Best way to create a SaaS app without design expertise?

Hey @berk, that's great to hear that you want to quickly prototype a UI without much effort (very indie attitude!) I wanted the same thing a few months ago, and would be happy to share which tools worked better for me:

• Dribbble.com for design inspiration (I would search "event app", bookmark the examples I liked, and draw them in my notebook using my own text to see if the design made sense).
• Webflow.com for "no-code frontend" (it's like using microsoft paint to drag/drop design components, and webflow converts the screen into code; might work for you, if you want to design/manage the backend yourself)
• Bubble.io for "no code front & backend" (I ended up preferring this over webflow, because my programming skills are amateur and I didn't want to teach myself how to setup login / security / database, etc; it had more intense learning curve, but now it's my goto tool for building web apps)

Hope that helps; you got this 👍

One solution would be to create a SaaS where the "service" is an API. Then the users of it would basically just be paying to make calls to your API and your UI would basically just be your landing page (which you can just use a template for) and your docs, which need to clear, not fancy.

Hey @berk! This post got my attention a few weeks ago and was part of motivating me to put together something I've had in mind for a while.

May I please have your feedback on Excelerant (https://excelerant.pro)?

• Is the offering clear?
• What's missing that you'd really want?
• How's the price point?

Thank you so much in advance!

Great question @berk!

There are already a lot of great responses here around Bootstrap + React, so I won't rehash that. They're right :)

However, I'd like to add that UI design is only half the story...

The user experience (UX) is at least as critical. It doesn't matter how beautiful something is if it doesn't behave as expected by users...

If this is something you'd like to pick up some quick tips on, you can enroll in my UX Mini Course (completely FREE):

https://cubicle6.com/the-ux-mini-course

I'm a developer myself, and I've taken a very pragmatic approach to teaching my fellow Indie Hackers how to identify and easily solve five of the most common UX anti-patterns that show up in SaaS applications.

All the best in your journey - please reach out here or directly via email if you ever have any specific questions. I absolutely love talking about designing and developing UI and UX!

P.S. the whole micro-course was built on React + Bootstrap 😉

Hey @berk! I'm the same as you. I have had a lot of success with pre-made HTML5 themes. There are lots everywhere, but my go-to is to search for responsive HTML5 themes on themeforest.com and they are usually cheap at around $10 to $30 and they come packed with a lot of stuff already done for you.

The downside is that your design wont be unique but my goal is to provide a great service to customers, so I don't really care about uniqueness.

Goodluck!

I don't like any of these suggestions. You can stand up a robust SaaS for as little as $2k.

Hi,
you can try our SaaS boilerpate (open-source version can be found here https://github.com/saasforge/saas-build, stealth stage yet :)
The interface is based on Bootstrap 4, and was impressed by different dashboard templates found on Internet.
Backend: Python (Flask), Postgres
Frontend: ReactJS, Webpack

If you're okay with using React on the front-end check out my product https://divjoy.com. The current templates are SaaS focused and give you a good starting point in terms of design.

As a designer, I'm thinking this could be a project idea for me - building a pre-made SaaS theme that's easy for developers to implement.

What would be the best medium to deliver? Bootstrap theme? WP theme?

Hi @berk, well we try to create a community (https://turtle.community) on exactly this topic, namely collecting very good developer/webdev/design tools. For example I consider this one really useful for landing page graphics https://turtle.community/discovery/285.

Best wishes

I have put togheter a list of resources for inspiration here :

colorsandfonts.com/designer.html

You will find it under the inspirstion tab..

Hope is useful

I recommend you to buy an already prebuilt theme, from here for example - https://themes.getbootstrap.com

You can find there really high-quality universal themes with documentation. It is not hard to make some customization for your needs.

What would be a good way so that I can create good enough UIs without putting too much effort into it and rather focusing on the functional aspects of the product?

Definitely https://webflow.com

If you sign up for a paid account you can export all of your HTML/CSS/etc... files. Hook your backend into it and host it on your own servers.

Ha, I'm in the exact same boat. I've found Webflow and Bubble as well but have not built anything yet. I've also found https://www.gatsbyjs.com/cloud that looks similar to the others.

Let us know what you land on and what you build, I'll certainly be keen to hear your learnings.

Starting with a pre done template is quickest and easiest - especially if you are wanting to whip up an MVP. Plenty of good choices on sites like Envato.

That is what I have done with virtually all my projects. It may not be world class, but it can come close, and saves a ton of $$$ over having to contract a designer in the early stages. Good designers can even do some great things with those pre-manufactured templates.

https://refactoringui.com/book/

https://tailwindcss.com/

Is normally recommended

You can also buy admin templates.