Introduction: How It Works

This guide is for you — for someone with an idea who doesn't know how to code. For someone who feels trapped by their own lack of technical competence.

The era of helplessness is over. Modern no-code tools are not toys. They are industrial machines that let you, a non-technical person, build a working prototype of your product with your own hands.

There's one key fact you must accept right away: The result of these 60 days is not a scalable product. It's a reasoned go / no-go decision, supported by your first small payments and user feedback.

The golden rule to remember: The MVP you're about to build is a single-use research probe. Its only task is to fly into unknown territory (the market), gather data, and — if needed — burn up on re-entry. It is not the first version of your future product.

That's not pessimism. That's professionalism. No-code tools are optimized for speed, not for scalability or performance. They usually create a massive "technical debt." Trying to build a serious company on top of such an MVP is like trying to build a skyscraper on the foundation of a garden shed.

Be ready that after you've validated your hypothesis and received your first money, you'll need to throw away 90% of what you've made and start again — this time with a professional team.

Your disposable no-code MVP is a way to spend $500 and 60 days to buy information that would otherwise cost $50,000 and six months of a development team's work. You're using a cheap instrument to de-risk expensive decisions.

Let's begin.

Part 1: Paper Prototype (Days 1–20)

At this stage, you're not allowed to open any builder tool. All work is done in documents, spreadsheets, or on paper. Every decision skipped here will cost you dozens of hours during implementation.

Step 1: Qualify the Problem, Not the Idea (Days 1–7)

An idea by itself is worthless. Only a market-confirmed problem that people are ready to pay to solve has real value. Your task during this stage is to find and verify such a problem.

Action Plan:

1. Define your micro-niche (2 days). The general market is an ocean — and you will drown in it. You need a small, isolated bay. Defining your target audience is not choosing an industry — it's applying a chain of hard filters. Bad example (failure path): "Small coffee shops." Good, working example: "Owners of 1–2 independent specialty coffee shops in major U.S. cities who personally work behind the counter at least two days a week, use Square POS for sales, and maintain a personal Instagram or Substack page for their café."

2. Why this approach works:

• Homogeneity: People in such a segment will have almost identical problems.
• Reachability: You know exactly where to find them — in coffee-owner chats, local barista events, or Square user groups.
• Qualification: You instantly filter out hired managers and big chains with completely different pain points and decision processes.

3. Your first task is to create the same kind of narrow niche definition.

4. List your problem hypotheses (1 day). Now that you have a concrete profile, write down 10–15 problems relevant specifically to that micro-segment. Examples:

• "Hard to forecast bean purchases for premium blends."
• "High barista turnover, personally trained by the owner."
• "No easy way to track milk and syrup usage when the owner isn't on shift."

5. Filter: Survival Problems vs. Growth Problems (1 day). Now you need to separate problems that threaten business survival from those that affect growth. This is a key filter.

• Survival Problems: Direct "holes" in the business that cause loss of money or customers right now. They're operational and tactical. Owners will pay to stop the bleeding.

Examples: theft, uncontrolled inventory losses, schedule mistakes leading to downtime.

• Growth Problems: Strategic tasks aimed at improving an already working business. Owners think about them when the fires are out.

Examples: building a brand community, launching a loyalty program, improving social media strategy.

6. During your MVP stage, you're the repair crew, not the architect. You're looking for leaks. Focus only on survival problems.

7. Economic justification (2 days). Pick the top 2–3 survival problems and run 5–7 short interviews with representatives of your micro-niche. Your goal is to get numbers.

• Wrong: "Would a solution for that be useful to you?"
• Right: "I'm talking to small café owners — some say they struggle to track alternative milk accurately. Have you faced this? If yes, how much does that cost you per month approximately?"

Your job is to calculate the approximate cost of the problem per client per month.

8. Formulate the value proposition (1 day). Package your findings into a clear formula: For [your micro-niche], who experience [problem, backed by numbers], our product is a [product category] that delivers [main benefit / outcome].

Example: "For independent specialty café owners losing up to $200 per month on untracked milk and syrup waste, our app is an inventory system that reduces loss by 80% through real-time tracking integrated with Square POS."

Outcome: You're no longer "a guy with an idea." You now have a data-backed value proposition, built around a real problem in a concrete, reachable market segment.

Step 2: Design the Minimal Solution (Days 8–15)

Your goal is to design the shortest possible path from the user's problem to its solution. Every extra feature added at this stage equals one more week of delay later.

Action Plan:

1. Define the main user scenario (1 day). Describe, step by step, the absolute minimum actions a user must take to achieve the result promised in your value proposition. Example: 1. The owner connects the app to their Square account. 2. The app imports drink recipes. 3. When a barista sells a drink, e.g. "Oat Latte," 4. the app automatically deducts 200 ml of oat milk from inventory. 5. At day's end, the owner sees a mobile report: "Oat milk remaining: 1.2 liters. Forecast: will run out tomorrow by 3 PM."

2. Create your first visualization (4 days).

• Method #1: Paper and pen (fastest start). Draw each screen from your user flow on a separate sheet or sticky note. Use a simple visual language:
• Title: bold large text.
• Input field: a rectangle with placeholder text ("Your email").
• Button: rectangle with an action ("Login," "Save").
• List: stack of identical rectangles.
• Method #2: Figma (professional option). If you're ready to learn a tool or want a clickable prototype, use Figma. Watch a short tutorial — 15 minutes is enough — to learn how to create frames, shapes, text, and links in "Prototype" mode. That's all you need. Figma lets you iterate faster and test more realistically.

3. Test your prototype (3 days). Find 5 potential users.

• If paper-based: sit next to them and show the first screen. Ask, "Where would you tap to view the report?" When they point, flip to the next sheet. You're acting as a live computer.
• If Figma: share the prototype link and watch via video call.

Your task is to observe silently. Every hesitation, every "where should I click?" means your design failed. Record and simplify those moments immediately.

Outcome: You now have a tested, intuitive visual prototype of your solution — either on paper or in Figma. This is your finalized blueprint.

Step 3: Choose Your No-Code Tool (Days 16–20)

Your tool choice isn't a matter of taste. It's a strategic decision based on two factors: 1. the nature of your MVP, and 2. your personal comfort with technology.

The main criterion: how fast you can answer the only question that matters — "Does my prototype solve the problem well enough that people would pay for it?"

You're not choosing your forever home — you're picking a test bench.

Action Plan:

1. Analyze the "architecture" (1 day). Look at your blueprint and ask: "Where is the 'brain' of my app, and how does it work?"

• Scenario A: Brain = internal logic. The app must handle multi-step workflows, process data, calculate values, and change statuses. Data is created and lives inside the app.
• Scenario B: Brain = external spreadsheet. The app is mainly a nice control panel for data stored in Airtable or Google Sheets.
• Scenario C: Brain = on the user's phone. The core product depends on mobile experience: push notifications, geolocation, camera use.

2. Pick the right platform (1 day):

• Scenario A (complex logic): choose Bubble.io. Why: Bubble isn't just a builder — it's a visual programming language. Its superpower is Workflows. You can create logic like: "When user clicks a button → check subscription status → if active, charge via Stripe → on success, update order in DB → create new record → email user → send admin alert to Slack." Such multi-step logic is hard to do anywhere else. Verdict: Choose Bubble if your MVP is a marketplace, CRM, SaaS with internal logic, or a unique web product.
• Scenario B (interface for tables): choose Softr.io, Glide, or Pory. Why: These tools use data as backend. You structure everything in Airtable, and Softr instantly turns it into a working site with accounts, lists, and forms. You don't need to design a database — it's already there. Verdict: If your MVP is about displaying/editing table data — e.g. directories, knowledge bases, internal tools — this is your fastest route.
• Scenario C (mobile app): choose Adalo. Why: Unlike Bubble or Softr (which make web apps), Adalo builds native apps for iOS/Android. That means access to push notifications, camera, and GPS. Verdict: Choose Adalo if mobile UX is critical (e.g. courier app, habit tracker, field tool).

3. Explore the modern stack: Figma + Supabase (1 day).

• What it is: With plugins like Figmagic or Make, your Figma design becomes your front-end, and Supabase acts as your backend.
• Supabase is essentially PostgreSQL on steroids — a developer-grade database with an easy UI.
• Pros: Professional foundation — real DB, ready for scaling. "Design = Product": your Figma layout becomes the live app.
• Cons: Higher learning curve — you'll need to understand basic database structure and relationships. Debugging can be painful — issues may lie in Figma, the connector, or Supabase.
• Verdict: Perfect for those who want to invest in learning and start with a solid base. If words like "API" and "relations" don't scare you — this might be your best choice. But if you want speed and simplicity, stick to Bubble or Softr.

4. Do a practical test-drive (3 days). Choose one platform. Sign up and recreate one simple element from your Figma prototype — e.g., the login screen. The goal isn't to build — it's to feel whether the tool's logic clicks for you.

Note on technical debt: No-code tools let you borrow time from the future — speed now, pain later. That's fine for hypothesis testing, but suicidal for scaling. Remember: you're building a temporary structure. Don't waste time making it perfect.

Outcome: You've chosen and tested your no-code tool — and understand both its strengths and its limits.

End of Part 1 Summary:

You've completed the most crucial phase. You now have: 1. A data-backed problem in an ultra-niche market. 2. A user-tested visual blueprint. 3. A tested and understood no-code platform.

You're ready to move from planning to building.

Part 2: Assembly (Days 21–50)

The planning stage is complete. The blueprints are approved. Now you move from the headquarters to the production floor. Your role shifts from architect to assembly engineer. The goal of this stage is not creativity but the methodical, almost mechanical execution of your plan.

Your main enemy now isn't tool complexity — it's chaos. Any deviation from the plan, any attempt to "improvise" or "improve" on the go is a direct path to missed deadlines and a broken product. Your task is to install production discipline.

Step 4: Setting Up the Production Line (Days 21–28)

You are not "learning Bubble" or "taking an Adalo course." You're preparing your toolset to assemble a specific product according to a specific blueprint. This is a fundamentally different approach. You're not mastering a tool in general — you're mastering only the functions needed to manufacture your MVP.

Action Plan:

1. Inventory of operations (2 days): Open your Figma prototype from Part 1. Analyze it not as a collection of screens but as a collection of repetitive technical operations — reusable patterns. Make a complete list. It usually includes 5–8 key patterns:

• User registration/login.
• Creating a new record in the database (e.g., "Add Product," "Create Project").
• Displaying a list of records (e.g., "Feed," "Product List").
• Filtering and sorting that list.
• Editing an existing record.
• Linking tables (e.g., one user → multiple projects).
• Conditional logic (e.g., "Show this button only if user = admin").

2. Targeted learning (3 days): Forget about 12-hour "beginner courses." Your tactic is surgical YouTube search queries for each item on your list. Find short (10–25 min), recent videos using searches like:

• "Bubble.io user login tutorial"
• "Adalo custom list filter"
• "Softr edit record form"

Save them into a playlist. This playlist is your personal library of technical solutions.

3. Building your "golden components" (3 days): This is the most important step in your preparation and will save you dozens of hours. Create a new empty project in your no-code tool — name it "Sandbox." Your task: in this sandbox, one by one, following your playlist, build each of your 5–8 patterns perfectly. Build a flawless login system. Build a perfectly filterable list. Once they work, leave them there. Your "Sandbox" becomes your personal warehouse of tested, working modules. When assembling your real MVP, you won't invent or guess — you'll just copy, paste, and slightly adapt what's already working. This eliminates cognitive overload and reduces your chance of failure nearly to zero.

Outcome: You don't "know the tool" — you own the exact skill set needed to assemble your MVP. Your production line is ready to operate.

Step 5: The Conveyor Belt (Days 29–50)

Now the actual assembly begins. This process must be devoid of creativity or reflection. You are the operator of the conveyor. Your task is to take the next part from the list and install it in its place.

Manufacturing Protocol:

1. Ticket system: Transfer your main user flow from Figma into Trello, Notion, or even a simple text file as a linear checklist. Each point becomes a "ticket." Example: 1. Create "Settings" page. 2. Add input fields: Name, Phone. 3. Create database fields: Name, Phone. 4. Create workflow: save form data to database on "Save" click.

You don't think about what to do next — you just take the next ticket.

2. Vertical assembly principle: Don't repeat the rookie mistake of designing all screens first and "adding logic later." You work in vertical slices. Each ticket represents a fully functional piece — from interface to database to workflow. Build the "Settings" page? It must work completely before you move on. This ensures that at any given time you don't have a 100% drawn but 0% working product — instead, you have, for example, 30% of a fully functional one.

3. Deep work protocol: Your workspace must be sterile. Only one browser tab with your no-code tool (and maybe one more with the tutorial if needed). No messengers. No emails. No news. Turn on music that helps you focus. Work in continuous 1.5–2 hour blocks. The efficiency of such "deep work" is exponentially higher than working in short, interrupted bursts.

4. Defect & improvement log: During the build, you'll inevitably find bugs and come up with "brilliant ideas." You are forbidden to fix or implement them immediately.

• Create a separate document called "Defects & Ideas."
• Found a bug? Write it down, keep working.
• Got an idea? Write it down, forget it until Day 61.
• Allocate a specific time slot (e.g., 3 hours every Friday) for defect resolution.

The rest of the time — only forward movement along the ticket list. This is the only way to avoid getting stuck in endless tweaks.

Outcome: Not a polished product, but a functional asset. Think of it as an unfinished house — no paint, no furniture — but with working plumbing, electricity, and heating. The foundation is solid, the utilities are connected, and the roof doesn't leak. It's ready for the first tenants — your users — to move in for testing.

In the final part, you'll conduct the acceptance phase — bringing in real users, identifying the leaks, and testing whether the foundation holds up under real load.

Part 3: Acceptance and Analysis (Days 51–60)

The production phase is finished. You now have a working but rough asset. At this point, most founders make one of two fatal mistakes: 1. They fall in love with their creation and start "selling" it, ignoring the flaws. 2. They get embarrassed by how raw it looks and keep "polishing" it forever.

Both paths lead nowhere.

Your role now is neither a salesperson nor an artist — you are a quality engineer and a cold analyst. Your task is to run a controlled stress test of your product to obtain objective data on its viability. The goal of these ten days is not to earn money, but to collect the data you need to make one clear decision: continue or stop.

Step 6: Controlled Stress Test (Days 51–57)

You are not "launching" your product — you are running a series of controlled experiments. You are not looking for applause or likes — you are looking for failure points.

Every hesitation, every error, every complaint from a user is valuable data. Compliments, on the other hand, are useless.

Experiment Protocol:

1. Manually select your testers (1 day): Return to the 5–10 people from your micro-niche you interviewed in Part 1. These are your ideal test candidates. Do not post publicly or ask random friends unless they belong to your target audience. You need representative users, not sympathetic ones. Message them directly: "Hey! Remember when we discussed problem X? I've built the first working version of a solution. I don't need compliments — I need your criticism. Can you spare 30 minutes to try completing one task?"

2. "Cockpit test" protocol (4 days): With each of 5–7 testers, schedule an individual video call. Your goal is not to demonstrate, but to silently observe the user trying to operate the product for the first time.

• Briefing: "I'll send you a link. Your task is to [define one clear goal, e.g., 'add a new milk delivery and check the inventory report']. I'll stay silent and just observe your screen. Please think aloud. If something feels confusing or inconvenient, say it out loud. My goal is to find everything that's wrong."
• Full silence rule: Once the user opens the link, you stay quiet. Fight the urge to help or explain. Every moment of hesitation, every misclick, every "wait, what do I do now?" is a UX failure on your side, not theirs. Write everything down.

3. Collect telemetry (after each session): When the user finishes (or fails to finish) the task, ask three direct questions:

• Value question: "On a scale from 1 to 10, how well did this solve the problem we discussed? (1 = not at all, 10 = completely solved)." Record the number. Anything below 7 means your value proposition failed.
• Friction question: "What was the most confusing, annoying, or difficult part?" This shows you the biggest usability bottleneck.
• Commitment question (the real test): "This is still a rough version. It will take time to improve it. I can give you three months of free access if you confirm your interest by paying the first month now for a symbolic amount — say $10–$50 (10–15% of the planned price). This helps me understand who's genuinely interested versus just being polite." This single question separates real demand from empty talk. A real payment — even symbolic — is the only reliable indicator of true market interest.

Outcome: You've conducted 5–7 experiments and collected hard data, not opinions: value ratings, usability obstacles, and the number of real prepayments.

Step 7: Preparing the "Investor Memo" (Days 58–60)

Now it's time to analyze the collected data and make a decision. You're preparing a short report for your main investor — yourself. At this stage, your emotions, hopes, and sunk time don't matter. Only the numbers do.

Decision Protocol:

1. Build a Friction Map: Write down every moment when users struggled. Group them. If 3 out of 5 users got stuck on the same screen — that's a critical usability defect.

2. Calculate the average Value Score: Take the mean of all "value" ratings. If it's below 7.0, that's a red flag. Even if your product "works," it doesn't solve the problem strongly enough.

3. Analyze the key metric — Conversion to Prepayment: This is your main indicator. Count how many testers actually agreed to pay.

• 0–10% (1 of 7 or fewer): NO-GO (STOP). The message is clear: either the problem isn't painful enough or the solution isn't convincing. Go back to Step 1 and search for a new problem. Trying to "force" this one will only burn time.
• 20–40% (2–3 of 7): GO, WITH CAUTION. You've found a signal, but not strong demand. Next: fix the major issues from your Friction Map and run a second testing round with 15–20 new users to confirm the signal.
• 50%+ (4 of 7 or more): STRONG GO. That's an exceptionally strong signal. You've hit a nerve. The problem is real, and your solution resonates. Time to plan Version 2: fix defects, add the next functional layer, and prepare to scale or raise capital.

4. Write a one-page summary: Briefly present your results: Average value score. The 2–3 most critical usability issues. Conversion rate to prepayment. Your clear, data-driven decision: NO-GO / GO, WITH CAUTION / STRONG GO.

Outcome: Not just a "finished MVP," but an objective validation document backed by user behavior and real money — your foundation for the next move.

Conclusion: Mission Accomplished

In 60 days, you've gone from an abstract idea to a concrete, measurable result. You didn't build a full-scale application — you built a system for testing and validating hypotheses through your first real payments.

That is what professional founders do: They don't "believe" in ideas — they test them. They don't chase perfection — they chase evidence.

You now have that evidence. Whether the answer is GO or NO-GO, your time wasn't wasted. You've saved yourself months of blind development and tens of thousands of dollars — and built the foundation for your next, smarter move.

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Author: Andrei Terehin, Founder & CEO. Andy helps tech projects go from idea to first customers and investments, acting as a strategic partner and "technical co-founder." Founder of Terekhin Digital Crew, specializing in MVP development and R&D in AI, AR/VR.