How to create your own software without programming

Step 1: Consider Your Audience

You've got a fantastic idea for your own little slice of the internet, but before you even get started, you need to think about your intended audience. If you don’t know your target audience, it’ll be much harder for your app to take off. 

Start by imagining your buyer persona, an exercise that involves creating a made-up customer from scratch. Consider everything about this customer: from the TV they watch to the time they go to bed, their spending habits, their family, and their career goals. It may seem a little over-detailed, but giving your buyer persona a personality will help you to target your app to them.

Step 2: Look For Validation

You might think your product is so incredible that it doesn't need validation, but this isn't always the case. You need to know that your idea is strong enough to take off, or at least prove interesting to a small portion of the internet. Consider whether anyone else is doing what you're doing, and how successful they are.

This is also the time to consider your own USP - unique selling point. Even if your idea has already been done, you can make it original with the smallest of details. Even if you're looking to create another Indian takeaway app to join the thousands already out there, if you're the only Indian takeaway in the local area with an app, that's your USP.

Step 3: Choose A Platform

When the planning process is over, it's time to find a platform. There are many websites that allow you to make your own website, widget or app without coding. But not all of them offer the same services. 

Try not to go for the most popular platform on Google Search without first checking out the competition. It's likely that other platforms will offer more enticing benefits as a result of not ranking as highly on search engines. 

There is, of course, another way to build software with no code: outsourcing the job to a team of developers. But this is the expensive route, and it's certainly not necessary. If you've never used a platform for building a product without coding, you probably don't know how easy it is. It's worth giving no-code platforms a try first before splashing out on a developer.

Step 4: Build Your Product

Most no-programming platforms have templates that you can use as the most basic structure for your program. You can then drag and drop to create the interface, adding and removing features from your product to make it your own. This is visual programming, where instead of blindly typing code, you can see exactly what you're making - as you’re making it.

You should find plenty of interesting options for your no-code app, widget or website that you'd never even considered before. And it's features like these that will probably make the biggest difference to your creation. If you already have a company logo, website or social media account, many platforms will let you sync your images and colour scheme with these.

Step 5: Amend And Update

A major advantage of making software online without code is that editing and updating your product requires minimal effort. Just like the initial development process, you don't need programming knowledge to make amendments. You can get access to your creation via the platform you built it on and update it whenever you feel like it.

Step 6: Promote Your Product

Once the "hard" work has been done, you need to get your target audience interested. The first step is to make them aware that your product exists. If possible, it's a good idea to offer some sort of discount or similar incentive to encourage users to download, test, or visit your product and sign up. This should be the most effort your target audience has to go to throughout their experience of using your product.

If you've created an app without programming, you'll have the benefit of being able to send push notifications directly to your customers' phones, offering deals and providing useful and exciting information about your product. If your software exists on the internet but isn't a downloadable app, you'll need to get more creative with how you promote it. A good idea is to create an email list and contact your customers when you have something interesting to share.

So there you have it: creating programs with no actual programming knowledge is simpler than it seems. There's no need to learn code when you can take the easy way out - and achieve exactly the same results with far less work.