Vibe code vs no-code: Softr’s vision for the future of app building

0:01The companies that really work on fundamental problems and solve the problems, the hard problems, and then really are able to power all of that with the AI intelligence, personalization, they are the ones that will win in the future. And that's what we're building at Software. Welcome to the SaaS Revolution Show, a podcast by SaaS.com. Here we interview SaaS founders from around the world who've been there and done that. They share the ins and outs of how they built their businesses, their operations, their path for securing investment and more. Our mission with the podcast is to help you, the founder, learn how to scale your SaaS, maintain your well-being, and navigate the complexities of this ever-changing industry.

0:42I'm your host, Alex Deema, and together we'll explore the good, the bad, and the ugly in the journey to SaaS success. All right. Welcome to the SaaS Revolution Show. I'm Alex Deema. We're live at SaaS.Europe 2025. I'm joined by Mariam Hakovian, who's the CEO of Softer. How are you doing, Mariam? Welcome to Dublin. Hey, Alex. Great to be here. Thanks so much for being with us. First time in Dublin, first time at Sastoc. Yes, exactly. Initial impressions. I know you haven't had too much time to see Dublin. But yeah, initial impressions of being here. Yeah, not much impressions of Dublin yet, but really great conference so far.

1:21I've been seeing really interesting companies, interesting talks, and I hope today is going to be really full of energy and full of interesting talks. Can you tell us a little bit more about Softer, what you do, what you're building? Yeah, so software is a no-code platform, especially targeted for businesses to build business apps, especially internal tooling and portals. So it lets users and customers create internal tools from inventory management, customer portals, intranets, employee portals to some external facing apps as well. And how are things going in business? Good? Riding the AI wave?

1:55Absolutely. I think AI is just the next level of the next stage of abstraction and is accelerating our mission even further. And you spoke earlier today on the founder track. For those obviously that are not here, that are watching the podcast, what did you speak about? What are a couple of the key takeaways? Yeah, I gave a sneak peek behind software's product philosophy and how we build product with opinionated UX and design coupled with generative AI, especially. And in terms of those, like giving that sneak peek, what would the audience have learned from that? What would they take away from that?

2:36Yeah, so the short takeaway is that AI isn't changing how we build software. It's not teaching us how to code, but the next wave really is the combination of AI and NoCode. So NoCart has figured out what are the right guardrails and systems to put in place. And AI is really the magic behind making it more smarter and more powerful and really more personalized. So coupled together, they'll make the building software right and fast at the same time. What are you seeing? What's working for you to grow the business from a GTM perspective? How are you getting out there? How are you acquiring customers?

3:18how are you growing the business? Yeah, since the launch of four years ago, we have now crossed one million builders on software that are building business apps. And these are the builders that are totally non-technical. They don't know how to code and they're really solving problems for their business. And we have grown mostly organically through Word of Mod, community and SEO and also really without sales teams. So it is through solving really hard problems and the problems that customers today are facing. AI is here, it's definitely accelerating, making it simpler to build apps, but the problem that we are solving fundamentally still hasn't changed and customers have been already solving it with no-code platforms.

4:09We're seeing a lot of, let's say, the Vibe coding platforms are lovable, extremely fast sort of growth. some of that growth is slowing somewhat at the moment. And there is perhaps a concern around customer churn. It's so easy to go on, start to create your own app, but how sticky are these customers? And from your perspective, from your use case, what are you seeing? How do you see it? How do you protect against this? So, VibeCoding tools and AI in general has made it really accessible and simple to build simple use cases like prototypes and websites and really basic apps. But what software is really focusing on is business applications.

4:54So we're talking specifically around customers and businesses needing to build entire operational tooling or customer-facing portals for their business. So that so far is, that's our core strength, and that is what NoCode platforms have figured out. So software and many other NoCode platforms abstract away the complexities that lie behind the code, behind the building of software, and then really give users the power to create control what they really need to control. So what is really specific to their business, and that's the reason it makes it extremely simple to build production-ready apps.

5:36The main difference between wipe-coded apps and no-code apps are, wipe-coded apps right now are really becoming a mess after a certain point, and it's really difficult to continue building, maintaining for non-technical users. Our users are really non-technical builders, someone like business owners, operations managers, sales and marketing. They literally build entire operational tooling with software because we abstract away a lot of the complexities behind the scenes for them and give them the controls that's really relevant for them for their business use cases. So with that simplicity comes ease of use and then apparently obviously a lot more users are able to build things.

6:14How are you attracting customers? What acquisition channels? Where are the customers coming from? So we have grown mostly organically through word of mouth, referrals, people referring to each other as well as SEO. So people typically would search about certain problem they have. They want to solve a specific niche problem, you know, building some kind of client portal within the real estate industry. Then they would usually find us through different content pieces, through different referrals, and then find us through templates. So we have hundreds of templates that solve specific needs. They're still constructed with the same building blocks that software offers, but they solve different needs and they're more personalized.

6:58So people find those templates, use those templates, reverse engineer and understand how the platform works, and then they're able to put it together for them or customize it to their needs. Do you do much founder-led marketing, like building your own brand, thought leadership on LinkedIn and things like this? I would have the love to do more. I haven't really spent much time on that. I have been very specifically deep around product and building and the design side. I definitely think that's the next kind of stage of marketing. I think today that's a really proven way to market your product just because it's one of the most authentic ways to share about your learnings.

7:39And I do believe we do have so many learnings that could be useful for many other founders around PLG building, around product that's really complex, but at the same time how we abstracted away all of those complexities and how we enable easy building for non-technical users. What about AI tools that you personally use to help you be a better CEO day-to-day or just to help you be more productive? Absolutely. So my day-to-day tool is definitely ChatGPT. We actually just ourselves now are launching our own workflow tool. We have our own database with AI agents, so I'm definitely leveraging those a lot for internal tooling.

8:18And with workflows now, I'm just waiting for that to use our own agent builder to be able to automate some more processes around, you know, day to day bookings and calendar management, all of that. Things are moving so fast in this AI era that we're in at the moment. So what is like relevant today may not be relevant, you know, necessarily in the next couple of months. But how do you look to the future, you know, around that and to prepare? Because the job as a CEO is that you can't just think about today. you have to try and think 6-12 months out, sometimes a bit longer. So what do you do in this respect?

8:55So I think NoCode really came close to mass adoption, but it was lacking intelligence. And I think now with the age of AI, AI really is the engine that makes it smarter and really more powerful to do more personal building and more intelligent building within the platforms. And that's kind of core part of our product. So our product is evolving and has become an AI-powered no-code platform. The no-code piece is still really, really important. It has to be there for the constraints, for the guardrails that it has to put in place. But what basically we're evolving into the platform is evolving from full-stack application building to AI-powered application building, where the end goal still is for the customer to get the customer to the final result the fastest and easiest way, Whether that's by helping with AI co-pilot, help them through the build, or them configuring certain things because it's actually much better and secure and faster.

9:53That's kind of the result. But we are definitely looking at all of the ways how we can incorporate into the platform to be the best platform for building apps the easiest and the fastest way. What, if anything, keeps you up at night? So I think today there is distribution has become harder than ever. Absolutely. Every day there is a new AI company coming out for building apps or for building everything else. I think slowly people are realizing that vibe coding is great to start, but it's not a means to an end. And lots of people with frustration are basically giving up. And I think, yeah, we have to, like distribution is where you really can win.

10:40I think in today's age, being fast, executing fast is also something we're proud of that we have been doing really well. But I think the distribution in today's age and just making sure we're well positioned in the market to be at the forefront of the innovation with the AI platform is really the hardest. Any concerns about like AI bubbles sort of bursting and like, you know, being prepared for that? Yeah, I think AI is real and it's here to stay. However, it's not in its current form. It's definitely the early days and we're definitely going to see many companies, you know, figuring out that it was many companies are literally layers on top of existing other providers.

11:26So, So there's definitely going to be a shift, companies getting acquired, closing down, etc. But I think the companies that really work on fundamental problems and solve the problems, the hard problems, and then really are able to power all of that with the AI intelligence, personalization, they are the ones that will win in the future. And that's what we're building at Software. Awesome. All right. Well, thanks for being a guest on the SaaS Revolution show today, being in Dublin for SaaS stock. Hopefully, it's not the last time and we'll see you again. thank you so much. Thanks for the email Alex great to be here Thanks for listening to the SaaS Revolution show if you enjoyed this episode please leave a review and follow the show it helps more SaaS and AI founders to discover the podcast and keeps us bringing you the leaders who are shaping the future of the industry for more insights and to join the SaaS Talk community head to SaaSTalk.com

12:26Thank you.