The first Adalo app to get acquired, How Zapier can automate tasks for you
Modern Makers - 14/06/2020
Hi makers,
On the agenda this week:
New features from Glide, Adalo, JotForm, Substack and Notion
Some Made in France 🇫🇷 projects
A Japanese application created on Adalo and acquired by a recruitment firm
A focus on Zapier to automate your tasks
Enjoy!
🧰 Product
JotForm (a tool allowing you to easily create online forms, competitor of Typeform) was on Product Hunt this week with a new functionality which allows to integrate a payment module directly within a form. Please note that this functionality is currently only compatible with PayPal.
More information on JotForm website
Like almost every week, Glide continues to bring new features to its users. This week, we noticed the introduction of the rating component. A potential use case would be an application listing restaurants allowing users to give their opinion on the quality of the meal as well as on the price for example. Glide has also introduced some new fonts to further personalise your different projects. Nothing revolutionary but always nice to see how hard the Glide team is working to continuously improve its product.
⌨ Projects
The bicycle market is booming as the coronavirus crisis will considerably change the modes of travel in the future, especially in large cities. Angell is the latest project from french serial entrepreneur Marc Simoncini (the founder of online dating platform Meetic). Angell is competing directly with players such as VanMoof or Cowboy on the smart bike niche. As part of the launch of the new Angell / S model, a dedicated website has been created. A project led by Alex Tourgis in collaboration with the design studio “seriously” and built entirely on Webflow.
Link: Angell/S
Bubble gave a spotlight to a French project this week on its blog. Makezu is an application created by Hélène Lucien and Anne-Sophie de Gabriac. In its initial version, Makezu is aimed at startups and businesses and allows them to interact automatically with potential customers on Twitter, based on the content of their tweets. Hélène and Anne-Sophie used Bubble to create their platform (the homepage however was created on Webflow). The platform allows tweets to be sent to Twitter users who have posted a tweet in line with the topics chosen by Makezu’s customers. It took six weeks of development on Bubble to put online this first version. As Hélène explains well in this interview with Bubble, a no-code tool has really enabled Makezu to launch their MVP as fast as possible in order to quickly validate the potential of their platform: “Fail quickly - succeed faster. ”
Link : Bubble App of the Day: Makezu
We are going to Japan now with SPOTTO, an application that this week became the very first ever Adalo app to get acquired. Created by Dr. NoCode, SPOTTO connects young graduates with companies looking for new talents. SPOTTO has seen its use take off with the current context linked to Covid-19 and has then been able to attract the attention of a recruitment firm which made the decision to acquire this project. A very encouraging example for the potential of no-code and a very good validation for Adalo in particular.
Some of the features available on SPOTTO:
Separate log-ins for individuals and for companies
Individuals can consult the profiles of different companies
Company profiles include description, application, Zoom meeting link and the ability to chat with candidates
Possibility to display the calendar in two different formats
Sharing function to invite friends
Link : SPOTTO — The First Adalo App To Get Acquired!
⚒ Tutorials
Zapier is one of the most iconic tool in the no-code space. Simply put, Zapier allows you to connect several applications to each other in order to automate tasks and processes. Zapier's catalog includes more than 2,000 applications. No matter which tools you want to connect, there is a very good chance that they will be available on Zapier.
Zapier is based on the principle of "If this, then that". If an X event takes place, then Zapier will trigger a Y action in reaction.
Example: “If a person fills out a Typeform form, the answers and the data are automatically added as a new row on a Google Sheet”
It is also possible to set up Zaps (name given to the automations created on Zapier) containing several stages. Using my previous example:
“If a person fills out a Typeform form, the answers and the data are automatically added as a new row on a Google Sheet. Then, I will receive a Slack notification”
The benefits of Zapier are therefore pretty obvious: saving time by automating time-consuming tasks but also reducing to zero the risk of error which can occur when a task is performed manually and that data circulates from an application to another.
This week Zapier published on its Youtube channel a tutorial which offers a good introduction to novices who would like to better understand how to use Zapier as well as to have a first overview of the possibilities offered by the tool.
As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been able to create my very first Zap this weekend. I have an Airtable base that contains all my active subscriptions (Netflix, Calm, Blinkist for example). Thanks to the information contained in this base and with a small formula, I will now automatically receive an email 7 days before the renewal date for these services. This email contains all the information I need: annual budget spent on this service, renewal date as well as the link to unsubscribe if I wish. Feel free to contact me if you would like to see how to replicate this for your own use.
I plan to focus in the coming weeks on Zapier and Integromat. If you have resources to recommend me in particular on these two tools, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and share your links with the community of Modern Makers.
📖 Articles
🇬🇧 Top 5 Things to Know About Low Code Applications - TechRepublic
🇬🇧 How One Startup Launched and Sold in One Week - Bubble
🇬🇧 Top Signup Form Builders. No-Code Edition - Medium
📦 In other news
You can now create private Substack publications, with a new “invite-only” mode
Draftbit Example Date Service is a great way to get started building your app without having the backend figured out
The Masonry layout is now available on Adalo
You can now display formatted, comprehensible mathematical characters, expressions and equations on Notion, using the KaTeX library
That’s all for this week. If you like the content, don't hesitate to share it with your friends or colleagues.
If you’re reading Modern Makers for the first time, you can subscribe to receive our content every Sunday in your inbox ✉️
I also invite you to send me your feedback on this project by leaving a comment below.
Have a great week,
Martin,