The 10 Most impressive startups built with no-code

Gone are the days or months of startups waiting for development teams to scope, spec, build and test products at great expense before they can launch. In today’s fast-paced digital world, the difference between successful startups and those that fail, is often how quickly and cost-effectively they can get their product to market and iterate on customer feedback.

Enter the no-code revolution. It does pretty much what it says on the tin. You don’t need to write code to build complex applications, automate workflows and improve business processes. No-code allows non-technical founders and entrepreneurs to build MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) with minimal features that early adopters can use.

This enables you to launch a new product at a fraction of the cost of traditional development.

Let’s have a look at some of the exciting startups that have built successful businesses with no-code.

Ten of the most impressive no-code startups:

1. Bloom Institute of Technology (formerly Lamdba School)

Raising seed funds of $4M, BloomTech is redefining the virtual education industry. BloomTech is built around the unique Income Share Agreements (ISAs) Model. The model lets students pay no tuition upfront. They agree to pay back 17% of their income post-graduation for two years, but only after securing a job.

BloomTech, formerly Lambda School, is a product of the no-code movement. They built their MVP, that serves over 3’000 students, using a combination of tools like Typeform, Airtable and Retool. They’ve added other tools like Webflow, Salesforce, Calendly and Zapier to grow and scale the platform.

Mitchell Wright, a senior growth executive at BloomTech, said, "The no-code movement allows more people to participate in automation and building. There are a lot of tools and products that can be built without any engineering help. "

2. Comet

Comet is a marketplace where tech and data freelancers meet potential clients who need engineers and teams for specific projects. The platform is different from Upwork and Malt where employers must sift through thousands of profiles to find the right ones.

On Comet, companies can create teams on demand. They upload the assignment, and the Comet team will match the right freelancers with the project within 48 hours. Comet also tests freelancer’s soft and hard skill sets to ensure they are the right fit for the project.

Built with Bubble, a tool that helps you create web apps without a single line of code, Comet completed more than 300 projects for over 150 companies in 2017. In less than three years they’ve supported more than 1’000 clients and they’ve added the services of more than 1’500 freelancers on their books.

Their turnover has shot up from zero to €600k a month. In 2017 Comet raised €2M in seed funding with investments from Otium Venture and Kima followed in 2018 by another €14M from Daphni, Frst and FJlabs. According to Charles Thomas, CEO of Comet, their long-term goal is to shape the future of work for the tech and data workforce in Europe and beyond. “The future of work will be on-demand,” he believes.

3. Kollecto

Kollecto is a web app where art lovers can collect, curate, share and buy art. According to founder Tara Reed, she wanted to build a platform where ordinary people have access to a personal art buyer. She did not have funds or access to developers to build her MVP.
‍

Kollecto is a web app where art lovers can collect, curate, share and buy art. According to founder Tara Reed, she wanted to build a platform where ordinary people have access to a personal art buyer. She did not have funds or access to developers to build her MVP.

Initially, she used Strikingly, Typeform, Plasso, Stripe and Paypal to build the Kollecto website. She’s a firm believer in releasing your MVP and iterating as quickly as possible.

She says; “I was able to find out pretty quickly that Kollecto was something not only my customers needed. Art buyers and galleries wanted it too.” Running at a cost of less than $600/mo she generated her first $30K in revenue, had 400 active users and was accepted into 500 Startup, one of the top accelerator programmes.

She continued to refine the code-free tools they leveraged, adding Zapier, Google Spreadsheets and SurveyGizmo. In her view, spending 100% of her time iterating on user feedback, and 0% worrying about the code, was priceless.

When Kollecto hit 1500 users things started falling apart. It sometimes took three weeks to service recommendation requests.

Tara discovered Bubble and constructed an art-matching algorithm in just three weeks. She says; “The crux of Kollecto’s functionality and ability to scale rested on the art-matching algorithm, something that, before Bubble, was impossible without code.”

She concludes; “Try Bubble. The power you can harness and the flexibility it offers is unmatched.” 

4. Dividend Finance

Dividend Finance was founded in 2013 and provides renewable energy, technology- driven finance solutions to help property owners build sustainable, efficient homes. They’ve turned the renewable energy market on its head by connecting homeowners, customer-centric contractors and financial investors with one another.

Using Bubble, they’ve simplified the application process and addressed some of the biggest headaches in home improvement namely bad contractors and red tape. The result is a slick, highly functional financial solution for homeowners, contractors and financiers alike.

In July 2019 Dividend closed its fourth residential solar loan securitization in San Francisco. According to Business Wire, Dividend Finance issued $234,59 million in asset-backed securities and they increased their funding capacity under solar loan financing facilities with Citibank and Credit Suisse to $350 million.

Dividend Finance also received the Global Capital “Esoteric ABS Issuer of the Year” Award in 2020 and Esoteric ABS Deal of the Year in 2017 and 2020.

Built entirely on Bubble, Dividend Finance has processed over $1B of loans, according to the Bubble Blog.

5. Makerpad

Makerpad teaches entrepreneurs to save time and increase their efficiency by building no-code projects. It’s a vital resource for small businesses building online tools providing them with in-depth tutorials on how to; “build anything without writing code.” The team updates the platform continuously sharing new tools, tutorials and advice. There is also an active community of people, available for chat on forums, developing their ideas supporting each other with advice and workarounds.

It’s an example of an impressive no-code startup that generated over $200K in revenue in less than a year. Built using a no-code stack of Webflow, Stripe, Zapier, Airtable and Convertkit. Ben Tossell announced earlier 2020 year that Makerpad has reached a milestone of 1’000 pro members, growing its MRR by 75%.

Makerpad was voted #1 no-code product of the year ahead of Glide and Webflow in the Product Hunt Golden Kitty Awards for 2019. In March 2021, Makerpad was acquired by Zapier, a well known no-code automation tool, and Ben Tossell said that "pairing would benefit the team to take the no-code movement further than it could alone".

6. Plato

Plato connects engineers to mentors from some of the world’s best companies. They match applicants with mentors who have experience with specific challenges they face and can give actionable advice.

Plato runs its entire back office, created their tracking system and event-specific landing pages on Bubble’s no-code platform. It enabled them to match engineers and teams with the most suited mentor. Fast! Plato doesn’t only provide an appropriate match. They ensure that specific challenges or problems are addressed in their match, delivering goal orientated outcomes. Plato is committed to creating the engineering leaders of the future through the mentorship platform they provide.

Building an MVP on Bubble can help startups raise funding as it did with Plato, helping them get into YCombinator, by far the most prestigious startup accelerator with an impressive portfolio including Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe, and Dropbox.

Quang Hoang, Co-Founder and CEO of Plato managed a team that was accepted into YCombinator in 2016. His experience at YCombinator ultimately resulted in the founding of Plato in 2017. Through YCombinator, Plato raised $13 million in funding. 

7. Ensemble19

The no-code revolution does not only benefit or help startups. It’s ideal to get a project off the ground quickly during a crisis or pandemic. Ensemble19 is proof of that. Ensemble19 was launched in just three days during Covid19 to help local merchants survive the pandemic. The platform allows individuals and companies to make donations or purchase vouchers to spend after the lockdown when establishments re-open.

Built entirely on Bubble, the platform helped over a thousand businesses raise about CHF 600’000 within 8 weeks. 47% of the funds raised were donations.

Initiated by our team at HuggyStudio.com, the project was quickly joined by very devoted volunteers who made this journey a success: https://ensemble19.ch/team 

8. Qoins

Qoins is a financial application that helps people pay off their debt faster through financial coaching. Beyond providing financial coaching services, Qoins also has some useful features such as payroll deductions and daily roundups on everyday purchases that automate the process of getting someone out of financial debt.

In June 2018, Qoins raised $750k in an angel round funding. Qoins was built from ground-up with Bubble. The Co-founder Nate Washington stated in an address, saying, "we've continued to use Bubble throughout major parts of our business, as it has helped us accomplish things that we'd typically need a larger team of developers to maintain."

9. Switchboard

Switchboard initially tried to put Ad-Screens on Uber and Lyft cars (the startup was first called “Ads on Top”). After realizing how expensive this turns out to be, they decided to focus on another problem they discovered along the way.

David and his co-founder realized that each “out of home” screen displaying ads had its own piece of software, making it a cumbersome process to bring changes at scale, get basic ads reports or run analytics. It also became obvious that displaying ads based on dynamic factors like exact location or external events was out of the question. They saw an opportunity and launched Switchboard.

Using Switchboard makes it easier than ever to integrate, schedule, monitor and analyze a network of displays. Screens owners would turn to Switchboard to manage all their screens from one single place, in real-time. With a user interface entirely built on Bubble, Switchboard was able to rapidly become a profitable SaaS business growing at an impressive rate in recurring revenues. 

10.  [Your startup?]

By now, it should be evident that the no-code revolution offers tremendous benefits and opportunities for entrepreneurs and companies alike. This really is only the beginning.

If you are working on launching a startup yourself or know of a no-code startup that should definitely be featured on the list, shoot us a message or comment below.

We’re always looking for like minded no-coders and inspiring projects!