🚪 How Harold made Build To Sell
The No-Code Exit Story of Harold and Build to Sell
Welcome 278 new subscribers to No-Code Exits. The newsletter that shares every week a story of how a No-Code Maker went from 0 to $. And the website where you can find answers to the question “Can businesses made with No-Code make money?”
👀 Katt's Week
During the Christmas holiday No-Code Exit crossed 3,000 subscribers 👯👯👯 and now we are already at 3,216 subscribers. I’m just amazed every day. Thank you!
I hope 2023 can be the year that every one of you start building with No-Code.
My tiny advice:
Start with a problem that scratches your own itch
Keep it small and focus on 1 feature that adds the most value
Define tiny SMART goals to focus your efforts
Stick to the No-Code Tools you know or get started with the easy ones like Softr and Glide where you don’t need to go through hours of tutorials.
Find some friends and set a deadline to keep you accountable
The interview this week is with my friend Harold. Learn how:
🐣 he built an acquisition directory as a complete No-Code beginner and lurker
🦗 he started it without validation, just to practice building with No-Code
👋 he sold it to a business with a similar mission
🚪 this tiny exit gave him the motivation to keep learning and building with No-Code
Enjoy it.
📣 Cool Classifieds
No-Code MBA Unlimited video tutorials learn you how to build an AirBnB clone with Bubble, a Tinder clone with Glide, a Product Hunt clone with Webflow and much much more.
AI Review Generator helps your customers write faster and more effective product reviews and boost your testimonials. Now available on Product Hunt.
Pricewell is a No-Code solution to easily implement Stripe subscriptions on your website built with Bubble.
Flabbergasted is a newsletter with articles, tools, and tips for UI Designers and Frontend Developers.
💡 Acquisition Inspiration
Get inspired by No-Code projects for sale on Microns 🚀.
What Find startups that raised money this month
No-Code Tools Webflow, Outseta, Airtable
Revenue: yes
Price $3,000
🔥 Maker Interview
Hello Harold, tell us a little bit about yourself.
I'm Harold, a No-Code enthusiast from The Netherlands. I graduated as a marketeer and then started my own company.
As the non-tech half, I always depended on my cofounder. Although we work great together, I always felt bound that I wasn't capable to build out my own ideas. That's why I got so excited about No-Code.
After lurking on Twitter and Product Hunt for a while, I then finally stepped over the sidelines in September '21 to learn how to build my own things with the #100DaysOfNoCode challenge.
I had a blast, so when they launched their first No-Code Bootcamp in October 2021 I was eager to join to speed things up. This was so much fun that I later became part of the team. That is also where I met you (Katt) in the next bootcamp.
Tell us about your product that you made?
I saw more and more marketplaces popping up like MicroAcquire, TinyAcquisitions and the like. I figured this could be a great opportunity for makers to build new products just with the intention to sell it on a marketplace. A complete new business model, maybe for makers that don't enjoy doing marketing and sales.
I shared this hypothesis on Twitter, but it didn’t get a lot of reaction, as I only had a small amount of followers.
However, since I was so thrilled to create my first own product, I started to build it anyway: a directory for makers that were building a product just with the intention to sell it on a marketplace, so potential buyers can spot them early on.
Which No-Code tools did you use ?
After tinkering with a couple of different No-Code tools, I built it with Softr and Airtable. Although Softr is super intuitive, it took me some time, as this was the first real product I was building all by myself. User accounts, roles, listings, database it was all new to me, so I considered it as a learning project. But it felt super cool to apply it to a real product idea. Finally, I felt a bit like those makers I've been following for so long.
How did you launch and grow your product?
To be honest, I didn't actually launch and grow it, so this part is quite boring. I created a separate Twitter account when I started (@buildtosell) and shared my hypotheses and tried to build in public, trying to mimic the creators I've been following on Twitter all those time.
Of course, I've hoped that I would catch demand out of nowhere, but I knew that was naive, and it was primarily a learning project for me to practice building something on my own. So that's where my effort went, and I didn't really market it, as I also didn't have an audience at all back then.
Why and how did you sell it?
From the start, I had in mind that if the project didn't catch demand, I could always try to sell it myself to prove my hypothesis was true.
By the end of September, I listed it on Tiny Acquisition. It was the best acquisition platform to sell a small product.
Two people reached out to me. One of them was Stephen Campbell, the founder of Tiny Acquisitions, saying that he liked what I was doing and was interested to buy the product early on as it had a great fit with the mission of Tiny Acquisitions.
After some back and forth messaging in the week after that, we closed the deal for 3 figures on October 12th. This was about 3 weeks after I started. I was glad Stephen wanted to take it out of my hands, so I could focus on the bootcamp that had started by then.
I'm still in touch with Stephen now and then, and although it might take a while, he mentioned he still plans to turn Build to Sell into a community for makers building to sell on Tiny Acquisitions.
What kind of advice would you like to share with someone who wants to sell their No-Code project?
I am certainly not an expert in this now all of a sudden. But from this experience, I would say that if you don't fancy to do marketing and sales for the product idea, that it's totally valid to build something just with the intention to sell it on a marketplace. There are plenty of people that like the marketing and sales more than the building, so this makes a great opportunity for you both.
What kind of advice would you like to share with someone who wants to sell their No-Code project?
For me, it all really started with the challenge and bootcamp of 100 Days of No-Code at the end of 2021. The structured approach and community helped me to finally step over the sidelines and start learning how to build stuff all by myself, instead of depending on others.
One big lesson I learned back then is not to complicate things for myself. Keep it simple, and it's totally fine to build something just for practice. You don't have to build the next big thing right away.
Where can we go to learn more about you and your projects?
You can find me on Twitter. My DM's are open, so happy to help if you have any questions.
In case you're interested to sell or buy a small No-Code project: I'm organizing a No-Code Garage Sale on Wednesday January 25th. There will be projects for sale from NoCodeLife, Michael Novotny, Lee Launches, Katt Risen and many more. You can join the event for free here.
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