Here’s how you can turn your web app idea into a reality with a few keystrokes – and without months of development.

How do you bring your web app idea to life if you can’t invest hundreds of hours of your time into creating it? Or if you don’t have the coding skills yourself? Do you have to hire a developer?

A custom web application can cost you anywhere between $15,000 and $300,000+ if you want to develop it from scratch. But today, you don’t have to spend months and thousands of dollars on development. Instead, you can use a low-code solution to minimize your upfront costs – and increase your revenue by as much as 58%.

I know this first-hand. I’ve built and launched multiple web apps, from a platform for essay writers to an e-commerce store, using only low-code solutions. All of them were ready to go live within a fraction of the time required for full-fledged development.

Today, let me break down how you can build your web app with a low-code solution, from idea selection and research to tech stack selection and codebase generation.

What’s the Difference Between a Website & Web App?

Before we begin, let’s make one thing clear: a web app isn’t the same as a website. Websites are mostly static, whereas web apps are more interactive.

In other words, websites are designed to display a predetermined layout with minimal user interactivity features, like filling out a field or logging in. Think about the New York Times or CNN: you only visit them to consume information.

Web apps, in their turn, are somewhere in-between mobile apps and websites. They run in the browser, but they resemble mobile apps when it comes to interactivity. 

Web apps dynamically update to respond to user actions, making the interface reflect the results of those actions without reloading. Web app examples include Salesforce, Notion, Google Docs, Xero, and more.

6+ Pros & Cons of Web Apps

Web apps aren’t the only game in town: you may also be able to execute your idea in the form of a website or a mobile app, for example. So, make sure building a web app is the right call for you by weighing its pros and cons.

Pros of Web Apps

Web apps are device-agnostic. You can use them on any PC, laptop, or smartphone – they run in the browser. So, there’s no need to develop an app for each platform.They’re more convenient. Smartphone users don’t have to download and install yet another app to use your creation, reducing customer acquisition friction.They’re easier to develop. You can launch your web app on all platforms by creating a single codebase. This cuts costs and speeds up time to market.

Cons of Web Apps

Users need an Internet connection to access a web app. Offline mode can be an option if you create a progressive web app, but by default, a stable Internet connection is a must for using a web app.Web apps can’t rival the performance of native apps. While the lag depends on the Internet connection and functionality, web apps can’t replace complex mobile apps.They are limited in functionality. It can be challenging or impossible to implement features that rely heavily on device hardware (e.g., AR try-on) or OS functionality.

…And What Is a Low-Code Platform, Exactly?

Even five years ago, if you wanted to build a web app, you needed coding skills. So, you had to hire a developer or a team. Or, if you were lucky enough, you could use your skills to create the web app. The development process was done virtually from scratch.

Now, you can use a low-code platform instead of writing line after line of code – in exchange for a subscription fee. Such a tool allows you to use a drag-and-drop editor to define the main blocks and functionality of your web app. The platform does the rest and puts together the codebase according to your preferred tech stack and described business logic (more on that below).

6 Pros & Cons of Low-Code Platforms

Low-code platforms come with some undeniable advantages:

They save hours of work, drastically speeding up development and, therefore, time to market.They also mitigate the risk of human error and reduce the need for bug fixing (although some testing is still necessary).They allow virtually anyone to develop and launch their web app, reducing the barrier to entry.

However, low-code platforms aren’t without their drawbacks:

They limit the functionality you can implement: you can add only the features supported by the platform.Developing cutting-edge, innovative, or complex products can be challenging or next to impossible with low-code platforms.You risk a vendor lock-in with some platforms, making your web app difficult to scale, update, or migrate.

9 Steps Toward Building Your First Web App With a Low-Code Solution

So, now that you are certain that developing a web app with a low-code solution is the right choice for you, let’s break down the process itself.

1. Ensure Your Idea Is Worth It

Not all ideas have the potential to become a successful web app. So, what separates a worthy idea from a subpar one?

In a nutshell, ideas with great potential meet two criteria:

They address an underserved or untapped need.They are innovative in their problem-solving approach.

Your idea should improve the user’s life in a specific, tangible way. Does it? If so, you’re ready to move to the next step.

2. Do Your Research

On the one hand, you should understand who your direct and indirect competitors would be – and whether you can challenge their place in the niche.

On top of that, it’s always worth it to conduct market research. It’ll help you see if the macroeconomic factors are in your favor or not – and understand if there’s demand for your idea.

On the other hand, you also need to become well-acquainted with your prospective user base. For your web app to resonate with people and take off, you need to understand their challenges and preferences intimately.

To that end, create user personas for each user segment. Those are fictional characters that represent your ideal users.

Answer these X questions to create comprehensive user personas:

Who are they? Describe the gender, age, background, and other demographic parameters.What do they do for a living? What is their financial situation?In what context and environment would they be using your web app? On what device(s)?What problems and challenges do they encounter? How would your web app solve them?What are their aspirations, motivations, and preferences?

3. Define Your Web App’s Type & Feature Set

Web apps come in three main flavors:

Single-page apps (SPAs). These web apps consist of a single page, as the name suggests. They’re ideal for you if you need a fast-functioning app that doesn’t refresh when the user clicks around.Multi-page apps (MPAs). These web apps are more complex and have multiple pages. They’re a good choice if you have a lot of information to put in your web app.Progressive web apps (PWAs). This is a relatively new type of web app that can include some of the features usually reserved for native apps (access to hardware, offline mode, push notifications, etc.).

Once you zero in on the type of your web app, it’s time to think about its functionality. After you brainstorm all the key features, group them into two lists: essentials and good-to-haves.

Keep in mind: your initial development should focus on the minimum viable product with one or two key features that make up its unique value proposition.

4. Pinpoint the Tech Stack

Once you have a clear understanding of the web app type and functionality, it’s time to select the appropriate tech stack.

All web apps consist of two major parts: front-end and back-end. Some technologies can cover both the front-end and back-end functionality, but most specialize in one or the other. Front-end web app development frameworks include Vue.js, React, and Svelte. Their back-end counterparts are Laravel, Django, and Ruby on Rails, among others.

You’ll need to choose the frameworks and programming languages to use the low-code platform of your choice.

Which tech stack should you pick? Well, that depends on the kind of web app you’re planning to build – and whether the low-code platform of your choice supports it. Popular stacks include MEAN (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular.js, Node.js) and LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).

5. Map Out the User Flows & Interface Design

You might be tempted to dive straight into how the buttons will look or what color palette you want to reflect your brand. But before you can, you need to think about the big picture: how your users will interact with your web app.

To be specific about it, start with designing user flows. These are sequences of user interactions required to complete a certain task, like creating an account. You can create a mind map or sketch them.

Once you’re done, you can move on to creating wireframes – schematic sketches of the UI components on every existing screen. Then, you can turn those wireframes into mockups, i.e., more detailed designs with visuals, icons, colors, and more.

Luckily, if you’re not a designer, low-code platforms have you covered, too. You can choose a professionally designed template for your web app instead of spending hours crafting it yourself!

6. Design the Business Logic

A low-code platform will still require you to describe how your web app should behave. To this end, you’ll need to add custom entities, fields, and relationships between them. Together, they will comprise your web app’s business logic.

Business logic refers to all the data your web app will have to handle – and how it’s supposed to do it. To design it, you’ll need to first map out the underlying algorithms, or rules, of your web app. For example, if the user adds a new transaction to a personal finance web app, it gets withdrawn from the monthly cash flow.

7. Tinker With Your Low-Code Solution

Before you can generate the code with the low-code platform of your choice, it’s a good idea to shop around and try several tools first. Since you should have an idea of the tech stack and functionality you’re after by now, it’ll be easier for you to see if this or that platform can meet your needs.

Once you settle on the platform, you’ll need to become well-versed in it. Otherwise, you’re risking making rookie mistakes when creating the codebase. So, go ahead and tinker with it before building your web app.

8. Generate the MVP

Once you select the tech stack, describe the business logic, and choose the look of your web app, all you need to do is click the generate button. The low-code platform will deliver a codebase matching your requirements.

You can then preview the web app and the code, tweak them if necessary, and publish the code to GitHub or download it. Make sure to test the web app thoroughly before launching it to avoid any major bugs or unpredictable behavior.

9. Validate the Idea

Now, it’s time to see whether real people want to use your web app in the field conditions, so to speak. At this stage, you’ll need to be proactive about attracting your initial users – and listen closely to their feedback to work out all the kinks.

But your work isn’t done once you validate the idea. You’ll need to turn your MVP into a full-fledged product, attract more users to it, and ensure its continuous growth. That requires hundreds of hours of work!

It’s best to adopt an iterative approach to improving your product. So, listen closely to the user feedback, perform continuous user testing, and keep perfecting your web app.

In Conclusion

Low-code platforms have democratized software development across the board. Now, you don’t have to be a full-stack senior developer to create a web app. Nor do you have to spend hundreds of hours coding components from scratch!

Thanks to low-code development tools, you can focus on vital aspects of launching your first web app. Those include:

Doing your market, target audience, and competitor research;Defining and prioritizing the desired feature set;Selecting the most suitable tech stack for your web app;Designing the user flows and interface;Architecting the business logic of your application;Validating the idea and improving your MVP in iterations based on user feedback.

Ready to turn your web app idea into a reality with a low-code platform? Flatlogic is here to make it happen. Flatlogic can generate full-stack web apps for a chosen tech stack, template, and database schema within a couple of minutes. Create your first web app in just three steps with us!

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