Not too long ago, we were introduced to Phil, a bright young software developer who believes in the promise of digital empowerment. Suffice to say, one of his stories inspired us so much that we decided to re-tell the many important notes we took from our brief engagement.
“It baffles me how people still run businesses in this day and age without automation,” Phil says coolly. “Considering the latest development in software engineering, it would be a crime to turn a blind eye to technology.”
True enough, we couldn’t agree more. The road to digital pursuits hasn’t just become more feasible to entrepreneurs and citizen developers alike. It’s become much easier, too. Over are the days when only talented, wide-eyed technology experts could whip up an intelligible and relatable smartphone app. As a matter of fact, today, a few humble dollars are enough to jumpstart a business leader’s journey to app development.
“The problem—,” Phil says before pausing for dramatic effect, “—with many entrepreneurs today is that many times, they don’t even realize a lot of the things they do can count for problems or roadblocks. To them, it’s just another bump in the road they’ll forever have to keep dealing with.”
“One of my clients, I remember, owns several gas stations. He runs about 42 of them. So, naturally, when I got to meet him at an event, I had to ask him what his business principles were. How do you handle that many gas stations and not lose your mind?” He asks us rhetorically.
“My client replies, ‘It’s simple. I have a guy who checks all of my bank accounts, one for every branch. He then types the available balances into an excel sheet and reviews our available bank office statements. He transfers that data into another excel file and copies every value, puts it another excel file, and then sends it to me.”
“I stood there perplexed. Was I hearing that right? Take note that this man runs 42 gas stations! As a software developer, so many red flags just waved right in front of my eyes. Firstly, granting one person exclusive access to all your different bank accounts is risky; that’s a given. Secondly, the whole process is menial. Something as tedious as that should be automated.” He shares fervently.
“A couple of weeks later, I drafted a solution for him. Through a web application that took me not more than a month to make, I was able to create an automated solution that privately accesses his banks’ sites, gets their value, summarises a report in a snap, and saves it in a database that’s delivered to users in the form of a PDF or a Word file.”
There was a brief silence.
“How awesome was that?” He asked us as we were nodding our heads in praise. “But that’s not the only kicker,” he adds. “the app I made ended up saving our client $40,000 a month.”
“And the best thing about it all is that it makes the entire process shorter, too. If he ever wanted to check out data from a certain month, he can now just key in a date on the web app, and it shows him what he’s looking for in immediacy. He no longer has to manually look at folders and folders of excel files.”
And we couldn’t agree more. Here in MVP.dev, we believe in perseverance and trusting the process. But we also believe in being smart workers. Hard work can only do so much. Only when we utilize our resources wisely can we say that we’ve succeeded in being sustainably profitable.
If you’re a product manager, an upcoming business leader, or a startup owner, you have to consider the benefits of Rapid Application Development.
Here are the leading advantages automation affords you:
Data is easier to access and edit on the cloud. Through a designated work laptop or office smartphone, you can go over important information and data wherever you are.
Encourage employee productivity. When you create apps that automate processes and eliminate lengthy math equations, you allow your workforce to shine best at things only humans can excel at—identifying social problems, coming up with creative solutions, extending personal customer service, and so on.
You get more accurate business projections. When you create an app designed to shorten your workflow, you’re granted all the necessary tools best suited to monitor data. This means your projections on sales and revenue become much more aligned to future goals and quotas.
Enter new business ventures. A lot of people with ideas shy away from entering businesses because of the expensive fees that come with human resources. The great thing about automation is that you can connect to your customers, receive payments online, and send updates and similar announcements at the convenience of an app. You bypass a lot of the necessary manpower when you digitize a venture.
Through bubble.io, you can easily build an app despite the stunning lack of an IT degree. Bubble’s drag-and-drop editor makes design and development simple and feasible so you can focus on realizing your best ideas yet.
Interested? Give us a call and we’ll walk you through the process!
“If you’re wondering where my client’s go-to guy went after the web app was built,” Phil mentions out of the blue as we were all about to part ways, “he didn’t get fired. He got transferred to another department to lead a new group of people.”
