The first idea on the list: “ Create an auto-updating website from a Google Doc or Sheet” can be done pretty easily already, without writing code.
(I’m the founder of a company, Makerpad[*], that teaches people no-code)
Glide[1] - lets you create apps from a google sheet. Set up the template connected to your data and as it updates, your app will too.
Stacker[2] - build web-apps without code. Supports Airtable and most recently, Sheets.
Softr[3] - similar for websites but using Airtable as the data source. I think Sheets support will come soon.
Sheets2Site [4] - website builder with google sheets.
For GoogleDocs you can use parameters in the doc that change using something like Zapier (disclaimer: they acquired my company last year). I haven’t explored it the other way around eg. Data into a google doc updating something elsewhere.
- Neighbor wrath saver: Constantly listen for shower and other bathroom noises and shut off any alarms if the user is deemed to be inside the bathroom and unable to reach the phone.
- Maps optimizer: Constantly listen to the accelerometer and if you determine the pattern to be the person running and there is a Facebook or Google calendar event starting within 30 minutes, automatically start navigating to it. If there are multiple simultaneous events in the calendar, try to determine which one the user is running towards and help the user reach that particular event. But also listen to the microphone and stop navigation if the user yells "shut up". Increase the font size and button size as well if the user is trying to operate phone while running.
- Caltrain ticket optimizer: If your GPS location is approaching a Caltrain station and the train is due to arrive within 3 minutes such that you're worried about purchasing a ticket in time, automatically download the Caltrain app and purchase a ticket for you so you don't have to fiddle with the machine. Work with Caltrain Inc so that it can unpurchase the ticket if you don't actually board the train
- Laundry optimizer: Automatically listen for sounds of laundry machines starting and remind you in 35 minutes later if it's the sound of a washer starting, or 45 minutes later if it's the sound of a dryer starting
- Cooking optimizer: Use front camera to determine if the user's hand is full of flour, oil, egg and if so, enable voice control of the UI of sorts e.g. "scroll down slightly", "kill that popup", "don't lock screen for the next hour" etc.
- Use the phone as a bluetooth mouse using the flashlight, rear camera, and accelerometer to determine motion on the table.
In particular, most of these require always on audio and in some cases video scanning and recognition. My distant memory is that you can record audio on a fairly small processor and power budget, but video is expensive no matter what you do, and running the sort of pattern recognition or worse yet machine learning needed to actually do anything useful with it would be murder on your battery if you were unplugged and on performance even if you weren't. (This might change with the wide availability of hardware specifically designed for these tasks (TPUs), but we're not quite there yet and I don't know how general that will ever be)
They should use machine learning to learn how to not be annoying then. This is possible, it's just big companies have too much momentum to make useful products nowadays
> highly battery-draining
Having demand will will be motivation for better battery research.
- I'd have to set up the WP instance and maintain it. I'd have to manage the account(s) on it. I'd have to manage the plugins and all of the sundry parts of running a web service.
- The WYSIWYG editor isn't as good as GDocs (or Word, or insert other popular apps)
- Collaborative authoring is a pain. GDocs has this built in, via accounts everyone already has.
The utility of ease of use/low-friction/lightweight-ness can't be overstated. Getting rid of even a small amount of friction from systems often pays itself back exponentially.
just a quick feedback: your logo is very similar to Medium’s. in fact, at first I thought you used Medium, in line with the company’s mission to avoid code!
Mubs helped me as a side project because he's a friend, I offered to pay him but he didn't want anything. He works on a ton of side-projects for fun. Think the interview piece in this section definitely came across badly.
Appreciate the response on this, I think the wording definitely came across wrong and, particularly in an article related to the economics of this side project, it feels disingenuous as a market rate developer would have eaten up the revenue.
I'm the guy in the interview...Mubs was helping me as a side project for fun. We've done a bunch of things together over the years. I offered to pay him but he didn't want anything, I gifted him stuff that he wanted instead.
My thoughts: Earnest invested in my company[1] in September 2019. Through the lens of the company receiving the investment, this has been far from underwhelming.
I've been able to hire a few folks to join the company, ship features faster, increase revenue to new heights and are always there as my first point of call as a solo-founder. It's a tough job but the support has been super helpful. From other founders in the same position as me as well as from the mentor network.
From the inside, the other founders are growing each month and bringing in more and more revenue - so based on the way they invest it looks like everything is going in the right direction.
I'd recommend it as a current Earnest-backed founder for sure. Happy for others to reach out if they're considering it too.
I've been seeing what cool things people have been doing with different tools (without code).
Josh Miller shared his chrome browser history tool. Avg. 126 sites/day. 45% of sessions start w/ a Google Search. Visited Twitter 4.7K times in the last 6 months!!
I think no-code is attractive for a number of reasons. When you're non-technical (can't code) then you're told to learn to code or find a technical co-founder if you want to build something.
It's not that reassuring for someone just starting out wanting to test a random idea that you have to do these big things in order for it to see the light of day.
No-code tools are becoming so powerful that you can build all sorts of things and I built a site with lots of tutorials for that purpose[1] (It's a membership site, some tutorials are free).
Things like a marketplace app like Airbnb[2], an Instagram like app[3], eBay marketplace[4], tools for product/market fit[5], membership sites and a lot more using a number of tools.
Now I know lots of people have their opinions about cloning sites but personally, I think if you have an idea for a specific site which would work like X then I don't see why using the user experience of a similar site can't be the starting point for where these non-technical folk start testing their ideas.
Also, I think it's powerful for professionals to be able to build themselves small tools in order to increase their workflows, productivity etc without relying on dev resources especially in an increasingly remote workforce.
I'd second all that, and I'd add that even as a developer, no-code is really attractive.
In order to code something that real people use, a huge amount of time gets spent on things that aren't critical to the actual product and are usually redundant. For example, I think setting up and maintaining servers is annoying. I also hate coding all the piping for transactional emails, password reset flows, etc. I've coded them a million times, and I feel like it's more useful to get that stuff out of the box and focus on things that move the product forward.
This is especially true for a new idea that needs to be validated.
