Airdev

Nowadays we often get asked what we think AI will do to the job of a software developer - I wrote up a quick blog post with some thoughts!

What are the challenges/limitations of building AI-based apps? AI may end up being the largest paradigm shift we’ve ever seen – and it’s evolving fast. Even faster than prior shifts such as the cloud, mobile, and the internet. However, despite its lightning speed advancement, there are still a few challenges and considerations to be aware of when you’re making an AI-powered app. These include: Prompt engineering AI results are highly dependent on the prompt you put in. Therefore you need to be confident that your app has the right prompt text under the hood to generate meaningful results. Fortunately, you can usually do manual testing with tools like ChatGPT, trying different prompt phrasings until you consistently get the outputs you want. Then you just plug that prompt text into the app. Cost Tools like ChatGPT are generally very low cost at the unit level – however, the cost of building it into an app can add up quickly if you have the following: (1) long prompts (e.g. sending long documents to understand and synthesize), (2) long outputs (e.g. generating long documents), (3) multiple interactions (e.g. a chatbot that has long conversations), or (4) lots of users. It's important to model out your expected costs carefully and make sure that your business model can cover them. Misleading/harmful responses Because AI models are a "black box" where you can't predict what will be returned, there’s always a risk of exposing AI results directly to users without any human vetting. Sometimes the biggest risk is a less-than-stellar document, but other times it may be outputting truly offensive materials. With your app you can introduce human safeguards, warnings, or even use one AI tool to censure another for bad material. By doing your due diligence before and during the app building process, you can develop a much more effective, sustainable, and ethical application.

Rising opportunities for marketplaces Thanks to the proliferation of no-code development, we're seeing more of the following types of marketplaces being built: •Managed services marketplaces In comparison to marketplaces that sell products (typically physical goods), marketplaces for services – ones that connect customers to humans to perform tasks – have lagged behind. However, we see a potentially massive business opportunity for marketplaces targeting services typically carried offline. The legal, home care, upskilling, industrial, and healthcare markets are all areas with addressable markets largely untapped. While services in this category typically have higher amounts of regulation, the ability to successfully navigate these areas simply means the creation of a larger moat around your business. •B2B marketplaces The U.S. restaurant industry alone does over $800 billion in sales a year. Yet wholesale food purchasers still rely on predominantly offline systems to take care of their food sourcing needs. Online marketplaces that connect food distributors with local businesses is a marketplace we would love to see, and could help target issues like the fact that a third of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste. And the potential for B2B marketplaces is not just limited to the food industry. •Niche marketplaces Not every business must be built to scale. Niche marketplaces address specific, long-tail needs of a choice few customers - albeit extremely well. While many marketplaces will be built for fewer customers than Lyft ever hopes to reach, the lower cost structures involved in building these marketplaces means they can still be very viable, profitable businesses.

What to say to investors about your no-code startup Based on our experience working with startups who received funding from investors, we recommend you make the following points to build confidence and understanding on no-code. 1. No-code helps you move quicker than your competition If you're talking to early-stage professional investors you're usually talking to angels and micro-VCs who, on average, are quite risk-tolerant. They have to be in order to be in the seed-stage investing game. Thus, I would really emphasize your speed advantage, how you'll be able to listen to your customers and change your product in a few hours/days instead of weeks/months 2. You are not married to Bubble I would be honest about both the benefits and costs of Bubble but would also frame it as "I'm using Bubble to get to the next stage of product-market fit and more money, at which point I'll get more conventional with my development, in order to scale". That usually makes sense to potential investors and you can also talk about how Bubble isn't a closed system to ease their minds: Bubble's API lets you get data out at any time, which means that you can move your data to a different platform when ready The API also lets you plug external services into the core application, so you can extend Bubble's functionality with more conventional services 3. You need the money to sell and grow Investors will inevitably ask what you plan to do with the money you raise and you have to make sure that your answer makes sense to them.  So, if you say, “I want money to focus on technical/product stuff", they are probably going to expect you to hire a big team of engineers. But if your answer is “I want to focus on sales/growth”, you can pitch Bubble as a reason you don't need to invest as much in product.

Predictions for how the no-code movement will change the world Over the last decade, the no-code movement has sprung up to provide tools that redefine the concept of a software engineer. These no-code tools are allowing a growing number of individuals (often with no development experience) to build all kinds of software quickly – without writing any code. We think the no-code movement is a big deal. After all, we’ve made it our business to help companies of all sizes build faster and leaner using no-code. We truly believe it’s the future of software development. Below are just a few of the biggest ways in which we think it will change the world: ·A massive rise in the profession of the “no-code developer” People will discover that they can make a good living building software this way, without a need for a formal degree or being in a certain location. ·More custom software There will be a decrease in the power of SaaS as companies discover that it’s often cheaper and better to build their own software instead of using something that’s off-the-shelf. ·An explosion in “long-tail” software This is software meant to solve a very specific need for a niche audience. ·A significantly greater standardization of software development This will result in 80% of products being built in a standard way, while the other 20% is built custom, to accommodate the specific consumer needs. ·A more fulfilling role for traditional developers Traditional coders/engineers will spend more of their time solving complex technical problems, while using no-code tools to solve the simple ones. ·Much broader access to software entrepreneurship People without technical backgrounds or access to large amounts of capital will be able to build companies using no-code.

7 common products and use cases for no-code app development in 2024 Check out the most common use cases and products we’ve see no-code app development used for: 1. Two-sided marketplaces Two-sided marketplaces (e.g. Airbnb for x) are one of the most common kinds of client needs that we see. These platforms allow two groups of users to communicate and transact with each other in some way. No-code is a good fit because marketplaces require common, everyday web functionality (e.g. user signups, profiles, search, transactions, etc.) rather than new technological solutions. This means that developing these apps with conventional code isn’t needed. And just as importantly, most marketplaces are unique, which makes it difficult to build a one-size-fits-all solution. 2. AI Applications The world is abuzz about AI and for good reasons. It’s likely that tools such as GPT will completely transform how a lot of modern work is done. As a result, an emerging use case for no-code that we see is creating applications around AI. In those applications AI is used to power the core of the application (e.g. creating marketing content) while no-code is used to power all of the other ancillary features that the application needs (e.g. interfaces, user authentication, payments, etc.). 3. SaaS Products These have been traditionally built with code, but no-code is well-suited for building a lot of SaaS products since the key functionality needed (user authentication, subscription payments, complex data structures, etc.) are all doable with no-code. We constantly see no-code SaaS use cases that serve both consumer and business use cases. 4. Process Automation Every organization has its processes, and many processes can be made easier and more organized with custom software. Project management, approvals, and general communication protocols can be built into simple tools using no-code. 5. Customer Portals A really common use case we see is when an organization has a bunch of data stored somewhere (e.g. Salesforce, internal databases, etc.) and they need to expose this to their customers. In those cases you can use no-code tools to build a custom portal which plugs into the data source to retrieve and update data as needed. 6. Middleware Integrations Another common enterprise use case is tying two disparate systems together. Sometimes while building a middle layer that transforms the data in some way before sending it from one system to another. There are many no-code tools that allow you to build integrations like this. 7. More Scalable Spreadsheets A common use case is that companies that depended on Excel spreadsheets to manage a process are migrating to no-code applications. That’s because spreadsheets can be incredibly powerful, but they still lack features that certain processes need in order to be scalable. These are features like user authentication, version control, external integrations to data sources, and more.

Predictions for how the no-code movement will change the world Over the last decade, the no-code movement has sprung up to provide tools that redefine the concept of a software engineer. These no-code tools are allowing a growing number of individuals (often with no development experience) to build all kinds of software quickly – without writing any code. We believe no-code represents a major paradigm shift in the way everyone will approach software development. At its core, it’s a movement that champions accessibility, democratization, and efficiency in creating digital solutions. Our no-code predictions: ·A massive rise in the profession of the “no-code developer” People will discover that they can make a good living building software this way, without a need for a formal degree or being in a certain location. ·More custom software There will be a decrease in the power of SaaS as companies discover that it’s often cheaper and better to build their own software instead of using something that’s off-the-shelf. ·An explosion in “long-tail” software This is software meant to solve a very specific need for a niche audience. ·A more fulfilling role for traditional developers Traditional coders/engineers will spend more of their time solving complex technical problems, while using no-code tools to solve the simple ones. ·Much broader access to software entrepreneurship People without technical backgrounds or access to large amounts of capital will be able to build companies using no-code.

Looking for a no code developer? Check out our guide. As no-code’s popularity for building apps faster and cheaper has increased, so has the supply and demand for no-code developers. Just do a search for no-code developers and you’ll be met with a long list of hiring platforms where individual freelancers and agencies market their services. Like any complex service offering in a competitive space, identifying and assessing which no-code developers are best at balancing quality, speed, and support can be tricky. So how can you sort through the options and find the best developer to build your app? In this article, we’ll give you the tools you need to understand your options, assess different vendors, and hire the right no-code developer for your needs and project. https://lnkd.in/gtis-Qr4

What AI capabilities can I build into a no-code/Bubble app? Generative AI produces text and multimedia assets for users. This means that any case that you can think of to input something into the tool to get something out is fair game. Based on the functionality that you need and the form of content that you want to generate – visuals, audio, text, codes, etc. – you can use AI to do any of the following things in your app: - Create original content Have your app generate anything from a blog post to an industry report, to a bid proposal or an itinerary to a children's story. Many of the marketplace apps of the past decade (which connect you to experts who can create things) will likely be challenged by AI apps that create those things instead. - Analyze lots of “stuff” Use AI to have your app ingest information in multiple formats to make sense of the world, like summarizing documents, reviewing text, images, and videos to flag and identify specific items, revising text to make it better or more consistent, and more. - Make decisions AI can help your app with decision making, whether by providing users with personalized recommendations or matches, laying out plans and strategies, and predicting future conditions. - Interact with people Chatbots can be added to any app to help people directly answer questions about the platform. Or they can also be the service itself, which might be offering virtual counselors, advisors, trainers, planners, etc.

Build just enough to solve your customer's needs When you have an idea for a product, it is natural to imagine it in its completed future state, with a robust set of features and massive user base. Having imagined this vision for some time, it can be tempting to set out to build that exact product from day one. The issue with this approach is that the long-term vision for the product is rarely the same thing as the version you should launch with. For example, the first version of Airbnb didn’t even have payments; it simply allowed guests to connect with hosts and the transaction was handled offline. But what that first version did was quickly validate the concept and provide the founders with a lot of learning, which they were able to use in order to eventually build what Airbnb is today. The key lesson in how to build a software product is that the first version should have just enough functionality to solve the customer’s core problem and nothing else. This approach has several advantages: - It is much faster and cheaper to launch, allowing you to start learning sooner and save more for future iterations. - Your product will be simpler to use, which means that new customers will be less likely to get confused and leave. - It is easier to identify what is working vs. not working when you have fewer moving pieces to test at once. - You will be more likely to let your consumers drive product development, which will result in a product that meets their needs. - You are less likely to need to remove features and complexity later (which is always harder than adding them). The approach described above has been called building a ‘Minimum Loveable Product’ (MLP) , one with a limited feature set but one that users will talk about because it solves their biggest need.