Decent app without any code skills with help of AI
Hello! Just want to introduce myself quickly — My name is Oleksii and I’m new here! Looking for inspiration, motivation and network here. Probably going to create my own product in nearest future.
I keep seeing videos on YouTube where people talk about how they built a cool app without any programming knowledge at all — like they just talked to different AI agent and it did everything. Sounds awesome, but almost always by the end they start selling their course or try to drag you into some paid community, and then I’m no longer sure: is this really possible or just another way to sell something?
That’s why I’m writing here — I’d love to talk to people who’ve actually tried it. Maybe someone has experience creating an app without a coding background? Or is it really impossible without at least some basic knowledge?
Replies
Yes, most of those people just sell the dream of create your own app and make $$$...
What I've gathered is that you totally can do an app with AI and it'll work just fine... until something goes wrong and you have no clue what, why and especially how to fix it.
Basic apps are ok but if you build an app that host user information, security is key. That worries me as I'm not coder (yet).
Headliner
I didn't build an app - but I use AI all the time to help create custom code for our website and emails. My 'biggest' success would be building a functional calculator that is going on our pricing page. The goal of the calculator was to communicate both the time and monetary value of our SaaS tool to users/potential buyers.
Generally, I make a list of requirements and try to find rough examples (even just for UX or look). AI works best imo if it has something to compare its output to. Then, you can refine it and continue to iterate off the base.
And, I will say — zero coding experience. Like absolutely nothing.
I'm building an app right now with pretty much 0 coding skills myself and im surprised to say that it works pretty well.
I have some very limited experience from some courses I took, so that might help me a little bit in understanding what's going on but definitely not enough to ever do something like im doing now on my own.
What works for me is just asking myself through the problem. Literally start with 'I have idea X, how do I start? Give me a detailed plan on how I can build this'. And then 'Let's start with Step 1. What new code files do I need to create to make this work?' And then just keep digging! Don't be afraid to ask 'dumb' questions, AI won't care.
What also helped me massively is using a template (I use Wasp Open Saas). Takes away all the initial work of setting up UserAuth, a database etc. so you can get straight to the actual product you want to build.
I started using Lovable a couple months ago, and initially I watched some of their Youtube demos to familiarise myself. When I began building, it felt a little uncertain but when I got into the flow of it, it felt really amazing.
My honest take - having a Product Manager background and therefore some coding knowledge reallyy helped, because there's a gap between what you expect from your prompt (even when crafted properly) and what the AI interpretes that to be. For instance, it could be overly keen and make unwanted changes when you've asked for a simple fix, so I found myself cautioning with each prompt for it to only do specifically what I said, which obviously you wouldn't need for human engineering. Or in situations where there is unwanted behaviour, it may not be intuitive enough to trace the exact gap, and so you end up in a frustrating loop, and this is where lateral knowledge of technical architecture really comes in handy.
Overall, it is really an exhilarating experience to be able to code purely from typing and Lovable's AI is pretty clever and creative. But you have to go in with your eyes open and have some knowledge, or be willing to pay for some extra help to get a complex product out there, purely with AI. For one page applications that are primarily information based or that don't have extensive functionality, then you'd find it to be easier.
I'll be launching my Lovable built product on here in the coming days - fingers crossed 🤞🏽