/tutorial/how-superhuman-built-an-eng...
(founder of Makerpad)
Pull Panda just got acquired by GitHub and at one point Abi was doing like $25k/mo in revenue. He mentioned in a talk about how the first version was built with Zapier. I wonder what else could be?The links from his story are here: https://www.makerpad.co/blog/from-a-product-built-on-zapier-to-acquired-by-github
- you could be setting up an Airtable to run online courses but you want someone to help you level it up - you may need some help on an advanced automation using Zapier - you may have starting building sites with Webflow but need someone to give you some pointers for an extra level of polish
The only reason these tutorials are built as 'clones' is to show the features for others to tweak for their own.
I’ve built lots of applications without code (and teach others how @ https://www.makerpad.co/) one being a mini Netflix ‘clone', Airbnb ‘clone’ and Fiverr ‘clone’.
They may not be able to withstand Netflix level of users and usage but why should every startup/business have to aim for that. It could service hundreds/thousands of users and turnover great revenue for those running it.
He received offers about turning it into a movie (apparently)...does the lie make it a better movie?