We’ve talked in the past about the different ways it can help start-ups and big corporations, as well as guides on getting the most from no-code, but it’s also important to recognise those that have already started the journey and one of the questions we get asked more than most is for examples of real-life no-code cases.
The following examples range from very small no-code start-ups through to major international companies. They are all inspiring stories in their own right from which businesses can learn so much.
Bloom Institute of Technology (formerly Lamdba School)
One of the most inspiring no-code built companies for how they have embraced the no-code approach to growing a company and the way they have changed a market sector that supports education.
BloomTech operates what’s termed ‘Income Share Agreements’, which basically means you don’t pay for the education you receive until you start earning over $50,000 / year. The company charges 17% of your salary for the first two years after you get a job or until your costs are paid off, whichever comes first.
The company initially built an MVP (a route all start-ups should take!) using a combination of no-code tools like Typeform, Airtable and Retool. Since this, they have continued to embrace the no-code community, utilising at various points, Webflow, Calendly, Zapier and Salesforce to successfully scale the business.
In 2020 the company raised a new investment of $74M and with its continued growth, its valuation will now be significantly more than the $150M it was valued at in 2019 and currently has over 150 employees.
Kollecto
We love the story of Kollecto because it shows the power of no-code to get a company going when it has little funds and no technical ability. It was able to build an MVP, continually iterate and even when it hit a brick wall of capability, realised that no-code is not the blocker but the utilisation of the tools.
It is a platform for people to share and buy art, giving access to an art buyer to everyone. The business was built for $600 / month by founder Tara Reed using tools like Typeform, Plasso and Strikingly, creating a first MVP that was able to support her first $30k in revenues. She continued to evolve by adding tools like Zapier and SurveyGizmo before hitting the first block.
When reaching 1,500 users the issues with providing the recommendations started, taking up to three weeks to return results to people. But rather than allow this to dishearten her, Tara doubled down on the no-code approach, realising she just needed different no-code tools and that’s where Bubble entered the story.
By switching to the more powerful no-code tool, she could implement an art-matching algorithm, something she couldn’t have hoped to do with the previous tools or without spending a fortune on traditional development methods.
WeLoveNoCode
We'd be remiss if we didn't include ourselves on this list, we don't just help others with no-code but we've built our entire product offering on it, we believe in what we do!
The business continues to grow as we evolve the offering and add hundreds of new no-code experts to our marketplace, allowing us to support businesses around the world. This has led to investment from people like David and Daniel Liberman (who are Snapchat investors).
The website is built with Webflow and Tilda, the platform was created with Bubble and remains on it to this day, whilst the database we use is Airtable. We also make great use of the extensive no-code integration network whenever we look to evolve our product.
Saga Healthcare
A slightly different example of no-code being used, this time by an established business that wanted to disrupt their industry and needed a fresh approach to making it possible.
A UK based healthcare business, they looked to move into in-home care for the elderly and recognised that they needed a market-leading home-care scheduling system that was flexible and could respond swiftly to the customers' needs.
They had been told it would cost them millions and take several years to produce until they turned to Mendex, a specialist low-code and no-code solution. They cut the development time down to six months and it was delivered for just 5% of the originally quoted costs!
It is not just for no-code start-ups, it’s now becoming a game-changer for big business.
Qoins
One of the most established success stories in the no-code community, this Fintech was created to help people pay off debts faster through the use of financial education, coaching and innovative repayment schemes.
They have features like payroll deductions and daily top-ups of purchases. For example, if you were to purchase a coffee for $1.75, the app could charge you $2 and then send $0.25 to the creditors.
They were built entirely on Bubble and even as they have scaled, this continues to be the case. Nate Washington, a co-founder at Qoins, has stated that they continue to be able to create and innovate the product with a small development team because of the power Bubble gives them.
They raised $750k in an angel round in 2018 and they have continued to grow, with over $12M of debt repaid through the app. But significantly, they have continued to base most of the codebase on Bubble with only a small percentage written in traditional code.
Rebel Book Club
This is a great little business and an example of how to build a business with no-code to gradually scale without incurring large costs. They have built a community of nearly 1,000 members that vote on a book for the month which everyone then reads.
The members then discuss the book via different channels and the company arranges offline and online events for the members to meet, network and participate in workshops. It is a subscription-based model and has grown to around $10,000 / month in revenues.
They’ve built the business entirely on no-code platforms that work together, utilizing Strikingly, Typeform and GoCardless
Dividend Finance
We’ve left dividend finance until last for a couple of reasons. Firstly they are a massive success story, one of the best in the no-code industry that started in 2013. Secondly and most importantly, they are an example of what you need to do to become really big - which is a great use of external resources.
The reality is, however good a no-code platform is, and they used one of the best in Bubble, if you are building an application that is going to manage $1Bn in transactions, then you are not going to build it by yourself. So selecting a good partner or freelancers to support you is critical.
They built two products, one was a solar panel financing platform for homeowners to be more sustainable, but also a CRM that the installers could access. Over the years they have (a) expanded into other homeowner products and (b) raised over $330M in funding from the likes of Credit Suisse.
