Boot without code Softrwhich allows its customers to build apps based on their existing data, announced Tuesday that it has added Google Sheets to its integration list.
Previously, Softr focused on Airtable databases. The move to support data from Google’s spreadsheet product is likely to expand its potential customer base. Even before that expansion, CEO Mariam Hakobyan told AapkaDost+ that her company increased annual recurring revenue by 3x from December 2021 to December 2022.
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Softr’s rapid revenue growth is a good reminder that while the tech world seems to be completely consumed by all things AI, there’s quite a bit of work going on in other areas worth keeping an eye on .
That said, there’s an interesting connection between AI and no-code worth writing down: both are potentially great extensions of human capabilities. AI tooling could act as a kind of second brain for the digitally busy, and no-code services could allow non-developers to build the tools they need to get their work done. In both cases, the genres of new technology development have an opportunity to help ordinary people do much more, faster and often at a low cost.
Another thing that modern AI tools and not code share is accessibility. For example, Softr has expanded its user base from 35,000 to 150,000 by 2022. That’s a lot for a service that was Airtable-specific until recently. On the AI side, I need not reiterate how much market demand there is for modern LLM tooling.
Let’s take a look at Softr’s progress since we last reviewed the company and talk about what we can learn about its codeless progress as a method of building more accessible software.
Softr, no-code and empowering the regulars
Ask anyone who works at a company that builds software and is not part of the engineering or product organizations how long it takes them to build something for their own needs. Without even making Jira card jokes, we all know what the answer will be. And to some extent, the default situation makes sense: what non-developers need is often fairly basic software, and expensive engineers need to focus on the company’s core offerings, not internal tooling.