Starting without knowing how
How to create an app without knowing how to code
Validate first without any app. Then use no-code or AI tools for a simple prototype, and bring in a professional for security and data.
bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published
You can create an app without knowing how to code, and it has become easier with no-code tools and with artificial intelligence assistants that write code from plain-language instructions. Google already completes "how to create an app" with "with AI." But the most important question comes first: do you really need an app right now? Many ideas can be tested with a form, a spreadsheet and WhatsApp, for a fraction of the effort.
The practical path
- Validate without an app. Do the service "by hand" for the first customers: an online form for orders, a spreadsheet for tracking, WhatsApp for customer service. If people use it and pay, then it's worth building.
- Sketch it on paper. List the three or four essential screens and what the user does on each one. An app that tries to do everything in its first version never gets finished.
- Choose how to build it. No-code tools let you assemble screens, a database and simple logic by dragging blocks. AI assistants can generate code from your description, but you need to test every part. For a prototype, both work.
- Start with a web app. A website that works well on a phone is usually cheaper and faster than publishing in the app stores, and it serves for validation.
- Take care of data and security from the start. If the app stores personal data, Brazil's General Data Protection Law (LGPD, Law 13,709/2018) applies: say what you collect, what for, and protect it. Payments should go through a well-known payment provider, never a homemade solution. Health and financial data require extra care.
- Know when to call a professional. When the app gains users, money flowing through it or sensitive data, hire or partner with someone who codes. A security review by a specialist costs less than a data breach.
- Register what's yours. Name and brand at INPI; the code can be registered as a computer program at INPI too. Agree in writing on ownership of the code with whoever develops it.
How Bairo went through it
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez is a direct example of this question. He says he didn't know how to code. After a phase in which he describes himself as broke, broken and beaten, he sat down in front of a computer and spent six months without leaving the house, developing, writing and learning with the tools of his own time.
Out of those six months came the foundation of the platform and the artificial intelligence of CEASA Bank, a financial platform for agribusiness. His story records what anyone looking from outside sees in that period: not magic, but discipline.
The Method step
This is step 6 of the Seventh Attempt Method: learn what you don't know. Three columns: what the app needs to have, what you'll learn to do on your own and what you'll ask a partner or AI for. Choose one thing from the second column and give it 30 days.
Discover the Seventh Attempt Method