🚪How Harold went from organising an event to selling a marketplace
The No-Code Exit story of Harold and No-Code Sale
Hi, Katt here.
Woopwoop tiny party, No-Code Exits crossed 8,000 subscribers today 👯♀️. So grateful for all of you who keep reading, replying and spreading the No-Code love!
For this week’s No-Code Exit story I talked with my co-founder and friend Harold who built and sold No-Code Sale this week. Congrats Harold!
He breaks down:
🐚 Validating the idea with a very simple MVP
🏗️ Going from event to marketplace with No-Code
🔥 The power of community
👀 The advantage of No-Code for buyers
Happy building!
PS: did you miss last week’s interview? Bas breaks down how he turned a service into a productized service with $10K revenue. Read it here
🎈 5 Cool Finds
Merge is a free and active Discord community for web creators. Share knowledge, collaborate and foster collective growth.
Create an AI voice clone. Check out this free tutorial from NoCodeDevs. I was blown away!
In this Bubble Beginner Course you learn how to build a fully functioning Bubble app (including a stunning Pinterest like app powered by AI). Taught by one of the best Bubble builders (JJ Englert).
Pixelfika is your daily dose of landing page and copy inspiration, perfect to get inspired for your new projects.
CoAlias is the solution to add effortlessly unlimited custom domains and subdomains for a professional touch and custom experience for your clients.
*This section is a mix of paid partnerships (in bold) and cool things I discovered or made. You can get featured in this section by sharing this newsletter with 8 friends.
🔥 No-Code Maker Interview
Hello, what is your background?
I'm Harold, a No-Code maker from The Netherlands. I graduated as a marketeer and then started my own company.
As the non-tech half, I always depended on my co-founder. Although we are a great team, I always felt bound that I wasn't capable to build my own ideas. That's why I got so excited when I discovered No-Code years ago.
Now I’m part of the 100 Days of No-Code team where I help run the No-Code x AI bootcamp and work on my own No-Code projects.
Tell us about your product that you made?
I started No-Code Sale in January 2023, after catching up with my friend Miguel. We talked about the products we had been building and laughed about the things we never (properly) launched. We said that there should be some kind of second hand market where those old builds could be taken over for a small amount.
After the holidays I decided to try this out with an experiment: an online No-Code Garage Sale. Makers could submit their old builds for sale and other people could acquire those for a bargain.
What went into building the initial version?
We started in January with just an online event to test whether people would be interested in this. The experiment received a lot of interest. During the live sale event we had 7 pitches and over 30 bids came in. Within a few days, most of the products that were pitched were sold.
What happened then?
Based on the positive response I decided to turn this into a monthly event and add a marketplace. I used:
Directory with products for sale made with Softr
Airtable for the backend with all the products for sale
Tally form to submit new products to the directory
Zapier to link everything together
Luma to organize the events
Generate banners to create images on auto-pilot
Substack for the newsletter
Once a month I hosted a new live sale event. Visitors of these events got the first chance to bid on the products pitched. 48 hours later, the products were published on the directory too, so people who missed the event could bid as well.
What was your business model?
First it was mainly a community project for me, since I'm working in the No-Code space and wanted to help No-Code makers sell their products. So for the sale events and directory there was no business plan. Sellers and buyers could handle the deals among each other, or on a platform like Microns.
Later I started a Build to Sell challenge. First as an experiment with just a Twitter DM group, but after that as a product (No-Code Exits Club) together with Katt. We earned about $5K with this, and then pivoted it to sprints.so.
Can you share how you got your first users?
I know a lot of No-Code makers in the space. So for the first event I reached out to some well known No-Code makers and asked whether they wanted to participate and sell something. They did and helped me promote the upcoming event.
After the first event I launched the Substack newsletter and kept sharing updates with everyone about products being sold and invitations for the next sale events.
I also asked sellers to share No-Code Sale and build in public to keep everyone involved in the progress of this experiment.
Why did you decide to sell it?
After the summer I didn't have time to work properly on this anymore. I was too busy with:
My work at the No-Code x AI Bootcamp
Pivotting to sprints.so
Renovating my house
I believe selling your builds is a great alternative business model for No-Code Makers. I didn't want to let this project die. That's why I decided to look out for a buyer to continue the mission.
Tell us more about the acquisition?
No-Code Sale was acquired by the founder of Microns, one of the leading indie acquisition market places. The founder (Ilya) wants to attract more No-Code founders to the Microns community and help them sell their projects for free.
Ilya noticed that in the Microns buyer community more and more entrepreneurs are looking to acquire products build with No-Code. It’s a huge advantage for buyers if you don’t need a dev.
With the acquisition of No-Code Sale Ilya wants to bring in more No-Code products for Micron’s buyers.
What's your advice for makers who are just starting out?
Start small
Keep experimenting
Keep track of the stats that show validation
Build with No-Code tools, so someone else can easily take it over from you, even if they don't have a technical background
Show buyers the (potential) ways to monetize and grow
Thanks Harold for sharing your story!
🙌 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