Ep 230: How to Turn Pain Points Into Profitable Products Without Coding with Dan Hafner

 Dan Hafner got the grandaddy of all sticker shocks when he saw the quote to develop an app.

That moment of sticker shock was all it took for him to go from app dreamer to no-code doer. In this episode, we explore how Dan turned a DIY project into a successful business—and how you can use no-code tools and AI agents to do the same.

Dan Hafner is a no-code expert, app agency founder, and host of the Tech Bytes podcast. With a background in software testing and a passion for solving problems through automation, Dan helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into functional, money-making apps—without hiring developers.

WE ALSO TALKED ABOUT

• How Dan transitioned from software tester to no-code entrepreneur
• Why learning to code didn’t work—and what he did instead
• The 3-step framework Dan uses to bring ideas to life
• How AI agents and ChatGPT Operators are changing the game
• Why user experience (UX) still makes or breaks your tech
• How to use AI-powered tools as lead magnets or sales closers
• The mindset shift needed to build simple but powerful tools
• Why “done is better than perfect” when building MVPs
• Timeframes: what you can build in 30 minutes vs. 90 days
• The rare but valuable skill of digital architecture (and how to develop it)

Tune in to hear Dan’s insights and real-world examples of no-code success.

Get regular access to tips, techniques and advice from experts about growing your business:
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Dan’s site: DapperNoCode.com
• Tech Bytes Podcast:  https://dappernocode.com/podcast
• Miro:  mind mapping tool (affiliate link)
• Lucidchart:  https://www.lucidchart.com/pages
• No-code Tools:  Zapier, Make, Bubble, Adalo, Flutterflow

My newsletter is for people who need a way to make money from home so they can build a better life for themselves and their families:
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 230:  How to Turn Pain Points Into Profitable Products Without Coding with Dan Hafner

Dan Hafner: And I thought, well, I’m kind of want to go the entrepreneurial route, the no code, you know, the app thing is a cool idea. And, um, that’s where I got into this was because I realized I didn’t know how to code and I didn’t have a lot of money. So when I got quotes for somebody to build this for me, I was like, Oh, I’ll have somebody build this.

It was way too much money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s Dan Hafner, today’s guest. Explaining how a jaw dropping price tag sent him diving headfirst into the world of no code tools, eventually turning his curiosity into a really thriving business.

In this episode, we explore how no code platforms can unlock powerful solutions for non-technical entrepreneurs. And I suspect that a lot of entrepreneurs are non-technical. Dan shares his journey from Deloitte software tester to Digital Nomad, including how he built and monetized his first fitness app with zero coding skills.

We take a look at the [00:01:00] rise of AI agents using no code to automate lead generation and sales workflows and how anyone, even if they type with two fingers, or don’t type at all, can start building tools that solve real world problems. Dan’s lived experience as a no-code pioneer app creator and agency founder makes him the perfect guide for anyone curious about building tech tools without needing a computer science degree.

His practical down to earth take on how to get started and how to think like a builder makes this episode a must listen, if you’ve ever dreamed of launching your own software or AI tool.

Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m Trudy Rankin and I help people who need a flexible work from home option [00:02:00] grow the online side of their business so they can earn more, stress less, and have greater freedom in how they live.

 Dan, welcome to the show.

Dan Hafner: Thank you so much, Trudy. It’s really, uh, really awesome to be here. Thank you so much. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, now the reason why the no code sort of bit catches my eyes is that even though I do have an awareness of code. I have an understanding of what code does I’m like about a bazillion other people who are very much aware that the amount that we know about coding is enough to get us in trouble instead of actually helping us create something.

So whenever something looks so technical that it seems like we’re going to need to bring in a software developer or something. It’s usually a kind of, oh, I don’t think I’m going to go there because I don’t know enough to do it. And I don’t even know enough to know whether my software developer is going to be any good.

So I’m going to be interested in digging into that a little bit today. But before we do, I’d like to just understand a little [00:03:00] bit more and for our listeners to be able to understand a little bit more about you and your backstory. You know, where are you from? How did you get to the place where you have this business?

And exactly how do you help people? 

Dan Hafner: Yeah um, I’m excited to talk about all that. There’s so many cool things in what you just said. So, um, yeah, so I, uh, live in a town a little bit north of Pittsburgh, PA right now. I’m from Erie, Pennsylvania, if anyone knows where that it’s a little bit north of here.

So I’m a Pennsylvania guy. But over the past, about 10 or 12 years since I met my now wife in college. Um, we’ve kind of traveled over the kind of the east coast. She’s in the medical field. So we lived in Virginia for a while, West Virginia, back up to Harrisburg P. A. Now to Pittsburgh. So it got very difficult to kind of stay in one place and hold the steady, job down, uh, for me at least.

I was very keen on going the entrepreneurship route, figuring out a way to run a business, [00:04:00] specifically a location free business, because of that, right? So, basically, I got into it as a hobby. We were engaged at the time. I was very into running, kind of wanted to build this app to kind of help myself stay in shape and do my own thing.

And I thought, well, I’m kind of want to go the entrepreneurial route, the no code, you know, the, uh, the app thing is a cool idea. And, um, that’s where I got into this was because I realized I didn’t know how to code and I didn’t have a lot of money. So when I got quotes for somebody to build this for me, I was like, Oh, I’ll have somebody build this.

It was way too much money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then I started to learn how to code. Like you said, and I was like, ah, maybe I’ll figure this out. I’ll kind of take this as a good skill to learn. And it lasts about two weeks for me. I’ll be honest. I was like, nah, this is not my cup of tea.

But in the middle of there, I did have a job where I worked for Deloittes. I was one of the big four firms and I was a software tester. So I had some experience with software, with how it worked. It was very interesting to me. But I was just trying to [00:05:00] break it. I was a tester. I wasn’t like an actual like coder.

 But that kind of sparked this idea of like, well, what if I, and then, the internet. Thank God for the internet. You find like no code tools, build your app for cheap and on your own. And that was intriguing to me. So I built it and I launched it and made it successful. And there’s a whole story to that one as well.

But learned that I had built this skill and I had built this thing and then turned that into this. Wow. I could charge people to do this. I could make my own freelancing thing with this. I built it into an agency. So that’s a little bit just kind of like the 30, 000 ft view of how I got into it. But, um, but yeah, we’re here in Pittsburgh now.

My wife’s working as a NICU doctor here in Pittsburgh. Um, we have three dogs that, keep us busy and, uh, just growing the business and, and, you know, doing things here and there and just now diving into the AI world and all kinds of cool stuff. So, yeah, that’s how I got into it.

Trudy Rankin: That’s really fascinating. There’s a couple things that jump out at me that I’m fascinated by. One is, I’m [00:06:00] currently traveling and I’m trying to do the whole nomad thing, where we’ve got a camper van that we put together as a COVID hobby, but we’re traveling around in it and seeing some of the sights in Australia.

So that resonates in terms of your background. But the other thing is, and I don’t usually talk about personal stuff on the podcast, but my hat is off to anybody who works in NICU. So for people who don’t know what that means, it’s basically a natal, infant place in the hospital where babies that are born prematurely get taken and they get looked after really well.

There’s doctors and nurses who specialize in that. And I have a grandchild who was born way, way, way early. And I know how much value they add and how many lives they save. So. That’s really, really interesting. So kudos to your wife, but coming back to you and what you do and, the fact that you got into this no code side of things.

I’m interested to dig a little bit into some of [00:07:00] the new stuff that’s coming out. And it’s mind you, for some people, it’s news for other people has been around for quite a while, but people are starting to talk about things like AI agents, the new app, if you want to call it that, where we’re using AI to create things for your business or for clients, and theoretically, you don’t need to know how to code, but can you just comment on that whole, how much technical knowledge do people have to have when it comes to both AI and coding, when it comes to setting up things like an AI agent?

Dan Hafner: Yeah, that’s a very good question. I would say, it’s the classic developer answer, you know, it depends. There, there are so many, I’ll preface this by saying it also, it’s changing so fast. It’s just, it’s such a whirlwind of a world right now. But to be honest, you don’t need a whole lot.

That’s the kind of the beauty of a lot of these types of tools is that they’re being built more and more for the end [00:08:00] user, like you and me to not have to worry about that stuff. So there’s the UX, the user experience is built in a way that is, is really trying to be intuitive and simplistic. So that you can actually build the things you want to build without having to dive deep and be like, Oh my gosh, I’m lost in this.

And how do I make this work? You know, like I think about all the different chat bot builders out there. Like I have a chat bot builder that I built using a no code tool that is very simple and very easy to use and has templates and all these different things. So. I don’t really think you need a whole lot. But if you want to build your own thing, yeah, you’re probably gonna need to know, you gotta, you can’t be like, typing with two fingers kind of thing. you’re probably not, that’s probably not gonna get it done.

But, uh, yeah, I think that’s, I hope that’s a, it’s not a very specific answer, but I really do think you can build really cool [00:09:00] things with. I mean, even like, I’ve been playing with ChatGPT Operator recently, um, just was testing it out and it’s, it’s incredible. It’s unbelievable what it can do, you know?

Trudy Rankin: Do you want to talk just a little bit about what it can do? 

Dan Hafner: Yeah, so I’m no expert on it. I literally just just tried it a few times, but it has a way of working a browser inside of ChatGPT. So if you’re familiar with ChatGPT, you can tell it. Hey, I need a list of physical therapist companies within a hundred miles of my location. Um, I need their contact information to put into a Google sheet and I would like to have it all organized with these this, and this, and this field. And it’ll actually go and find them, build the Google sheet in front of you. And like something that simple for lead [00:10:00] generation, you know, I mean, you can do another one.

I saw people were doing peruse X for posts about insert my topic, then answer with a very intelligent, uh, simplistic answer and also include a link to my website or program or anything like that. And then it’ll say, Hey, do you want to send this? Is this a good one? And, and, uh, like things like that, which are your ability to prompt your imagination is the only limiter right there.

Like you can come up with… I’ve seen people that have pages and pages of one single prompt, or you can have a two, you have a three sentence prompt, that’s what’s really, really exciting about all that stuff. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, that is fascinating. Cause I play with ChatGPT a lot and I’m like, I always want it to relate back to what I’m doing with my business or how it might help other people with their business and just trying to keep up with all of the things that it can do, or even being able to imagine new [00:11:00] things that it could do.

Based on the functionality, it becomes really challenging. So that’s interesting to me. So if we, if we take a scenario where let’s just say somebody’s come to you and they’ve said, Hey, I’ve got this idea and it’s agnostic as to whether it’s AI or an app or whatever it is, I’ve got this idea.

I want to bring it to life. Can you just talk a little bit about the process that you use to do that, to help them do that? 

Dan Hafner: Hundred percent. I usually have three simple steps that you kind of break it down into, right? You got to begin with the end in mind. You got to think, okay, what am I actually trying to build?

Let’s think through the idea. Like you said, is it to build this new AI agent thing, or is it to build a, an entire SAS platform? That’s a marketplace that connects different people or. Is it an automation tool that you could just use Zapier or something like that for? Um, what, what is it that you’re trying to build, right?

So that’s number one, begin with the end in mind. Number two is look for existing solutions. It’s not the most [00:12:00] ideal thing for me cause I could lose out on money with that kind of stuff, but a lot of times there are existing tools. There’s so much software in the world.

There’s existing tools that you could use or, you know, I mean, some people don’t want to pay the subscription fee and I get that, but there could be existing tools out there, things that you could pluck. Oh, this actually solves my problem. And then number three is if you don’t find anything or if you find a tool that you like like a CRM.

Well, I don’t really like Salesforce. I don’t like how that actually works or HubSpot or whatever. Then we go, okay, now what tool is actually going to be the most logical for you to build something with, as long as you’re committed or you’re open to the no code idea. Because that might draw you down a, you know, a website builder thing like Webflow.

Maybe you just need a landing page type of thing, or maybe you need an actual tool like Bubble or Adalo or Flutter Flow to build an app, or maybe you need Zapier or Make or something like that to build an automation in the backend. And, and that’s, that’s where like, there’s [00:13:00] this process, right? So there’s a bunch of different avenues you can go, but those are the three things I say, right?

Like begin with the end in mind, identify what you’re trying to build, look for existing solutions. And then number three you know, determine what tool is going to actually be best for even the tech stack, the suite of tools. Maybe you need Bubble and Stripe or you need Zapier and whatever. So there could be, you know, a combination of things.

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. So basically, and I know that people are going to, people are going to go, they’ll be fine working through the first two, and then they’re going to go, Oh, tech stack. I have no idea. And I suppose that’ll be where you come in going, okay, this is what you want to do, here’s the things you need to fit together and, and basically make it all work put together like a puzzle, basically. I want to just touch on something that you mentioned a little bit earlier, you mentioned just user experience.

How important do you think user experience is these days and let me just preface that by saying, when I was working as a chief information [00:14:00] officer I worked with a lot of developers and a lot of people who helped maintain the technical infrastructure and it was oftentimes not always but oftentimes difficult for them to understand.

A, why their thing wasn’t so, … other people didn’t like it, they didn’t find it easy to use, and they, it was more like, sometimes it would, they would think people are too stupid to use it, and it’s always no, if people are not too stupid to use your thing, you haven’t designed it with a human in mind.

So, you know, when you, when it comes to user experience, how does that fit in with the no code side of things. 

Dan Hafner: Very good question. Yeah, I think as and I started out doing this and I’ve kind of, matured over the course of my career with it, when I was first trying to build things you know, it was just, it was all about, can I get this to work?

Can I actually make this thing work? I don’t care if it looks ugly. I just want it to do what I need it to do. And that was, that served me well for a little while because I’ve learned how to do some things. And once I realized, oh, it needs to actually look and [00:15:00] feel like, you know, something that people want to use and look at, that changes things, right?

Because I think that’s, if you’re, if you’re very in love with your tool, you can be like, okay, I get it. I can log into Gmail, for example, and know where all of these things are because I’ve used it and I use it every day and I’ve learned these things. And I notice updates and I can see when things are changing.

But if I was just thrown into something brand new on day one, you have no idea you know what I mean? So I think it’s very it’s worth having, beta testers it’s worth, like, it can be uncomfortable when you build something like a SAS product, right? That’s like.

You know, I, I built this and I really want it to like go well. And then somebody looks at it and they’re like, eh. Like we had one of our clients the other day, like he sent all this feedback and everyone’s like, Oh, this is really cool. And I love it. And whatever. And then one person was just like, yeah, it’s a little dull.

And he was like, well, what does that mean? He’s like, yeah, just the color scheme. It’s just dull. And it was like. [00:16:00] Okay, well, is that your opinion, or is that just one person’s, you know, it’s almost impossible to tell, and it was like, well, the other ten people didn’t think it was, so, you know, like, so, it’s an interesting game.

I remember one, I remember very early on in my career, I met with someone, and he was an early mentor of mine, and he said, Dan, he said, software’s one of the hardest games you’ll ever get into. And I, and I never forgot that. I never forgot that because people can be very picky, very finicky, very set in their ways with things.

But that’s a, that’s a very good question you ask. ’cause it’s an ongoing, it’s a continuous improvement process, I think. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. And I, I, I’ve come to the conclusion that treating it as a continuous improvement process, is the most important thing you can do. In terms of the people that I’ve interviewed on this podcast.

People who have SAS products, the ones that have been successful are the ones who treated it like that. They talk to their customers on a regular basis. They say what’s working, what doesn’t work and what do you love? What do you hate? What [00:17:00] do you need in the future? Can we grow with you? Can we help your business grow by how we grow?

And they stay in really, really close touch with their customers and the ones that ignore help, help desk support, or they don’t make it easy, or they don’t pay attention to the UX or the functionality. Pretty soon they disappear. You don’t hear about that. Yeah, it’s just so true. It’s so true. I want to come back to something else that you touched on a little bit.

Didn’t call it that, but my ears pricked up when you talked about building out. It could be an agent or it could even just be a prompt, but building out something using AI that people can come to put in their information that they’re asked for and they get out a result that they really like and it’s used as a lead magnet type of an approach.

Can you just talk a little bit more about that and what it would take, what it takes to develop something like that? You mentioned one person has got bazillion pages worth of, you know, I assume you meant one [00:18:00] page prompts or one sentence prompts or very sure was that one massive prompt that was the whole thing.

Dan Hafner: Okay so I can actually give you an example of something I built for myself. So when I hope I’m not giving away my secret sauce here, but this is actually kind of cool. So I found myself on sales calls in the recent months, changing my process a little bit, thinking through, okay, like, I think I tend to get lost at this step.

And I tend to like miss key points of information. And, and I think maybe a lot of us are like this, where you kind of like, I feel like I should’ve got that sale. Why did that not work? And the other day, a couple of weeks ago, I had this idea in the morning of what if I had like an AI tool as I’m asking questions that we’re on a sales call right now, right?

And as you’re telling me something, I’m typing it into my pre built questions. And then, I have this list of 10 questions that I [00:19:00] ask to get more information about whatever, and then I hit enter, and it’s taking and compiling all of that, and I’m killing time, and I’m saying, yeah, so, you know, I really like what we talked about today, and I’m stretching it out to kind of make kill time, and then boom, it spits out a script for me that I built the prompt for to say, okay, I’m Here’s what their pain points were.

Here’s what was special. Here’s what you need to focus on and here’s where the benefits and then boom, it’s right here in front of me. You can’t even tell I’m looking at it. That changed everything in my sales game. Like I, I even tested it on like a friend of mine, just, you know, as like a mock sales call.

And, uh, it was like, I never knew you were doing that. That’s amazing. That was so cool. So I’m working on reselling that. So maybe we’ll have that for sale someday. But, uh, but, you know, something like that it can be built using a tool like a Bubble or, Dolo or you know, there’s lots of, I hate to name tools too because there’s so many new ones every single day, but even [00:20:00] something like that, like I had a real problem for myself that I was facing.

And I actually built that in another tool that was, it’s built for like building custom AI apps like that. And I went in there and I said, okay, here’s what I need from this. And then boom, boom, boom. It spits out the prompt for me. I have it, I can embed it anywhere I want. And then I have the tool and then boom, like I literally had an instant return on that because closed a sale that day, using that tool.

And I was like, I am the man. That was, you know what I mean? So, um, yeah, like something like that is, it was such a cool, I love, I’ve never told that story on a podcast cause that was pretty new, but that was, I hope that’s a good answer because that was really, really fun. That was so cool. 

Trudy Rankin: That is a really great answer because it’s not necessarily a lead magnet, but it is a tool that helps you get sales.

And you can’t tell me that there aren’t a bazillion businesses out there whose [00:21:00] sales calls, sales team, wouldn’t benefit from having something like that. Especially, especially if it gets to the point where the call can be transcribed in real time. And those points get pulled together as you talk and you can sort of tick down on a list and okay, they covered this, they covered this, they covered this, you still need to ask them that, et cetera, et 

cetera.

So that’s really fascinating because in my mind, I’m immediately going to, well, it might not necessarily be a sales call. But it could be a call to try and negotiate a sponsorship agreement or partner might be getting a partnership agreement in place and might be getting an affiliate relationship put in place.

And so you want to make sure you’ve got ticked all these boxes off so you can I can immediately think of a whole bunch of use cases for what you’ve just talked about. That would be really brilliant. And I can just see especially for the sponsorship side of things, people who might be new to that game might be going, I would love to have access to a tool like that.

So maybe somebody who teaches people how to [00:22:00] do sponsorships or get sponsorships interested in something like that. And let’s let’s flip it around now and talk about about how you could create something that might be a lead magnet which is externally facing. You know, people coming and they’re attracted to the lead magnet.

They can’t use it unless they’ve given you their name and email address, et cetera, et cetera. Any thoughts about that? Like have you had any examples of that or any ideas come to mind? 

Dan Hafner: Yeah, you asked that previously and I completely ignored that. So I’m super sorry. Uh, I was just excited about my other story.

Uh, that’s funny. Um, so yeah, I mean, honestly, an app in itself serves as an incredible lead magnet. I learned this in my very first app that I launched myself. This is where I was like, wow, this is powerful because when I set up the running and fitness app that I had set up. And I was able to put some, some, you know, marketing behind it and get it to where it was ranking on the stores.

I had hundreds of downloads a [00:23:00] day of this app. And when people were signing up, they had to create an account, which was their email and a password. And then boom, that was a list of just hundreds. And, you know, at least there was hundreds of downloads. I probably got 10, 15 email addresses a day of people creating accounts and going through and signing up and doing all that.

So the app in and of itself, like our SaaS tool of like, Hey, create your free account, that itself is a lead magnet right there. But in order to get there, how do you get that? How do you use that tool? That’s where your messaging comes in. That’s where your marketing comes in. That’s where being able to, to speak to the benefits of, Hey, I have this cool thing that does X, Y, and Z over here.

And it’s all got AI. And like, just like the sales thing I just talked about, like, Hey, I have this cool tool that you could use to get sponsorships on a call with AI and you know exactly what to say, boom, here you go, opt in right here for it. Off you go. Um, so there’s not really anything special with that, but then even like.

I love [00:24:00] like, you know, all like the different chatbots that you see on like websites and stuff like that, a lot of them will have that to where there’s AI built into there, they can answer some questions kind of based on the knowledge base, the information you feed them, and then it leads to a point of like, okay, well, great. What’s your name, what’s your email, I’ll get you over to an agent, or I’ll get you I’ll put your ticket in or whatever.

So there’s, there’s ways that that can lead to, you know, lead magnets in those types of ways. But yeah, again, like you said, there’s probably a million different things I’m not even thinking of right now. It’s, it’s your imagination. It really is. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, yeah, basically that you’re only limited by your imagination.

Yeah, because I’m just thinking in terms of lead magnets that in terms of lead generation, lead magnets are great and lead magnets, the best ones are ones that solve an immediate problem, an immediate pain point, and that allow people to sort of make a small but major step forward in whatever they’re trying to achieve. And if people you know if your listeners, listeners if you if you’ve got a business [00:25:00] where you do help people solve problems, either through your product or your service, sit down for two seconds and, and think about what little steps you could take, if you had a little bit of AI and a little bit of automation, you could actually create a lead magnet that people will be willing to come to your website and use whether they see it as a pop up ad or you put it on social media, market it a little bit. I mean, it’s kind of exciting. I really, I really get the enthusiasm and, and the excitement about being able to take a problem, figure out how to fix it and make something actually work so that it adds benefit and adds value to people. There’s something really joyous and fun about making something work.

Some people do it on machines and motors, engines, whatever. I don’t know. You, you, you enjoy doing it with the no code side of things. I just love trying to make technology, cobble technology together and make it work, you know, in, in sales funnels, quiz funnels. That’s my specialty, but I think that’s a really cool thing.

So I’m a little bit curious. If you just think There’s a couple questions, but if you [00:26:00] just think back to the work that you’ve done for your, on, on these no code things for yourself and maybe for clients, on average, how long would it normally take to create something? Let’s take your one that you just told me about and how long did it take you to build that?

Dan Hafner: Uh, the sales AI thing that I did, that took me about 30 minutes. I’m not lying. Like it took me about that, but it’s super simple. It’s just a set of 10 questions. Like that’s all it was. Right. And there was, that was already in a software that I have that is built to build those things, right.

And build it from scratch and build anything like that. So when you’re building things like that, if you take an hour or two, you can sit down and you can crank out some really cool stuff. Is it going to be the next. amazing tool that goes viral online? Probably not, but it’s going to serve a purpose, right?

Now when it comes to like big applications that we build, MVPs, things that are actually standing up for people in terms of like actual apps or SaaS [00:27:00] products that’s a little bit of a longer timeframe. We shoot for anywhere between 30 and, and sometimes up to 90 days for those types of things, which in this world seems like an extremely long time when you talk about building things in 30 minutes.

But those, you know, those are Airbnb type, platforms we’re building or Upwork type of apps we’re building where it’s complicated. There’s logic, there’s automations, there’s different permissions and workflows and all those types of things, which is not something that takes 30 minutes. You know, I don’t care what kind of AI there is.

So that’s usually what we try to do, what we shoot for those. But yeah, it’s, it can be, but AI is, is also making it a lot faster. You know, like that’s one of the things where I was talking about earlier, where if we have an idea or someone comes with just a raw idea, like I want to build this, this app that does this thing.

But they don’t have any designs. They’ve never used Figma. They’ve never used anything like that. That is where AI has come [00:28:00] through and shined for me. And for the people I work with is because you can get MVPs and mock ups like that. Like you can get things just and it’s just beautiful and it’s there and you don’t have to spend all this time and all this money, you know, hiring people to build this type of thing.

You can start with that really fast and then you can go and build. So it’s just, it’s, it’s a really cool world out there. I mean, I was, I was talking with somebody the other day, he’s like, you must do a lot of mind mapping. I’m like yes, I do do a lot of mind mapping, right? Like I’m a visual person of, okay, here’s flow, here’s the way that this is, this flow is going.

But yeah there’s a lot of, a lot of different ways to accomplish the same thing. And you can, you know, there’s, there’s always going to be tools out there. Hey, build your thing in 60 seconds. It’s like, we’ll, we’ll see about that. But, 

Trudy Rankin: um, Yeah, not, not if you’re going to do proper customer research, you’re not going to do it in 60 seconds.

Actually, as you were talking about mind mapping I wanted to just touch on that just before we finish up. Because. The [00:29:00] skill way back in the day, and still to some extent, there’s that necessary skill around the software development, being able to understand how, even if you’re not a coder, you still need to know how everything fits together and how everything flows.

But one of the skills that I’ve discovered that’s actually kind of rare In the software industry, even, and even in the AI industry, and that is being able, I will call it an architectural skill. It’s that ability to imagine what something could be and then break it down into the little tiny details that are needed in order to bring something to life.

So, for example, like if you’re building a house. You need to think about a bazillion different things. You need to think about where your light switches go, where you want your power points to go. You know, all of the stuff that takes, that it takes to create a house. And somebody has to have the ability to, first of all, imagine it in their head.

Get you to agree that that’s what you want. And then actually, tell the build the builder how many [00:30:00] nails they need to buy. So there’s this skill set and that skill set is still required for whenever you’re building anything Saas-wise, app-wise, AI agent-wise, any kind of AI thing, chatbots.

How did you develop your skills in that space. 

Dan Hafner: Oh, I’ve never been asked this question. This is fun. You know, I, I would say sometimes that is something that I, I really do call it like almost like a gift that I’ve, I don’t think I was bestowed upon me, but I think I’ve developed it after thousands of reps, right?

A lot of times, like even people will bring spreadsheets to me and we’ll create software for them. Like I, it’s like a gift of like, I can see, okay, you have this, this spreadsheet that tracks all your clients fitness routines and their gut health and their workouts and this and that and their weight and water intake and everything.

And boom, I can like instantly see and know what that needs to incorporate to be a software. But I love that you compared it to like the [00:31:00] architectural type of thing. Because that is the difference between like what I’ve started to do and done for years. And like what just kind of like any, any kind of developer does.

Like it’s like, I need the requirements. Look, I need to build it. That’s the contractor mindset. Whereas, what I try to do is help be that imagination, that visionary. But also get down into the weeds of building the different things, like you said, from the top down. Which, it’s a lot, but it’s worth it.

You know, it’s, it’s really, really worth it. So how I developed that, reps, I would say is like my one word answer to that, just reps of, I study software. I, I will study web applications, mobile applications. That’s how I got into it was when I realized I wanted to build an app, I realized that I had like 150 apps on my phone and I was like, I should build an app.

You know, so I mean, I’ve always just been fascinated with it. But like you said earlier, like when you build engines, when you, [00:32:00] when you build different things, you can kind of nerd out about that stuff and you can recognize like, Oh, I know exactly how that’s built or how this works and how the guts work, um, but you can appreciate the finished work of it.

I think that’s pretty simple. Like when you really break down whatever software is there’s elements, right? There’s lists, there’s headings, there’s buttons, there’s texts. It’s all very simple type of stuff when you break it down. And it’s just, once you kind of see that again and again and again, okay, now I can go build it.

Now I can replicate that fast. So that has only come through reps with me. But that’s also part of the value that I try to pass on to the people that I teach and that I work with. So, yeah, that’s a very good question. I’ve never been asked that question before. That’s really cool. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, I just think it’s really important because it’s a rare skill set.

And, but it can be developed. And so if anybody’s listening out there, who’s thinking, Hey, I need a new, I need to add a new, something new to my bow, new arrow for my bow, for my quiver. That is something that’s necessary and needed, and it covers a whole wide range [00:33:00] of, of technologies that’s necessary. Really quickly because you mentioned it.

Mind mapping. Do you have a specific mind mapping tool that you love? 

Dan Hafner: I use a couple. I use Lucidchart. And then I use Miro as well at times. So, yeah. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, yeah. I’m a fan of Miro. I use Miro because I’m, I’m into the mind mapping. I have to see how everything fits together so you can break it down.

Yeah, that’s, that’s been really, really interesting, Dan. If people were interested in talking with you further about what it is you do, or they’re interested in maybe getting some help, or they just want to know more about you, where’s the best place for them to go? 

Dan Hafner: Yeah, so we have all kinds of different stuff on the site DapperNoCode.

com. You know, services, the podcast. All kinds of cool things like that. And then you can also connect with with me on LinkedIn if you want to have something a little more personal as well. And I will provide you with the, uh, the actual, there’s a whole cool new resource library I’m putting [00:34:00] together.

That will be exclusively, you know, we’ll have a special link just for the listeners here. So we’ll put that and so you can have it in the show notes or whatever you need. So 

Trudy Rankin: Fantastic. That’s really good. Yeah. If you let me have that, we’ll put it in the show notes. Yeah. And so you, do have a, uh, your tech bites podcast.

Uh, I’m going to go check it out. Cause it sounds really fascinating. This is an area that I’m interested in. So that should be cool. Go ahead. 

Dan Hafner: I was just going to say, by the way, I’m in the middle of, in that podcast, the mini series called the no code advantage. Um, which is a 10 series, 10 episode series.

I’m putting together specifically from zero to whatever. It’s 10 episodes, probably by the time this gets released, we’ll be done with it. I’m in the middle of it currently. But that’s, that’s been a very popular mini series I’ve done in the podcast. So yeah, I would definitely point people to that as well.

Trudy Rankin: That’s really cool. Yeah, definitely. We’ll make sure that’s in the show notes so people can check it out. But yeah, Dan, thank you so much for your time. It’s been really interesting talking with you. 

Dan Hafner: Yeah. Thank you so much, Trudy. This was really fun. Appreciate it.

Trudy Rankin: If this conversation with Dan [00:35:00] got your creative gears turning, now’s the perfect time to test the waters of no code for your own business, whether it’s starting with a tiny tool or onto your next big thing.

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