#258 Entrepreneurial Innovation: Exploring No-Code Mobile App Development And Beyond With Dan Hafner

0:00:02 - Mehmet
Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the City of Show with Mehmet Today. I'm very pleased joining me, dan Dan, thank you very much for being on the show. The way I like to do it is I keep it to my guests to introduce themselves, so the floor is yours. 

0:00:17 - Dan
Hey, mehmet, thank you very much for having me Really excited to do this. It's the first time I've been on a show in a while. Actually so super excited. Thank you very much for having me. So yeah, my name is Dan Hafner. I am the founder creator of a business I created called Dapper Mobile Apps. As you might know, it's basically a app and software development agency focused on no code or low code solutions for startups, small businesses, entrepreneurs, things like that. It's kind of how I got my start. I kind of started it all as a hobby, you know five, six, seven years ago, whenever that was kind of turned it into a freelancing type of career and then eventually turned it into an agency and stuff. So it's just, it's a really fun world. It's something that I never thought I'd be in at all but as I've grown and expanded in it have just found so much fulfillment, so much fun, so much challenge in the whole nine yards. It's been a wild ride. 

0:01:17 - Mehmet
Great, great, and you know we'll dive a little bit more into all this, dan, and thank you again for being here. So the first thing you know when you say app right, so are we talking about because people still confuse this? So are we talking about a mobile app or a website that works on a mobile? 

0:01:44 - Dan
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, when I first started, I always thought apps were, you know, the thing on your phone, like the little icon that you click and that's what it is. I mean, that's still, I think, what a lot of people associate it with. But you know, app is short for application, so there can be both. There's web applications, there's mobile applications, right? So really, all when you think of the word application, it applies to something. It's helping you achieve a certain goal or solve a certain problem, right? You think about Facebook as an app. It's a social networking app. You think of TikTok, you think of even software like we met on Podmatch. That is an application. It has a specific focus that solves a specific problem, and it can be, you know, both functioning inside of a web browser whether it's Safari, google Chrome, whatever like that or on a mobile app, and it can be both at the same time. That's what's really really neat about it as well. So you know it's it is. 

I think it's when people see things on browsers they might not think, oh, this is an app that we're kind of used to, just thinking, oh, this is a website that functions that way. But you know the difference between it, I like to tell people, is you know, a website is something that's very static. It's like, hey, the website's designed to just be there and you can make it, you know, a little interactive. You know changing things, updating things from now and then. But an application is designed to capture data and it's dynamic and it lives and you can just like on Podmatch, right, you can message people and there's updates and there's new things that come through and there's all kinds of different stuff. So it's a living breathing organism, really in the online world. So, yeah, great question. 

0:03:26 - Mehmet
Good, good. So you mentioned something during the introduction which is, you know, very close to my heart, because I've done and I'm still doing it from time to time. You mentioned no code, no code, so how you know, you like, let's let's go one step back and try to explain. You know why leveraging these solutions make you know the whole story much easy. And the second one, why, actually, it's a good way to start developing the app on the app on such platforms. 

0:04:07 - Dan
Yeah, yeah, good question. So what I can tell you is kind of how I got started in it, because that's how a lot of people go down it is. I had an idea back I think it was 2017, 2018 for an application that I wanted to build. I kind of had I was about to get married, I had gained a little bit of weight. I needed to lose some weight, didn't really find a solution out there that was really working for me because I really liked to run. So I had this idea of an app or, you know, a solution that I wanted to build. Problem was I didn't know how to code, so I had literally no idea. I started going down, taking some classes, was like, okay, I'm not prepared to do this, this is way too much work. I was employed full time at the time, you know, so that was the thing. So I went down that path of like, oh, I'll just code it and build it myself and then realize that's not my cup of tea, not something I want to do. The second piece was now I'm going to start researching, you know, developers or agencies or things like that, to say, hey, I have this idea, what would this cost me to build. Long story short. They came back and gave me like astronomical numbers I'm talking like 100 grand, 200 grand, quarter million dollars to build this running and fitness app that I wanted, and it was like, okay, well, I don't have that kind of cash line around, right. So then I went down the rabbit hole online and found that there were ways that I could bring this idea to life without having to code and without having that bulk cash lying around right. So those are the two things that I think. 

When, when somebody has an idea for something, when a business wants to implement this type of solution, it allows you to circumvent that. You don't have to go down this long, arduous route of coding and learning to code or hiring coders or things like that. And then you also get to save the money that you would put into that. I mean, unless you're hiring, like like someone like me, like a no code developer agency like that, but we're still nowhere near $100,000, $200,000 to build things right. So one, it saves you. It saves you time and money. But and then you know, the the most important piece of that is time, because you can literally launched entire software platforms for people inside of like a month, inside of a few weeks and it's really. It allows you to be super agile, allows you to be. 

You know, in this world where it's first to market, it's it's you see a problem, you launch something. It's speed like speed, speed, speed right. And the no code, the low code stuff allows you to take an idea and bring it into fruition. You know a lot faster and a lot cheaper, and get validation before you dump a quarter million dollars into something or something like that or even more, so you don't end up going down that rabbit hole and end up three years down the road and half a million dollars in the hole and then you have an amazing show for it. So that's, that's really why it's. It's important. There's a lot of other things, but that's really the biggest piece that I see how it helps people. 

0:06:55 - Mehmet
And 100%, and you know the numbers you mentioned. They are actually. You know, when I used to tell people like I hear these numbers, they thought I'm joking or I'm exaggerating. I'm telling them no, and this is, you know, one part of the thing that I try to do now when I speak, especially with non-technical first time founders, because they are excited and they want to build. You know their idea, and they say, hey, we've got like this quotation, and they say, really, you don't need this Like, you need first to test, you know your product if you're going to have a demand on it and then you would take it to the next level. 

Now, one thing that always I had this debate maybe 100 times or more. So when we are building an app for the first time, should we go and I know, like you explained that very well at the beginning about applications so it's either running in the browser or running on a mobile device. But from your experience then, because you've done it like for now quite some time, if I come up to you with a new idea, so do you prefer that I directly build it onto a mobile app platform as an application that I can download it from the app store or the Android store? Or is it better to make it running on a web browser but, of course, to be optimized for a mobile device screen? So which route usually you prefer to take? 

0:08:39 - Dan
I'm going to probably go with the classic response of it depends. I mean, that's a good question because it's not a one size fits all solution. It really depends on what you're trying to achieve there might be. First of all, you have to make sure you have a legitimate idea that actually needs to be solved and people will pay for. And that's a whole other conversation we can get into. 

But when people come to me and some people just have an idea like there was one lady that came to me with an idea that was like I want to build this little tool that I can document what I'm wearing and how I'm doing and all these different things and ideas it's not launch it so I won't get into it. But that was clearly something. That's a mobile app idea. People are going to be on the move. They're not going to sit down in front of a computer and actually do these things like a laptop and all those types of stuff. So that made sense to go into a mobile application. There's other people that want to build kind of like a flip board type of clone or like a Instagram type of clone and things like that. That could make more sense to do inside of a responsive type of application, because there could be people that both use it inside of a mobile on the go type of thing, but also when they're sitting down, maybe at work or at running their business or whatever, or at night using their laptop or desktop or whatever might be. So I mean it really depends on the goals you're trying to achieve. 

People say, depending on your marketing prowess and your ability to actually market and get things out there, having an app on the app store and Google Play really it's a super underrated marketing channel that people don't realize how fast you can actually grow. Like my first app, that health and fitness one, it's kind of like that hockey stick curve. There was kind of no traction, no traction, no traction and then boom, it was like a hockey stick. It went up like exponentially. I didn't spend a dime on ads, not a dime on anything else. 

It's just once you get it's like SEO once you get ranked for the right keywords, you can explode so fast. Right, you have to do SEO and that kind of stuff when it comes to a progressive web app and things like that. So if you're good at marketing, if you can hire an agency, if you can afford that type of stuff. That might be a good route to go, but it's also you have to drive traffic to that, you have to figure that out on your own, whereas, like with the app store, you're kind of tapping into an unbelievable market that's just worldwide. It can be worldwide, you know what I mean. So yeah, long answer is that. Short answer is it depends on your goals 100%. 

0:11:15 - Mehmet
Like maybe from my side I would go a little bit techy here and if I see, the feature that they are looking for depends on something only a mobile can do it Like, for example, maybe they need to rely on the accelerator sensor or they would rely on the sensors usually we see in the mobile phones. So probably, yeah, they will not be running with a laptop, right? 

0:11:45 - Dan
That's a very, very good point as well. It is feature specific as well. 

0:11:48 - Mehmet
Yes, yeah, so it's feature and again so, but to your point, it depends. So there's no one fit answer for this, 100%. And now because you said like we can have discussion about this because we both talk to a lot of people who has ideas, so what makes really, in your opinion, a good idea for an app? 

0:12:15 - Dan
Oh, good question. It's almost like people call it the sniff test. There is kind of like an initial first impressions matter. I mean, when somebody comes to me or they submit a form or whatever it is, through a site you can kind of get the idea of what. There's an old saying it's like I'm not going to get it right, but it's like if the plan takes longer to explain than it took to come up with, it's probably a bad plan or something like that. 

Sometimes it's like you can hear the idea and somebody can explain it to you. If they can explain it succinctly and in a very short time of like hey, I want to build this app that solves this problem for this person or this group of people, ok, that's probably a good idea. There's probably features you can explore. There's probably an actual market for this thing that could actually succeed. If somebody comes to me and they're just giving me a long-winded thing around, hey, I kind of have, I want to do this thing for this person that maybe they might not even solve a problem, or there's just something that's just kind of vague with it. I can tell they're still ruminating it in their mind and they don't really have that solution nailed down of like hey, this is what we're building and this is why Because, again, not everything needs to be an app. 

I have even tell people I have a whole show topic on this you might have an idea that it doesn't really need to be an app. You, like, you said, you can build a website around it or you could just it doesn't even need to be something like that. So why are you going down this path? You know, so, you know it's. It's really interesting that that's a very, a very broad, a very broad question. But you know that that's probably my best answer is Short of saying it depends, you know, it's it kind of it. There is a that sniff test of like Hmm, I see that that's a good idea, but does that really need to be an app or does that? You know, is there a market for that? Is there? There's a bunch of different factors, I think. What do you think? 

0:14:22 - Mehmet
Yeah. 

I would say it depends. I would say it depends hundred percent. Agree with you then. But now there's. You know I'm sure like you get also these, I'm not into that part a lot, but you know people try to see apps, you know, and especially mobile apps, as one of their marketing channel routes, right. So In European, why sometimes it's important, for example, maybe you know and you can give, I will give you the, you know, the chance to tell about use cases. But, for example, if I am a, a restaurant, I'm a coffee shop, I'm a retailer in, I don't know, in apparels, whatever, so can really, you know, having a mobile presence, if the term is right, you know, help me in increasing my first brand awareness, maybe my sales? What have you seen in that domain then? 

0:15:28 - Dan
Yeah, that's, that's a good. There's a lot there. So I mean one thing I've seen with local, with local businesses, like you said, like coffee shops, restaurants, those types of things. You know it can help. But you know, think about a restaurant or a coffee shop there. They're not really making National sales, they're not making worldwide sales. Like if I can't buy coffee where you are, you can't come to a restaurant where I am, you can't even get delivery right. So in that case it might be like, well, you know, do you really want to grow? I think for those types of things it might be worth. You know there's already apps out there like grubhub, you know door dash, those types of things where you can go and get listed on those things. I Think for those. And then we're just talking about local businesses, for right now, those you know, those can really benefit if they want to add their own you know offline payment thing or a delivery piece, and you don't want to pay the fees to the delivery Companies or those types of things. Right now, when it comes to somebody you know Maybe like us, that you know operates online, you can have clients anywhere in the world, you can do those types of things. I mean, obviously it's kind of self-explanatory that if you get listed all over the place or you're on the World Wide Web, it really makes sense to to do those you know, to have that ability to Acquire customers from everywhere. 

So, for example, I'll go back to my original app that I had. You know, when I first went, that hockey stick took off. I mean the amount of downloads and you know people that were signing up with name and email every single day. I mean it ranged from like 10 people a day to like a hundred people a day. So my list went Really really it grew really really fast, extremely fast. I had one client, one of my very first client actually. She, when she launched, she really knew how to market, she knew what she was doing. She went on a bunch of TV shows you know, marketed herself, did all kinds of different things, and she grew her list from zero to five thousand people inside of like three weeks Through her app and she could do push notifications and anything she wanted to with them, because she had the right product at the right time and marketed it in the right way, right. 

So, yeah, when it comes to when it comes to that, you know I've seen a little bit less. I know I hear a lot of people like you know, every business needs a nap, everything like that. And I would kind of push against even as someone who could do that for every business, I would kind of push against that to say like, well, I mean, you know, think about it. You know, I remember before COVID there was a lot of you know, gyms and restaurants and local places where I was that I was talking to, about Apps and different things like that, and then as soon as COVID hit, you would think that everybody was like, yeah, like we need the app, we need to do this, and then, but spending restricted. 

So they were like, ah, we don't want to spend money on that, we don't know if that'll work, and a lot of them ended up not going with the app. You know what I mean. So but since that's all kind of over, there's, there's different, you know, circumstances in this day and age and stuff, but but yeah, that's that's kind of my, my answer for that. So it kind of depends on what you're like. I hate to say it depends on every question, but it really depends on your specific circumstance, yeah yeah, but it's True and it's a fact that we cannot neglect, because every business is different. 

0:18:43 - Mehmet
One thing that I noticed personally and this is not new, this is like Quite, like when still the app was something right, you know, like everyone wanted to jump. There was a misconception that it's something you do it once. And then you, you know, you said I'd forget it, which is not like. You know, because having a mobile app needs, you know, you need to keep it, I mean, up to date, you need to add features. You cannot just like push it to an app store or whatever you know it is and then say okay, I'm fine, I'm done right. So I've seen this misconception a lot and, yeah, like to your point, I think it's very valid point. 

When these Super apps started to come, like you know, delivery apps for food, and you know Now, here in Dubai, for example, we have everyone went that route. So everyone, actually they don't want to build an app, they want to build a super app. And super app is, for example, like, think about, similar to Uber, but actually when you open, you find the ride, you find your grocery, you find, you know, everything that can be ordered, you find under one umbrella, and this is killed, a lot of other apps, so any app that does only one thing. You know it. It I would not say died, but you know no one talks about it anymore. And this is. You know we need me. What do you think the future is like for for this whole mobile thing? You know, because things are changing fast now around us. So what are the tracks that you are seeing in that space? Then? 

0:20:26 - Dan
That's a really good observation to be honest with. I mean there is, I agree with you, there's, there's. I mean, even look at you know what Elon's doing with Twitter, just making it X like the everything app, right, yes, that was immediately came to mind as well. For me, that's really really interesting. So, you know, I think it's, there's. There's always the classic, you know, don't be a jack of all trades. Be good, it really be super good and super deep at one thing you know. So it's like okay. So take X, for example. Can it really be the best it? Can it be better than Facebook Messenger, for example? Can it be better than TikTok? Can it be better than all these different things all at once? That seems like a really, really tall order for some of these. Right, and it goes just to what you said there's got to be. I mean, there's got to be massive resources put into something like that large right. But so for a smaller business, you know, hey, you want to. These are these types of apps are growing in popularity. Is marketplace apps Like that's what I see more and more people gravitating towards is you know? Say you know there's, there's local farms everywhere where I live. Like, let's say, hey, like we want to build a marketplace app or any local farm, like a local guy down on the corner Can list his, his business that might make, you know, $5 a day selling corn and tomatoes, but now he can sell to the whole greater area of the city of where he lives because he can be seen more and he can have more Visibility in those types of things. I Think there's a lot of trends towards those that I've seen Inside of you know, marketplace apps. Again, those are. I think those are hard to get adoption to and there has to be certain Incentive structure in place for that. But you know, speaking of the future and of trends, I really think that the progressive web app is going to be the future of things that you even see things with Apple now where they're actually allowing, you know, those types of things to be on the app store, which never was allowed before. You know it's just it. 

I. I always like those as well because you can just publish changes really quickly. It allows businesses to just. You know we can, we can publish updates. You know, same day there's issues that come through. We fix and we patch and we move on. You know, I it's really, really interesting. 

But at the same time, you know there's there's people that I work with who have these ideas for For apps that are still specific and they still work and they're I think they're a lot more Easier to communicate to people of like, hey, get this app and then you can download this thing and and solve this problem in your business and do this whatever. It's very simple, but again, it's hard to get more engagement and more Repeat users and grow that to even be a sellable asset. So I'll just answer every single question with. It depends, I think. I think you know if you do have an idea for those that everything type of app, there's definitely room for it, but there has to be. You have to be very, very dedicated to to growing that thing and and messaging it in the correct way and being willing to do updates and and all that type of stuff. So, and but then also AI, I think is really changing a lot of things too, especially in the no code, low code space, like there's, there's a lot more adoption inside of the app and so I think that's a really important part of that, and people you know incorporating chat, gpt into things and doing, you know, different things with that. So the future is Very, very interesting. 

I just talked with a gentleman yesterday on my show and we were talking about you know what, what does the future hold? And because I told him there's all these reports that come out that say, hey, 70% of all development projects are going to be inside of no code in five years. And I'm like, yeah, I doubt it. But it was interesting because he made this observation that you know, back when was you could only code apps? Or there was no, no such thing as a no code or low code thing? Yeah, it was. 

It was that, hey, we're going to code everything and then, if we need no code, it's kind of like there's a place for it, right? What he was saying was that, no, you know, five, 10, 20 years, no code is going to be the dominant thing that is going to be used, but there's still going to be a place for coding solutions. So it's like the inverse. You know, which is really really interesting when you think about it and kind of how that's trending. So there's a lot of crazy things happening. A lot of exciting things happening in the future is just, you know, I think, I think the PWA is really the future of this whole business. 

0:25:01 - Mehmet
I agree with you and you know one thing I remember there was a whole debate, you know, and people were literally doing grants against Apple back in the days because they used to reject these kinds of apps. 

But I think they have figured out that this is the future and this is actually no funny enough that Apple, you know they unified the whole operating systems across all the devices so they can offer a seamless experience between whether you are on a phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and then, if you look now so now you know I'm using a MacBook Air now and if you know, I go to the phone like I would have like same seamless experience which is, you know, and I'm saying this to your point, I believe, like PWA, like progressive web apps, as long as you know, except some new cases which are very specific to the hardware of the device, you know, you know you need a mobile device to do this. 

Maybe things will change in the future, I don't know, maybe we will be able to rely on sensors that they don't have to sit on the phone. We just, you know, so this will be in like in a week or so. So maybe people saw yesterday, you know, the human, human device that will go out very soon in the US, you know, and now we're talking about something, not even a phone, so you have a screen on your palm of your hand. 

0:26:33 - Dan
Yeah, just to add one thing that just came to me too I think there's also a future in I'm seeing a lot more you know, applications that are, you know, especially tied in with the culture, especially here in the US, like there's this. There's almost like this movement to create platforms that are value specific, like there, you know, you saw, like you know, donald Trump goes off and creates his own social media thing because of getting kicked off Facebook, twitter, those types of things. There's more things happening like that. There's more. There's even business marketplaces that say, hey, you know, we're all about these values and we reject these. So like they're literally taking a stand and saying this app isn't for everybody, this is only for you if you believe these certain things or think this certain way and do those those types of things. 

And I've seen a couple of these cropping up and that's really interesting to me because it almost, it almost paints a future of you know. It's like Not everyone will be on the same tick tock or everyone will be on the same Facebook or the same Social things, or even like the same Internet. You know what I mean. So it's a. It's a really. It's a really interesting world. Maybe there's gonna be more. 

Right now you have app, the app store and Google Play that are really the dominant players in the. In the app, like the native app download space, you know, maybe there's another one that crops up. That is something like that that says, hey, we're not gonna restrict anything that you want to do, we're not gonna take any revenue, we're not gonna do anything like that. That's really interesting. You know what I mean. So I just wanted to add that when you, when you mentioned that that came up too and I saw I see this as a trend and it's it's really Interesting to watch to see like, okay, are they gonna be successful with that? You would think that saying you know, we're gonna reject 90% of the other people because you believe something different than we do, that seems like not a great strategy or making yourself a lightning rod, but it's actually proving to be pretty successful. 

0:28:37 - Mehmet
So, yeah, so that's, that's an interesting trend to watch, interesting indeed, and again to to to something that you mentioned just now like we have a new store that is coming, which is the AI store as well. So you know, open AI now with their new release of GPT's, so they allow you to create your own Chatbot, and I'm not sure I read the you know, the blog post, not sure they? Someone mentioned I'm not sure if it's on their website or I learned it somewhere else so there will be some revenue sharing actually from from this activity and, to your point, you know what, what Platforms are trying to do now and maybe just keep it far from our main topic is, to your point, like people are trying to take their audience and they are telling them if you come with us, we gonna share revenue with you. So actually, and I must did this with with Twitter X now, and you know, now open AI that are doing this with with those chat GPT, gpt's, you know, and I'm wondering, in the mobile space, if Apple or Google and you know we don't know what they are doing, of course are they going to make something like this, because of course now they try to take the share from, from the developers when you put on the app stores. I think they, the last time I checked was like around the correct me if I'm wrong then they take 20% from from the revenue In the app store. It was 10% back in the day, I remember, but someone told me it's high recently. So Now they need to do the other way around. So they need to get, they need to encourage you know the community To develop more apps on their platform. So they need to encourage. And you know, kind of To your point, which is very, very, very interesting point. 

Now, we talked about ideas and we talked about what makes good, but you know bad ones, or maybe something to review. I'm sure, like you, when someone comes to you, probably it would be their first time. Maybe they are first time Founders, or maybe first time they try to to create something. So do you see there is a gap in and I'm not talking specifically about the mobile, but because you deal a lot with entrepreneurs so do you see there's a gap of, in of knowledge? That is there. So because people they think it's easy and then you know they they get shocked with the reality, like, what do you think can be done to? So, for example, instead of you know, because this is you from your time that like you need? You need to keep Dialogue going and coming back and forward, you know, with these guys until they get it. So do you think there is a knowledge gap about starting businesses in general and Especially when it comes to to mobile business? 

0:31:39 - Dan
Yeah, I think there is. You know, I there's all. There's a thing I mean I've heard it before, I don't know who it's attributed to, but there's like a you know, if I was, if I, if I'd known what I was getting into, I probably wouldn't have done it. It's like. It's like a certain form of naivety, you know, naivety, I guess, but I Think that's that can be good, because you don't really know what you're getting into, because you're just like hey, I have this cool idea, I know it can be big, I want to, I'm committed to do it right, and that's, I think the key is is just being committed to doing something. But you know, I do think there is Because there's different phases of this. 

You know, I have I've clans at every different phase, like one today they did a big launch, a new, you know I've launched yesterday and they're having issues today with people, you know, finding new bugs and you know having issues with, well, what device are they using? And but they're, they're at a place where they've gotten past the idea. We've built the thing, we've launched the thing. Now they're at a like tech support, improvement, bug fixing type of thing, which is a whole different game than trying to validate the idea in the first place. You know what I mean. So I think there are, there are knowledge gaps. You know, everyone's pretty Heck savvy, I would say these days, as far as, yeah, we all really kind of need to use a computer on our For our job and in some way or another. But I also think I think there's a knowledge gap when it comes to Not only like what, what's required to actually like run a SaaS company or, you know, a software company, but to actually Message it and market it correctly and sell it correctly. I think that's the big thing. You see, like there's zombie apps all over the place. Like there's people don't realize how big of a market the app store and Google Play actually are, because, yeah, there might be millions and millions and millions of apps, but there's home, it's just like podcasting there's like a very, very small percentage of them that make all the revenue, you know right. So it's it's. I think there's more of a knowledge gap there. 

Then, really like the technical pieces that would need to be done, because everyone really knows like Kind of what they want it to do generally, how they want it to look like. They kind of have that vision in their mind. But there is and you know it's funny, I've worked with a couple of people too that you know there's either people who are really kind of more like me, kind of on the technical side of like you tell me what you want and I'm immediately thinking how can I build that with the skills that I have and the you know the, the people that I can work with and the way the technologies bill? But then you have people who are in the creative space that just they can. They can see, envision how everything is gonna sequentially work and how this is all gonna come together, but they don't know how to build a certain like a single thing. They wouldn't even know how to sign up for an account to actually get the thing done. You know. 

Okay so it's. It's really interesting when it comes to different people, like there's a big spectrum of, like that knowledge, because some people might be more in the middle of like, well, I can kind of visualize it, but I can kind of build it too, and it's like it might not look pretty but it'll work, and then it'll kind of get done. And then there's kind of people, you know, that can just build stuff and never design, and there's people that can design and never build. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting, it's. But you know, when people have I think people have their they have their Expertise nailed down in their niche and in their idea of like, hey, I can be an authority in this and I can, I really know what this can do and what it can do. But then when it comes to like, how do I actually bring it to life? That's where people fall short, I think. 

0:35:14 - Mehmet
Yeah. So it's good that you mentioned this, because I Wanted to ask you about your own experience of growing this business. So you started it because out of your own frustration, right? So you, you were looking for something and then you turn it into a business. So this is something I always tell people try to find, you know, something you probably struggled with and then you know, see if others are struggling with the same thing, and then you build it. But you know, when it comes to consultancy businesses like you stand, things are different. What I was, you know, curious to know about is what was the Right, I would say, or the secret sauce, if I might say it like this, to Really be able to, to grow it and, you know, make it successful and acquire clients. How, how, fellow people who, whenever they are starting it in the app business or they are building their app to create something, what's the secret source of acquiring customers? 

0:36:18 - Dan
At least from your point of view, of course yeah, yeah, I mean so, as far as you know, from from from what I do, referral based building is kind of the main way that I've grown. Like there's always people that we build things for and then they always have a network that they're like pushing people to us. So from that, you know, agency perspective, that's kind of how that's grown. So kind of I guess what you're asking is kind of like for people who are building the actual software, right, right, yeah, you know there's there's a lot of different ways. We've seen people, you know, for me, like I've had Apps that really took off using ASO, right, just using that App Store optimization of let's let's really make some some good screenshots, let's make some good, you know, promo videos, those types of things. But I see a lot of people have a lot of success just kind of really initially launching to their own crowd, like their own list, their own Facebook group, kind of getting that initial traction and and then kind of really hacking it from there. And by hacking it I mean making it super easy for people to share, to invite people. That's really, I think a secret sauce of Getting an app to grow is to make it so it really kind there is kind of a social component built into it, because, you know, a lot of times there might just be, hey, this is a thing that I use and I don't ever tell anyone about. There's no way to Share it. There's no, it's just built for one person and you're kind of you're just operating in silos, right. But if you make it so you can share, you can invite, you can collaborate with people in one way or another, whatever, maybe your idea doesn't allow that, but that really, I think, really kind of makes it easier for adoption and things like that. And then there's always the way that people. 

I've really been shocked at the versatility and how well QR codes work. That has been something I would never expect. It blows me away. Every time we make QR codes for people, it's like, hey, download on the App Store, google Play or get the version here, whatever. And that drives more action than you would ever anticipate. Honestly, that is actually like whether you put up a flyer, you put it up on a slide or whatever it is, the QR code is should not be underestimated. Let me tell you why. That is a really, really powerful thing that actually makes a lot of things grow quickly. It's really, it's kind of shocking. 

0:38:59 - Mehmet
True, and I think the reason is because we are curious by nature, so we want to know where this QR code leads us. I know from myself whenever I see a QR code, whatever it is, I want to know what is it for, so I just kind of go there. But, of course, I've seen different businesses, even big companies. Actually, they use the QR code to drive traffic to their website or mobile app whatever, because it's an easy way to access. You don't need to send anything, just like it's very convenient and then you just open it. So, yeah, I think you're right. Another thing is when you attached this or like you combine this, especially, you know, for a mobile app, I've seen this very successful. If you have like kind of a you know, physical presence in an event or I don't know, like maybe you are launching a campaign or something like this, it works ultimately perfect. You know like I've seen it successful. So 100% agree with you on that. So then, where we can find more about you know, the work you do and about yourself? 

0:40:17 - Dan
Yeah, absolutely so. The main site, dappermobileappscom that's the main website that we have, I've mentioned a couple of times on here do have a show Currently I've been changing the name a couple of times, but currently it's called Tech Bites with Dan Hafner, so you can listen to, you can tune into that show as well. You can find it at dappermobileappscom. Talk a lot about a lot more deep dives into all this technical stuff and no code and AI and all kinds of different cool things like that. So, yeah, I would just point people to dappermobileappscom and you can find out a lot there. We even have a cool little app cost calculator I've put together. You can get in a nice boat of what your idea might cost you. So, yeah, you can check it out. 

0:40:58 - Mehmet
Nice, I will make sure that I will put all these things in the show notes. Then this is like the way I am. Is there anything that you wished I had asked you Like? Did I miss anything? 

0:41:12 - Dan
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, I think you know I would just close, kind of. The way I like to close a lot of things is, you know, I see too many people just sit on ideas forever. You know, I've done this myself. But you know, if you really do have some kind of idea you know 2024 is coming up soon you know, don't just sit on it, there could be somebody. I hate to see stories of people that are like man, I had that idea and then somebody went on and did it. 

Now there's an app and then they're making all kinds of you know whatever. So you know, if that's it, you know, look into this. Maybe it's a solution for you, maybe it's something that helps you get something going, maybe it's another hobby that you can pick up or whatever like that. So just don't let your ideas sit. That's, that's all. 

0:41:52 - Mehmet
I hate to see ideas die in silence 100% and I agree with you and this is a call to action actually to anyone who's listening or maybe watching, especially if you are here the first time Act now, act as fast as possible. Don't and again I want to remind them of what you mentioned that at the beginning of the episode regarding the cost Don't be tricked by you know these six figure numbers. It cannot cost you this. If you are in the US, maybe you can reach out to Dan. He can help you actually in making it in a more cost effective way, so you don't need to pay these large amounts, especially if you are still in the MVP phase. And yeah, like again, you know this, this technology is here to stay. 

We discuss this, especially the PWA, the progressive web app. So I encourage you to check, you know, the website of Dan and you know, listen to his podcast if you are interested more into the mobile space and you know, as you know, this is how I end my show. We're trying to get different topics, so it was the first time we speak about specifically the mobile app space. So thank you, dan, very much for your insights and you know, sharing your experience with us today and, as usual, if you have questions, point them out to me. If you have questions to Dan, also same, and we will be meeting again very soon. Thank you, bye, bye, thank you. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page