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💰 $100k MRR and $1M raised – here’s what I learned building my startup. AMA 🔥

Hey fellow makers, my name is Nik and I’m happy to post here again. 🙌

I founded WeLoveNoCode, a platform that connects people with the best no-code developers to build their software and apps without a single line of code. All that is based on a monthly subscription.

My startup just raised $1M in funding and we reached a monthly recurring revenue of $100k+ within less than a year. I have learned a lot from other makers here. So I decided to also share my experience about building a startup that is growing at rocket speed. I hope this helps other entrepreneurs (and if you are looking to join a fast-growth startup, I’m hiring).

🤔 So, how did we achieve this kind of growth in a short time?


Start with Satisfying your Customers

Sounds very basic, right?

Because I had no cash to do any advertising, I let my work speak for me and I personally made first sales, controlled the quality of development, and asked for feedback later on. I tried to exceed expectations on all the work I did for clients. When you focus on delivering results that satisfy your customer, they will spread the word. Don’t be shy to tell them to share about your business. Sometimes people need that extra nudge to refer you to someone. Don’t forget to keep in touch with your customers. This part started becoming much harder when the team became bigger, so I had to be even more persistent with creating a culture of user empathy.

What helped while growing: having weekly feedback from customers and keeping constant interaction based on that feedback.

Educate the market

I know that no code is the best option for fast testing of product ideas, releasing MVPs, getting user feedback, automating internal tasks, and shipping typical apps. All these can be done in days, not years, and in a very cost-effective way compared to doing it in code. That's why we made WeLoveNoCode. Based on our experience, 95% of things that you can build with code you can also build with no Code, just much faster and cheaper.

But NOT everyone on the market thinks this way! There are a lot of misconceptions regarding no code. So while building my startup I realized how important it is to teach the market and provide initial education before going into sales (this works for marketing as well!).

An MVP tells you what your customer really wants

I often see entrepreneurs try to build a flawless product before shipping. The problem with this strategy is that it’s often complex for customers to use or sometimes doesn't even solve their problem. Unless your product is high-risk, creating an MVP helps you gather quick feedback from your customers so you can iterate better. It can also be a useful prototype for your potential investor. You can build an MVP with tools like Bubble, Webflow, or a mix of Zapier and Airtable.

In our case, I built a landing page about no-code development and invited leads to book a call. This is how WeLoveNoCode started 👉 a simple landing page built with Tilda. Even now our platform is MVP and I’m often feeling embarrassed about how “not perfect” it is. But, hey, it solved the customer pain and generated a constant revenue stream. Built MVP with users is always better than no perfect nothing.

Find a model that works — think automation

When we started out, our model was to charge customers an hourly service fee. By the end of the first year, our monthly revenue grew to $20k. While it felt good, delegation and an hourly fee was no longer an efficient model. Automation was the answer.

We decided to build a platform that matches developers with specific skills with projects that require that skillset.

Today, we offer clients a low-cost no-code development subscription service. This allows you to start your project quickly, efficiently, and affordably– a gap that clearly exists in the market. Entrepreneurs get access to the best no-code developers who have been pre-vetted by us.

Don’t be afraid to allow your model to evolve as you get feedback from customers. However, continue to deliver satisfying services as you evolve. No startup got a business model right from the first try!

Be very clear with your value prop

For WeLoveNoCode the value is the speed of product delivery, cost efficiency, and quality. For $1999/month the client gets a brain of 3000+ Nocoders with a stack of 241 tools instead of a single no-code developer with experience of 1-2 tools.

It took us time to define our value prop and we are still working on it for different users. If you don't focus on the value, you will have problems later on.

Approach Marketing with a growth mindset

Growth starts with finding product-market-fit. If you meet users' needs with your solution, growth and marketing become easier.

Our marketing is a mix of product-led growth, paid channels, and outbound sales. Until recently we didn’t have a marketing team, so all the growth happened thanks to the product, which meets user needs. Now, we are much more focused on having a marketing strategy, marketing OKRs, and even Head of Marketing! Here you can see our tips on getting users and a mix of the tactics we used: e-book Marketing for Startups.

Thoughts on fundraising

Fundraising is hard. I learned so much while closing a $1M seed fund.

You should see things from an investor's perspective. As an entrepreneur, you’re completely absorbed in your startup. You’ve spent years building this business, you think about it 24 hours a day and you spend most of your time actively working on it. However, for the investor, what matters the most is the long-term viability of the business and returns on investment.

Seeing things from this perspective will completely change how you approached raising capital and lead you to revisit how you pitch for investment. You must realize that to your investor, your start is not a product or a technology. You must position your startup as an investment.

Ask yourself, what’s the underlying value of my startup, who is investing and how will investment grow over time. For us, we are in an industry currently valued at $17b and is projected to grow to $125b in 2027. We already have a platform with over 3K pre-vetted no-code developers and $100k in MRR to prove its viability. This is what we sold to our investors. Put these numbers upfront when you’re pitching to investors.

Raising investment is not about asking for money. What you are doing is selling the value of your business to an investor, telling a story, and creating Momentum.

VC money is not the only way.

You can consider crowdfunding, raising from Friends and family, Government grants, Angel investors, or pure bootstrap. Whichever route you are taking (and you should consider more than one at a time) the key to success is talking to multiple people at once. This creates a buzz and a feeling that interest exists, pushing investors to act for fear of missing out. It really works.


This was just a small portion of my learnings and I will be happy to follow up in the comments!

  1. 4

    I love no-code, this is absolutely a part of our Hackers future😜

    1. 1

      it might even replace traditional development at some point

  2. 4

    "We decided to build a platform that matches developers with specific skills with projects that require that skillset." - how is this implemented? curious \ no-code tools also?

  3. 4

    Are you hiring? How to get to your team? Exceptional

    1. 1

      Thanks for your nice words 🙌

      1. 2

        How to get to your team?

        We have a pretty straightforward process:

        • website application
        • interview screening
        • might be a test task
        • offer

        We try to keep it short and simple for the candidates.

        1. 2

          Are you hiring?

          We have several open positions in product, marketing, operations. You can see all of them here: https://welovenocode.com/career

          1. 2

            If you were asking about becoming our no-code developer, you can start learning in our academy - https://academy.welovenocode.com/ or join courses from no-code tools. Ideally, if you will be able to work on some real projects right away. It can be your side-projects or freelance.

  4. 4

    Great achievements, congrats!! What people are you looking for in your team?

    1. 1

      thanks for reading my post 🙌

  5. 3

    Congrats 🙌🙌🙌

    1. 1

      thanks for checking my story!

  6. 3

    A really huge amount of work has been done. Congratulations to your team!

    How did you educate the market and change their idea of the know-code?

      1. 1

        How did you educate the market and change their idea of the know-code?

        If we talk about our users, it comes via different channels:

        • marketing materials
        • blog posts
        • sales team has a prepared set of examples
        • answers on typical questions
        1. 1

          I can add here: you also do a lot of guest blogging about how the industry works, so you have a lot of buzz in different media channels.

  7. 3

    This is enlightening, Nik. Thank you for sharing.

    How much capital you should raise for seed funding and what should be a priority for founders at this early stage as per capital expenditure?

    1. 1

      some thoughts on the topic:

      • Seed funding is different depending on your location. It can be $30K in Ukraine or $100K in the US. Both are seed rounds :) And that money can come from one angel.

      • Priority for the founder should be finding PMF because it much better to have money coming from your users not investors.

  8. 3

    Great, dude! How did you come up with this idea at first? At your university?

    1. 3

      I had a pretty bad experience with traditional developers myself, so as soon as I accidentally learn about no code - I just fell in love with it!

      1. 2

        To share more:
        I'm a second-time founder. The first company I started five years ago (I wanted to build a platform for managing crypto assets and trading on several crypto exchanges). It only resulted in me spending something like hundreds of $$ and three years of my life on it. My development process was not very successful, which resulted in constant switching from one software development team to another. The end of this story is sad - that product never became live. Afterward, I joined a 500Startups accelerator program with another company which exited.

        During my time at 500startups I learned about no code and finally felt the freedom of building products fast and myself. ​​Oh my god, this was so cool. I felt that I needed to tell as many people as possible about this opportunity. That’s how I started with WeLoveNoCode.

  9. 2

    Great post Nick. Congrats on the launch and quick growth.

    I am working to build an MVP and have thought about No Code applications like WeLoveNoCode, but being non-technical, I don't know the limitations of building in no code.

    I plan to schedule a 30-minute call with someone from your team but I'd love to hear from you (at a high level), what types of products are simply not possible to build with no-code?

    Short backstory- I am building a product that identifies past product users who have moved on to new companies for b2b enterprise sellers to generate warm leads.

  10. 2

    For everyone who might be interested to learn marketing for startups:
    https://welovenocode.com/marketingforstartups

    In the e-book you will find only practical, proven marketing hacks, suitable for early-stage startups and makers, covering how to:

    📣 maximise your existing network
    📣 share your story with the world
    📣 work with online communities

    📜 maximise press coverage from the beginning
    🧲 generate leads with gated content (whitepapers, e-books, templates)
    💰 win over paid ads on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Google

    💛 maximize WoM, referral marketing, and early adopters
    💛 work with opinion leaders to drive your message/product/service
    💛 create viral content, free tools, games, design goodies

    🔮 plan powerful GTM and getting to the top-1 on Product Hunt
    🔮 get leads by asking for feedback on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram

    1. 2

      Thanks you answered one of my above questions

  11. 2

    $100k MRR. Why raise? Unless projected growth flat or margins tight then why not keep pedalling as an independent?

    1. 2

      I think it's a different growth scenario: if you have revenue and want to 10x your growth, you need investments.

      Otherwise, it will be super hard to grow fast (basically, think about investing in paid marketing or hiring a marketing team from the US 🔥).

      Do you agree?

      1. 1

        You could be right but the way the post is worded implies it is high growth anyway. If on such a curve why not travel further.

        I imagine now core product and team formed then majority of new revenue could be pumped into marketing (but ok not 10x).

        Could be that raising helps secure a future exit.

        1. 1

          Rab, great thoughts!

          I believe that the best time to raise is WHEN you have organic growth because you have momentum, financial freedom, and time. So you can raise at very good terms and allow yourself to have more aggressive hiring.

          I mean, it's possible to grow purely on your income but then your competitors can raise and take your market share. The player with the bigger funding will win 🤷‍♀️

  12. 2

    Congratulations.

    I guess $100k/month is the GMV or your cut after paying your no-code developers.

    If that's the GMV, how much is your commission

  13. 2

    Hi Nick,
    Congrats on your success! I'm in the process of setting up a No Code Consultancy. So totally onboard with your business. Couple of quick questions from me:

    1. In your post you mention an e- book for marketing, but I can't see the link to access this.
    2. Curious to know what font family you're using across your site? As it looks good :)
  14. 1

    Thanks for your post! How did you educate tha market? Im now going through a similar process doing a niche project. Would love to hear your hacks for increasing awareness around your domain.

  15. 1

    I mean you guys ROCK!! So inspirational. Thanks for sharing!!!

  16. 1

    Is WLNC an option for managing and evolving an existing No Code app? I'm launching a product in Appgyver and looking for options for maintaining and developing new features. Thanks!

  17. 1

    Investors want to see 10X ROI.
    How they will get their money back 😂

  18. 1

    Congratulations 🎉

    Just a quick question, I was going through your showcase and was curious about a web application called Invoice Hero.

    I tried to open the link, but the website doesn’t exist anymore, returns a 404.

    But my question is, the 404 page is from WPEngine hosting although in your website it claims this was built with Bubble? Bit confusing…

    1. 1

      thanks for sharing that we have 404 page :(

  19. 1

    Thanks for sharing it! And congratulations to the whole team, you rock!

  20. 1

    Congratulations nick

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