From Non-Technical to Building a SaaS App With AI

Nina Kolari: I think it was like seventy thousand gold lines and it was one third of the product which is now. So I was like, no, no, I can't. I can't even change it. I need to rebuild it from scratch because there's so many things wrong. But I think the most important thing which I learned with version one is the clarity, what I want, what I don't want, and how I want to structure it. So for me it was necessary to have it. Welcome to AppMinded. My name is Nina Kollari. I'm an AI product builder and a marketer. And I've shipped over 20 web and mobile apps just in the last year. I teach and mentor people how to turn your ideas into apps people actually want, and how to get those apps in front of the right people. I also run a website called canaibuild.com where you can find out if your app idea is actually buildable with AI before you start building it. Today my guest is Barbora, a biochemist turned app founder who went from research to building SaaS product with AI. ⁓ without having a traditional tech background. And her story is a good reminder that the first version one builds does not necessarily mean that that's the one that's going live to production. She spent months building the first version of X-Road Studio, ended up with 70,000 lines of code, and then made a decision to scrap the whole thing and start over. Today the rebuild product has paying customers And some of its most important features are things Barbora never planned to build in the first. They came directly from watching what customers actually wanted and used. We talk about what she learned from rebuilding from scratch, why she actively removes features, how she got her first paying customers, and why she believes building the app is actually the easy part. Because once you ship, you still have to figure out customers, distribution and marketing. So let's get into it. Alright, my today's guest is Barbora, and I would actually like to hear a little bit about yourself and introduce yourself to the listeners. Hello everyone. Thank you, Nina, for having me here. It's a really pleasure to be here. And I'm one of the founders of Exero Studio. It's actually app for content creation and content distribution. ⁓ I build an app together with my partner, mostly myself, and in one of the biggest products We've done. We build actually a little bit more apps, but they're usually like a little bit smaller. And except of building apps, we also work in AI automation space for a bit. We start with things like make NAN and similar tools like Google Apps Script working for different businesses. But at some point we realize we'd like to run our own product. And except of running Exero Studio. ⁓ I also we also do we also teach people how to build apps with AI. So we're also running out online webinars and education courses for people who like to start their dream building on apps. Yeah. Do you have technical background or are you ⁓ background in something else and you just discovered white code? It's something else. I mean for most of the people in this AI space, you can handle me like people in IT or especially for women. So I always like the story because they come from different backgrounds. So originally I'm biochemist. So I work ⁓ in the research for a couple of years. ⁓ for example, I was in Canada in University of Calgary. But when I was living in Canada, I used to have different jobs and one of the jobs was like product manager. So I'll start with automation there. Actually, I start with Make Home and we were introducing new products on Amazon and we also on eShop. So I I was learning how to work with make and do, for example, automated emails. Czech responses, getting data from forms. And then after some time, we actually moved from Canada back to Czech Republic. And I had my son. So I was in maternity leave. And when my maternity leave was over, I was looking for what I'm gonna do in future. And I actually kind of like automation. So we start ⁓ running our business, Abyss Elevate. We offer make an and an automation in content creation, finance, is a bunch of custom automation to clients here in Czech Republic, but also we have clients from Canada, Saudi Arabia and Asia. But at some point I realised that with each customer you need to do custom automation. And as much as I love building, the selling s cycle for custom automation is pretty long because it depends on too many decision makers. So you can build product in two or three weeks, but sometimes you're just waiting three months for customers to make decisions or send you materials. And I realized, okay, I rather have one product which is already done, and then I can resell it more times in the future and help more people. So we actually started building XRO Studio. In the same time, we were taking ⁓ we were doing lectures for how to build ⁓ apps with my partner. And to be honest, it took me I think half a year to build it. Yeah, no different version, I think yeah, version two or three. And it's already launched. We have paying clients, but of course I'm still ⁓ working on it. And ⁓ now I actually got a full time job in as a business analyst in automation. So I'm running Ezerov Studio alongside full time job and in the meantime I'm still doing like AI education. And you can imagine like you you you also have family in the same time, it's totally crazy. But I like it. Yeah, how do you find time for all of this? It seems like a a lot. Not much to be done, but it's it's very fulfilling and it's very rewarding, especially last I I s I kind of like education and educating people a lot 'cause it's super rewarding, like you see how non techie people are fulfilling their dream. So I think we're also gonna push it little bit more in this direction as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Since you don't have a background in tech really, ⁓ what tools do you use these days in your wipe coding? Mostly Cloud Code. Yeah. So I start with Cloud, I try also Cursor, I try Codex recently. Actually, I was quite surprised. Codex is pretty good in future. I mean, even switching. Yeah. Because I think in some it's even better than Cloud Code. And of course I try a lavable reply and this easy tool. Maybe you know Macali is actually a check by coding product and it's not bad, but I think it's good for ⁓ MVP and quick idea. But if you want to build something more stable or more production already, I prefer tools like cloud code because you have more control over it. Yeah. In lavable, you can just put prom and they build it for you, but I still prefer to see what's going on in the background ⁓ on the like back end and see like data in my databases and how certain logic is built. So I think these tools are more robust and can give you like the production ready solution. Yeah. You mentioned how I lent yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry. You mentioned database. ⁓ was database work or b building a set database something you knew beforehand or did you have to learn? We actually work with superbase before. We ⁓ we partially use it for our like RIG, like augmenting ⁓ editorable augmented tools. So I know like superbase before, I know PyCon. I partially work with Quadrant. But for su ⁓ but for databases for me I need to learn a lot. For SQL I didn't know how it worked and now I'm teaching it. So it was quite steep learning curve and I still I think I still can learn a lot like with other databases too. But I'm sticking to super base for because the what I really like is you can do also authentication. And it's super easy to connect it. They have amazing MCP tools, so it's very convenient to run it from clo code connected through the MCP and see how how things work directly. So for me, I think the convenience is the main reason why I stick to superbase. But definitely it's still a steep learning curve and I I guess it probably will be. Yeah. But it's getting getting easier, I think, with more projects. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ I love when I asked My guess like, Were you technical before? No, I know nothing and yeah, actually super pay is in SQL and then there's like all these technical terms come out and it's like, well you are technical, yeah? I'm not technical, but you miss SQL. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Yes, yeah. Someone else and they will be like, What are you talking about? Yes. Yeah. ⁓ that's fantastic. So so you built X Road Studio. How was that? Like how was the first version ⁓ built? The first version was actually built built on Cursor and it was built in full. I think it was I can actually see the huge improvement in this AI agents and tools because it was way more manual work, way more error. And certain things which I, for example, would be able to build it here in one month. It took me three three months and a lot of extra steps. Because they were like, I think Cursor is not too bad, but it's not the best in following certain instructions. Cloud is way better in Gardelys. So Cursor is super curbic, but you know how is it with this AI tool? Sometimes they put a lot of code extra and AI blocks, and I think Cursor is At least it was the tool which did a lot of code bloat and put extra tools. So my first version, I think it was like seventy thousand code lights and it was one-third of the product which is now. So I was like, no, no, I can. I can even change it. I need to rebuild it from scratch because there's so many things wrong. But I think the most important thing which I learned with version one is the clarity, what I want, what I don't want, and how I want to structure it. So for me it was necessary to have it, because there's like certain thoughts and certain experience which went into it to make V2 better. So I'm I'm glad it happened, but I'm also glad that I totally scraped it 'cause it was the best I can do. I will be rebuilding on the on the like wrong base. It's like with the house. Yeah. If you have too old a house you can build it from the scratch or you can rebuild the old house. But if something is too wrong, it's just not the best idea, yeah it's best in in many ways. So I think this is the same if up here. If there's a few things which are wrong, you can still rebuild it. But if it's totally wrong, hey, start a new project. Yeah. How hard was the decision? I mean you had seventy what is it seventy thousand lines of code. Was it like, do I really have to start again? Or like totally my partner, ⁓ first idea it's it's okay, we're gonna build it in two one or two weeks. No way. Another two or three months 'cause we have also other things to do, so it wasn't like yeah all full time for me. But yeah, I think I think I was very naive and I I was hoping that I can do version two very quickly because I have all the cla quality what I want, but absolutely not because there's also feature I added to Alcalanven version. And I think the important thing I can mention is we're not just adding feature, we're also removing. So I have customers, they're using it and I see if there's certain features and they don't use them enough. I remove them because I'm strongly against the code bloat and feature bloat because I think if you have too many feature features, people get confused and now you're too for everything and everybody and people are yeah, I need to learn this and this and I'm lost. So I'm also removing features. So one of the features I already, for example, removed was ⁓ AI voiceover. So people can generate ⁓ voiceover from text and I know there's not many people using it, and also music. Because our tool is for content distribution and music it's more like nice to have a feature with beautiful shiny object syndrome. But if you actually realise it, not many people using use music for like auto posting. So I was okay, let's improve other feature and don't distract people with this one. So yeah, I think I quite often checking which feat feature people use it and how often and if possible I also ask customers for feedback. For example, what they like, what w what they don't like, because I think it's very important to realize that the product it's or the app is for people, not for yourself. So as I'm typical builder, I would love to have like fifty two hundred features, but hey, it's user. And actually they're looking for kind of opposite because they're looking for their ⁓ for tool which make their life easier. So it's not necessarily a complex tool. A lot of people build from their own experience or own problem. And it's sometimes hard to actually distinguish your own needs versus the user needs and the bloat can happen quite easily. So there's a good and bad side when you build for yourself. You might overbuild just because you want to have it all. Do you follow a framework or anything like that when you decide if you're gonna ship a new feature or if you're gonna remove a feature? And how do you do that with your existing ⁓ client base? Actually I'm in touch with my clients if it's possible or also having kind of calls with people which are not my clients, but they like some are in marketing or they do content creation and I actually ask them question about how they do their content creation, which tool they use it and what they like about it, what they like the most. And if they mention something, for example, if two or three people start to mention features I don't have, I see some patterns and I'm yeah, actually this is not a bad idea. I see people kind of like it, they see value in it. So I just built it. For example, recently we built analytics. Because ⁓ a couple of people already mentioned it's for them, especially for their clients. They want these they want to see the data. Yeah, how how the content's doing, what's the most popular post, how how many responses it has, and how it's evolved, like how they're growing. So the analytics was exactly the feature which was built based on the customer request. Also, for example, we have brand kits. So in our tool ⁓ to make the content distribution or content creation, because we do we do both. We do content creation, we have like AI image generation and video generation and text generation, plus posting on different platforms. It's kind of maybe similar to Sabrina's Botato, but I think our tool is more about branding. So you have already your brand kit and you can set up not just your colors, but you can set up your tone of voice. You can set up ⁓ for example in your audience. So if you just do text creation, it already knows who who is your client. So the text is or so the text creation it's part of it. Do I remember correctly that in the first version didn't have scheduling? It had content creation but not scheduling. Exactly. It have only content creation and that I realize this. So many people doing content creation like Higgsfield Canva have it. And it's not enough to be competitive nowadays. So we're thinking it will be so convenient to have also content distribution. And we added this feature and actually this is the most used feature by our customers. So my first idea was totally wrong. I thought we will have content creation tool, but the feedback or what people tell me, hey, we actually want distribution more. For sort of people, even if you have no AI, they prefer human like content. Sort of people just posting, I don't know, like If they're educator or they have coaching, you can have some nice infographics, but people mostly want to see you because you're want to build trust with them, so they won't trust you, so they want to see you more often. So that's why I we were even thinking about removing AI videos because people don't use them often or But we still keep them. But I think a lot of content or the future tend will be that people need to show their face more more and more often just to build a trust. So I think the paying attention to the distribution is way more important than just ⁓ creating some random AI images, especially if you're not able to keep the brand or keep the topic. If they're just still there too random, you can hardly build some trust or like relationship with customers. Yeah. Other thing why we did content distribution is content distribution is for people who already doing this work. And content creation sometimes have a little bit like shiny object syndromes. Yeah, I can create this image and this image, but for distribution it's people who already use some product regularly and they need to ship it on monthly basis. So I think it's way better for retention rate and a church rate is way lower because the need is stable and it's there every month. Yeah. So since you haven't you were not technical before, how did you tackle adding the distribution into your app? Actually ⁓ at this point we're using for pass services. I was thinking about to do it by myself, but a lot of platforms they have certain limitations if you want to do it for multiple clients. And the thing is you can build it yourself, which is not a problem, but the problem is you go through a lot of ⁓ approvals from different platforms. And these approvals it can take you a few months. And my idea was, you know, actually need to test it if people want it. And if I'm gonna If I'm gonna scale, we can do audits, but it doesn't make sense to do audits if I realize people don't like using this feature. So at this time we have middleman services who partially handle this for us. And it's great, but it also comes with our challenges. So yeah, so it's good at the beginning, but if I wanna grow, I definitely would be looking to get some audits from platform because I want to have it in my hand. But for early phase, I think it's better if you can just if if you just want to move quicker, just use third-party services. The same with AI, yeah. For example, for now we have image generation with Nano Banana and GGPT too. And I was thinking to have some open source images that I will open ⁓ host myself on my own server. But I quite often check time to time the quality of the image and I still think for the open source it's not there yet. So I want to provide the best service, so I prefer to also outsource it somewhere else unless I'm sure that the quality is like comparable at least. Yeah. How do you find all these alternatives or options? Are you just, you know, asking AI like can can you give me ideas, how can I replace this and what should I replace it with? Actually, yeah, I asking GA, but also we built a bunch of content creation tools before. So I also have experience with previous providers. And I think it's very important because some of them they don't have the best customer service or they have certain sets of challenges. So I think you need to test a lot to know what you can offer and also compare the costs, yeah, 'cause usually there's cheaper services but they're not reliable. They're more expensive services, but hey, you can add a bunch of images in the same time. So definitely it comes to a lot of testing on your end to decide, hey, this is a good fit. And also you need to have some backup because it can happen that somebody goes out of market. So you have to have a backup plan, how do you replace it or you have some fallbacks? So for example, for some roads, it's one of the providers has some issue, it's not available. I have already fall back road to other providers. Where did you learn that you need to have a backup? Was something did something happen? Was there an incident that you realized, ⁓ s we have nothing now because some something went dark? Or where does the all this knowledge come from? It came from our experience and then you hit certain limit, yeah. For example, in some providers you can create, let's say, twenty-firty images in ten seconds, and then you need to wait for the rate to replenish. So It was from Toro Toro testing and for now I have own queuing systems. So for example, if I'm getting more images, they already queue on my end and then when the quota is available again, they can send the images somewhere else. So definitely you need to test a lot on your end and probably you struggle with certain issues or certain prompts, yeah. Now it's even more control in you so you can have certain kind of prompts, yeah. If you're looking for okay news or some personal things. Yeah, sometimes refuse to create certain images, so it comes to a lot of testing to see what's available, what works. Yeah, definitely. So it's not just like, yeah, this this guy and this provider seems to be GBI, let's use it. Definitely not. I can imagine that I offer this to customer because I think it's quite strict, especially with new ⁓ EU app coming in August. There will be more and more controls, so it's it's challenging. For example, ⁓ for now. I know I need to implement ⁓ testing the prompt ⁓ before it's sent to image generation. If it's okay, it doesn't if it just it's not conflict, it's not deep especially if deep fake, people are sensitive to deepfake or controls, so there's a lot of background check even for the prompt before it goes to image generation. Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's another ⁓ another field of things to learn is actually what is allowed to do with the AI. ⁓ And the defakes and all the rest of it. So how do you stay up to date with all the changes? Because they're like daily. You need to study a lot and of course I'm I'm still like ⁓ scraping different news and watching other people and also ⁓ ask for example Plot or Pepsi Day was the new policy and ⁓ for selling actually we don't use dra we have merchandon record, maybe maybe you use it too. May I think you mentioned you have revenue card or something like this. So we have also Middleman. The middleman is very sensitive about certain policies. So they usually also send us email, Hey, since now we're not able to do this, you need to change it. So they also kind of monitor it for us what what's allowed or not, cause at the end of the day they kind of resell resell our product. So definitely they need to keep ⁓ keep watching what's compliant, it's not, which is kind of good because we're not alone. There's more teams monitoring changes as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is a constant it's like a hamster wheel. It just never stops running. I guess Actually it's the beginning ⁓ 'cause n it's not the end. So and I don't know if ⁓ you act is also for you, but you know how it's a bit with compliance. Yeah, sometimes compliance give you ten times more work than the product itself. So Yes. Especially in the EU you have Quite a few loops to go through before you can actually go out and be live with an app. That's for sure. Yeah, it's about GDPR, it's about storage, images, yeah, and other policies. Like are you allowed to store someone else's images for how long? What kind of approval do you need to have? How how do you need to handle this? It's kind of it's kind of crazy. And I think when you're building, you're very excited, but ⁓ when you launching or before you want to launch and you want to go public, you realize You need to comply in so many things, which is Yeah. It's how it is. Yes, it is. ⁓ you said earlier that you know building is only the first step. So everything really starts after the build. Can you walk me through when you launched, how did you get your first customers? Actually we already mentioned you that ⁓ we work on this product. So I have already a list of beta testers in advance. So when we're launching, I actually email them that our product is ready. And some of them tested, some of them are returns to customers. And then I think with apps, especially if we want to go public, the most important thing is to distribution. Yeah. So for now we have a couple of channels like in TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn. Even though we're quite busy so we can do better in content. But for us it was direct reach. Actually, first First client because he's from WhatsApp group. Actually mentioned the the he's looking for tool for content distribution and I was like, just wait two weeks in two weeks we're launching so you you can test it. And he's still with us and actually he's one of our best customers. So actually his kind of admin works with us and she's amazing. If something goes wrong, she always texted us and till today she gave us so many feedback on the product. So it's amazing. I think in early stage it's super important if you bit build some kind of relationship with your customers. Because nothing is perfect from the day day one. So they can go to you and they can provide the feedback, for example, for some extra credits. And it's way better than some beta testers or free user, because they're already using your product regularly and they have intention in staying. So their their like feedback is very relevant. Because we have so many people who have so many ideas. You can do this and this and this. And I was like and Are you gonna use our product if we're gonna build it? And then they're like, I'm not sure so yeah. So if it's feedback, I prefer to have relevant peop feedback, especially from people who use it, because I know this is the most important people who I should ask for, what's wrong or what's working or what they want in future. Yeah. Have you built a system around it, like you ask quarterly or monthly, or is it like whenever things pop up, either you get a feedback or you realize something needs to maybe change? Actually it's usually when we're launching some new features because sometimes people are busy so they don't know we're launching new features. So I prefer to send them emails 'cause I already have their emails. So some to sometimes to them we do something like newsletter when we inform people about new features. And ⁓ we have also refelled programs. So we give people extra credits if they provide bonuses. But I think if you reach out to them directly it's way better than just waiting for like passive Or like active reach from their side. So I think we're still in early days, yeah. Our product is two or three months in the market and it's our like first product we launched. So I'm not like a super experienced person who can tell you, Hey, we have this robust system of feedback. It's not there yet. We're gonna work on this and we definitely should launch newsletter and as we laugh education, I'd like to also do a bit of education about it. Because things we also build is APIs and MCP servers. So for example, now if you go to Plot Code and you have extros to do API, it can just grab some analytics from past and see the best time you post it. If your if your video hooks work or which of them works, yeah, based on, for example, your YouTube channel. I already know that, for example, if I do problem awareness, it ⁓ it it works way better when I start with explaining my product. So there's other features you can get extra if you start to use API or MCP tools. Even for posting, yeah, you can just go to Clot Code and say, hey, just post it on my platform for tomorrow, ⁓ for example, Instagram in two days and things like this. And yeah, it's so convenient and I think a lot of people do know how to use it. So I guess we should definitely do education, how you can actually benefit from MCP tools and using API requests, especially with agents with auto. The there's the non-technical person talking about MCPs and APIs. I just it should be what's actually MCP tool and why you should care. Yeah. Yeah. Actually actually what about you? 'Cause I know it's about XRO, but I'm so super curious ⁓ what kind of app you're building and what's what's your experience with user like? ⁓ I build ⁓ I have about twelve that I build. I do I've iOS apps, iPhone apps. So I'm in a kinda different different space at the moment. And ⁓ I started from zero as well. I was not technical at all. Now I can talk about NCPs and APIs and you know all the rest of it. So ⁓ my tools are quite different or then ⁓ apps for basically ⁓ B to C. So I'm not going after businesses with my apps. So So are you in certain niche or are they from totally different niches? ⁓ they're all different niches, so there's no relevancy across the apps. ⁓ I built most of them because I just wanted to learn how to build. And with each app I learned something new. And the original version wasn't great. I go on back and edit them. So I ship fast. And just put it in the market and see what happens and then I get tractions like, okay, I go back now and change it. So ⁓ you know. ⁓ so it depends on the app, how it actually performs in the market and what do I do with it next. So sick. And tell me one secret, how do you manage to like distributional marketing for twelve different apps? It must like super challenging or ⁓ it's mostly App Store at the moment. And ⁓ then whenever I'm speaking somewhere, people Google my name afterwards or ask me where can I find your app? And you know, then I get my more downloads and then they when I get downloads from somewhere else also App Store gives me more downloads because it rises up in the ranks. ⁓ yeah, we also like run Abysselevate ⁓ YouTube channel or we actually did it more like last year because then we moved to Exra Studio. I was thinking to the logic again with education and one of the things ⁓ we would like to do or actually it's mostly my partner doing doing this now. I would like to bring more people and also I would love they can share their journey. So if there will be interest on your end, I would also love to share your story because it's amazing. Yeah, like there's not many men building in AI. And if yes, they usually like build one app and it goes outwards. And definitely. I also like participate in some Czech community for women building in AI and if we're thinking about building psych courses for them 'cause there's so much potential and it's a pity. Yeah, I think there can be definitely more women involved and still like if I'm talking if I go to some meetings or some calls, it's mostly men and then I feel a little bit like okay I'm next to that. So But I know so many smart and technical women's like but I don't know, it's totally It's a little bit different, yeah, because in some state you're running your family, so you can demonstrate them for Yeah. In your career or like chasing your dreams. Yeah. I I'm slowly trying to change that. That's why I mean this podcast is not featuring only women, but I have about twenty women in the lineup. I'm gonna continue with women until I run out and hopefully I never run out. So I'm trying to do my best to get more women into Talking about their stories because those are very inspiring because No, it's amazing. You also do some kind of education or Yes, I do host ⁓ Bad Conning workshops. So I also teach and train ⁓ women to build their first apps. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, amazing. So so how do you see like the ratio of women and men in your courses? It's more like fifty fifty or still more more men? I tend to only focus on women. So ⁓ I've had men say like why can't we join? I was like because when it's only women in the audience, women are more open, like they're more I guess I had to say comfortable coming in and learning and building. because if it's open to everybody, it's usually eighty, ninety percent men and then there's few women. It's a completely different dynamic. ⁓ so I I'm not excluding men, but I'm not also promoting to men. In a way. So yeah. We're teaching also like ⁓ by putting apps or building with no code actually. And I see we have higher percentage of women actually. I would say like yeah, thirty, maybe even forty. Yeah. It's it's it's great. I'm happy they're there. Such a good education and women so technical and like More involved into it. Yeah. I know I live in a bubble of, you know, vibe coders and people who are interested in and I think everybody's interested in this. But when I go into the real world it's like, you don't want to build an app it's like a surprise. But yeah. ⁓ a lot of people are still are not even using Chat G P T on the daily basis or weekly basis. So ⁓ We still have quite a bit of work to do c to get more women into even starting using AI and and then accelerate into building apps and that that sort of thing. So I think they quite often think it's more difficult than actually it is. So they kind of feel intimidating and not secure. But once they overcome the beginning, they're very good because they're y women's debates. So if something doesn't go well, they're kind of used to it. So they can survive better. Yes, that is very true. And I women are natural problem solvers. That's what they do every day. Anyways. And ⁓ yeah, it's it's really amazing to see all the variety of ideas I've heard while I've been recording this podcast is absolutely mind blowing. which I love. So yeah, definitely. The app is not about the complexity, it's about if it helps someone make their life easier. It can be super simple app, but if people use it and if their life is better, what was was the purpose? Nobody say you have to go Advanced C L ⁓ for Airbus We've been talking about women and those that are not building the apps yet. ⁓ what would be your advice to somebody who's listening now and is thinking like I actually have an app idea, but what do I do? Where do I go? How to start. My recommendation would be get in touch with other women or other communities and ask people who already went through this experience and see how difficult was it and ask their about their journey or maybe take some education. Yeah, you can start with like some simple course about four or six six six hours and then ⁓ you can just do estimate if you're able to do it. 'Cause I think it's it's not so difficult as people think. ⁓ women are hesitant. 'Cause they can imagine it. So the idea would be just go and tie it and talk to people who already went through this road so they will tell you the best answers, yeah, how difficult is how they handle it. So don't be alone in this in this space, yeah. Just get help and share. I think this is one of the best features. We have also kind of ⁓ for me it was easier 'cause ⁓ I worked with automation before, so with NAN it's local tool but a lot of ⁓ nodes were bit built on our own code. So I need to learn how API works and how Tamas works and different things. Yeah, then we added like JavaScript and Python code. So the progress was more like fluent. And I'm happy that I have a couple of people also women in AI automation space. So we can time to time like sharing the journey what kind of project we're working on or how we see the progress. So I'm kind of happy that I have a bit of not community but at least a couple of women around me. So I can share the idea or the problems or the like new things with them as well and they can give me get they can give me feedback. So it's good. Women are very diligent in giving feedback. Yes. I need it for feedback. But I think it's amazing to have other people around and share the experience 'cause you learn faster through someone's someone else's experience too. And you can avoid a lot of other things. For example, I think it's even if you do like public product it's very important to talk to with other people. How they do product distribution. Because that's a very huge part of the app too. Yeah. People pay so much attention to building. But especially if you build public products, I think the distribution is even the bigger and the more important part than the app itself. And I'm not a marketer, so I'm learning this along the road. So I definitely need to do more kind of networking with people who are better in like content creation or distributing the product inbound, outbound leads, because I kind of love building more than marketing, especially marketing myself. But I need to overcome the fear because I know it's necessary. So even being here in this podcast, it's kind of like stepping out of comfort zone for me. Yeah, marketing is a hard hard ⁓ thing to start, especially you have to go as a person and promote your own product. ⁓ it it can be challenging in the first time. But it's like vibe coding. You now talk about MCPs and APIs. Next time we talk in six months' time you're gonna talk about paid advertising and you know all the rest of all the lingo. Yeah especially it seems handsome start about this learning. Yeah yeah. And if you go deeper it to think is, you know, as typical human I prefer to do things And I'm good at anything. So I I think I need to push myself to go through a certain level of inconvenience, but you know, you're used to it. Yeah. It's it's it's the same with fear. You need to partially expose yourself and you then you're slowly getting used to it, and then it's getting becoming more easier and easier every day, and then one day you realize it doesn't scare you anymore, and you're really can handle it and you're good at it. Maybe you never love it, it's not necessary, but at least you can like somehow do it or tolerate it to certain levels. So for me, w we were running YouTube channels last year and for me shoot the f first video, it took about one or two weeks and I was so scared and I got so much anxiety and like it's getting better. I'm happy that I can teach people 'cause it helps me a lot personally. I still kind of have like shaky hands at the beginning of my lecture as well, 'cause they live. So we have like ninety minutes, sometimes even two hours. webinars, so it's a lot of talking for me. But it's getting better and better with every course, so I'm happy that I already push myself this way. Yeah, that sounds really really amazing. Like how do you feel promoting your products? Is this your like second skin or do you also a little bit pushing yourself? ⁓ I've been in business quite long time and I've been in the online business. I sold courses before and did coaching and quite a few things. So I got over that year. It's actually quite a lot of fun once you actually get into it. And ⁓ so I gotta force myself to go back. ⁓ but that's that's part of the job description. So what is happening with ⁓ you and your app in the future? What what does the future look like? So we also plan to do a little bit more launches. So we already did a couple of them, but I'm planning to do Pro Lacan Launch, Hacker News, and Peerlist. So these ones are the bigger ones. And then recently we also started with affiliate programs. So I think ⁓ in future we shall reach to more influencers and do affiliate marketing with them. Because you can you can learn something from your account, but it's way better if there's more people who support the product too. In some point we were thinking about pay advertising, but I don't want to rush it too early before I get data and I understand who's my client. So I definitely need to do more ⁓ content creation, inbound leads and also kind of outbound leads. I'm ⁓ I don't like like call messaging people because I spend so much on LinkedIn, so I kind of I don't want to be the person who's trying to say to someone else. But I think if you niche it down to people who already have the usage or they have the pain pain. Actually it's not too bad, so definitely we should do more inbound and outbound creation and of course participating in some podcasts and maybe some we were thinking about some also investors. We already apply, for example, in a Y combinator. ⁓ excellent It's challenging. Of course we didn't succeed, it was too early, but I was like, Hey, I need to try it. I need to have this story. Yeah. It's crazy. We launched we launched it in in one month, we got pet. Pay pay incline, so let's give it a try. And also from people who already succeed, I know it wasn't the s their first date. They try for example five times, six times, they need to get traction, they need to have proof. So it's usually not the first step. It's somewhere when you already a little bit more established. But I want to like already give it a try. Yeah. You always gotta try, you never know. I mean all they can say say is no and then you can try again. So yeah, like I mean, if nothing less, it's an amazing story to have. We keep it as other alternative, but for now we we are still bootstrap and I think we keep it for some time like this, because I think it kind of forces you to push harder. If you have someone else's money, you're kinda kind of get convenient. And of course we investors they have also a little bit different agenda for your app, so they're looking mostly for monetization and how to take most of money out of it. Not necessarily like if you have some vision or If you want to offer something for people or you have some like ⁓ plans, they don't necessarily follow what you want, but what's the best for the capital. So if anybody's listening now and wants to know more about you and your app, where can they find you online? So in Extra Studio you can definitely try it. We have free trials, so everyone can try it, every everyone can connect account and post it and definitely give me some feedback. What can we do better? How do you like it? And ⁓ I'm now I'm a little bit less active on Lin, but you can definitely find me on LinkedIn. We have also YouTube channel. It's mostly run by my partner, Martin, so you can definitely find him find him there. And I think the LinkedIn is the best way, or you can reach out to our email address as well. Yeah, and we have also Instagram and Facebook, but it's still in early days. Thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it. And ⁓ I will also link up Everything in the show notes so there'll be a link and direct links to your LinkedIn and your website. But thank you very much for your time today. Thank you. And that was Barbara. I really liked our discussion and hearing how she, even though she struggled with the first version and actually started over, she did not give up and kept building and shipping the product. She also mentioned one of the most important things. For any app founder. That is to listen to your customers what features to add and what to remove. It's so easy to overwhelm and give more when actually the right decision is to take some features away, just like Barbora did. Another key takeaway is that shipping and launching is not the finish line. It's actually the starting point. Once the product is ready, then starts the marketing. And if you are like most app founders, that is one of the most challenging parts of the journey. But just like learning how to ship an app, one can learn how to market the app. Until next time, keep on shipping and marketing.