Hello everyone,
Back in 2020, I dove headfirst into no-code tools. Most of them were spreadsheet-powered app builders—great for creating simple apps like lists or databases. But despite the steep learning curve, you’d quickly hit a ceiling with what was possible. Then, AI happened.
I won’t bore you with the usual “AI is changing everything” narrative - you’re probably already up to speed. Instead, I want to show you how new AI-powered tools are making it ridiculously easy to build SaaS products, from basic MVPs to more advanced applications. Let’s dive in.
A quick story
At Betterfront, the software company I co-founded, we had a simple tradition to keep the team spirit alive: celebrating each birthday with a card, and sometimes even a small gift. It was a small gesture but had a big impact on motivation.
But then, we dropped the ball. After a streak of successful celebrations, we forgot an intern’s birthday. He even showed us ID, and we couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d let down one of our best developers.
At the time, I thought a simple tool could prevent situations like that in the future. But there was no way we could justify using engineering resources for a side project, and no-code tools weren’t advanced enough to handle it.
Enter Bolt.new
I stumbled upon Bolt.new by chance. In short, it lets anyone build full-stack web and mobile apps using nothing but natural language. Unlike traditional no-code tools, it generates real code - for both the frontend and backend - that you own and can deploy anywhere. That was all I needed to kick off my B2B "let’s-not-forget-birthdays" idea. With just a few prompts, I had my MVP up and running - below is a preview of the product homepage:
How it works
Users can create cards not just for birthdays - they can celebrate any occasion: work anniversaries, welcomes and onboardings, farewells, achievements, and more. I even built features to manage users (with role-based permissions), events, standard settings, and even subscriptions. Feature includes:
Create one-off or recurring events
Invite others to sign the card
We send reminders and collect messages, along with photos, videos, and audio
On the event date, the completed card is delivered to the recipient
While I started with a simple idea and a few basic features, Bolt.new made it incredibly easy to keep building, improving features on the go and adding the finishing touches to make this MVP ready to ship. Needless to say, I couldn’t have done it with traditional no-code tools.
Try it out
I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas for improvement. If you’re curious to see it in action, reply to this email, and I’ll send you a demo link.
Best,
Michel
PS: This isn't a sponsored post and Bolt.new/Stackblitz didn’t pay me for this newsletter edition. I’m simply sharing my experience with this incredible tool so others can see just how easy it is to build apps with AI today.