🚪 How Mark his resource directory was acquired for Side Project Marketing
The No-Code Exit story of Mark and No-Code Examples
Hello,
Welcome 65 new subscribers👯♀️. How is your week going? Some updates from my projects.
👀 Katt's Week
The freelancer network event last week went fine (#introvert-win🙌). I talked to some people who struggle with huge spreadsheets, which make it difficult to easily find important data. They liked how No-Code Guru solves this. So something to think about… »»» Solution for Snackable Data.
The interview this week is with Mark Bowley, an amazing Designer and Webflow developer.⚡️ He talks about how he built and sold a side project to a business that used it as a side project marketing tool. I think it can be an interesting strategy.
Instead of listing it on a platform, ask yourself « which business would be a good match for the project you want to sell » (to create brand awareness and generate relevant leads for their main businesses) and reach out to them. Worth a try!
Enjoy the interview👇
📣 Cool Classifieds
Every single article/newsletter of For The Interested helped and inspired me to grow and improve No-Code Exits. Big fan!
I have been enjoying this unique podcast: Automation Town. It's a mix between a cool fictional story and automation education. Start with Season 2, Episode 1.
Pricewell is a No-Code solution to easily implement Stripe subscriptions on your website built with Bubble.
Learn The Secrets Of Successful Founders. Sign-up for the inspiring weekly newsletter & discover how founders are building profitable projects.
🔥 Maker Interview
Hello Mark, tell us a little bit about yourself.
My name is Mark, I'm a freelance designer and indie creator. I've been maker of sorts all my life, always enjoying tinkering and building. I feel like I got into no-code slowly over many years, as part of my freelancing. I do a lot of semi-technical website work for clients where I'm building sites, adding new features, creating workflows etc. A lot of that work was with tools like WordPress where I'd do as much as I could without code. Eventually in 2019 I discovered the no-code tools we know today, such as Carrd, Webflow, Airtable, which really lit the fire for me.
Which product did you build?
I had the idea for No Code Examples when I realized in 2020 there was all this hype about no-code, but nowhere to find out what full products had been built with it, beyond people just experimenting. There was nothing much out there to counter the doubters, or for makers to get inspired by. So I bought the domain nocodeexamples.com and slowly added products I came across, whilst making the list public too.
Which No-Code tools did you use?
It was a fairly classic:
Basic stack of Carrd website
Airtable base embedded on it.
Tally Forms
Mailerlite
I did a fair bit of work in the background on Airtable, setting up views, tags, and workflows that helped me in researching, and also helped users search and filter too.
How did you launch and grow your product?
I didn't do a lot of work promoting it. It was really just a personal project at first. I started talking about it on social media and got some visitors and interest, then I got busy for a while and stopped promoting (but still adding to the content). Eventually, in late 2021 I decided to dust it off and try to make something of it. I gave it a design upgrade, added lots more content and tried to market it.
Can you share some stats from the time you listed it for sale?
No big numbers here.
200+ entries in Airtable database
33 subscribers (mailing list)
80 website views/mo
Why and how did you sell it?
It did reasonably well in 2021, but I realized I couldn't give it the love it needed. It wasn't bringing me enough benefit compared to the work I was putting in. So in spring 2022, I listed it on Tiny Acquisitions to gauge interest. I didn't sell it on there eventually, but I did get a few inquiries. It wasn't a big money sale – the selling price was only in the 3 figures range.
Why did the buyer want to acquire your project?
I sold it to a friend, the founder of 100daysofnocode.com after I realized it was much more suited to his goals and motivations than mine – which he agreed with. It's a great marketing tool for his brand, and a valuable reference for his community of beginner no-code makers.
Note from Katt: I talked to the new owner. He launched No-Code Examples on Product Hunt, and it resulted in 2,500 leads 👀
What kind of advice would you like to share with someone who wants to get started with No-Code?
It's possible to build valuable things even with the simpler no-code tools. You don't have to be building on things like Bubble if you don't want to, or aren't ready to. I spent a lot of time in the beginning with just Carrd and Airtable and making sure the content was valuable too.
What kind of advice would you like to share with someone who wants to sell their No-Code project?
If you're like me and good at building or starting projects but don't like the idea of long term commitment with them all, you don't have to stick with them forever. You can build to sell, however small your project. Just spend time on the brand and the user value too, not just the technical build.
Another piece of advice is to put effort into the listing when you try to sell. I've noticed lots of people don't do this. You should list out all the assets and value you've created so far, and even suggest growth ideas if you have any. These things all help the buyer visualize the future of the product.
Where can we go to learn more about you and your projects?
If you are looking for a Webflow developer, you can reach out on Twitter
All my side projects
My Gumroad page
Thank you so much, Mark! 🙏
🙌 When you’re ready, here’s how I can help
Find product ideas that bring you customers on auto-pilot
Kickstart your no-code journey with these no-code courses
Learn which no-code tool is the best for your idea
Browse through the full library of no-code success stories
Sponsor this newsletter to get in front of 10,000+ subscribers
👀 Don't miss new interviews
Subscribe to receive every week an inspiring interview about No-Code Projects that got acquired.
Loving this newsletter Katt!