Launch HN: Noloco (YC S21) – Build internal tools from data without code
Hi all, we’re Darragh and Simon, cofounders of Noloco (https://noloco.io), a no-code platform for teams to create internal tools from their business data.

Noloco lets you create internal apps from data sources like PostgreSQL, Airtable and Google Sheets without writing any code. This makes building internal tools and configuring views a lot faster than building them with code and SQL queries. It also enables non-technical team members like those in ops, customer support or sales to make changes without having to rely on engineers.

Building internal tools is time-consuming and resource intensive, not just for the original build but the ongoing maintenance as well. It’s also not the kind of work that developers typically want to do, nor usually the most valuable use of their time.

From our prior experience at tech companies like HubSpot, TripAdvisor, Revolut and Flipdish, we experienced some of the pains around internal tooling first hand. As a PM leading the Payments team in one company, Simon would have to prepare SQL scripts every week to update customer data, and hound developers to run them. Most of the time, businesses simply didn’t have the resources to invest in updating tooling.

Since launching in November 2021, we have a wide variety of customers using Noloco for internal tools. For example, one real estate company is using Noloco to manage payment approvals to contractors hired across their property portfolio. An accounting firm uses Noloco as an internal practice management tool to keep track of proposals made to clients and relevant pieces of work. And a lead generation business used Noloco to build a sophisticated CRM and customer portal to track leads provided to their customers.

Most platforms that enable building internal tools are either targeted at developers, or are ‘low-code’ and still require some coding expertise to build something useful. Other no-code platforms typically connect to more no-code backends like Google Sheets and often focus more on B2C use cases, enabling building of publicly accessible websites, for example. Often these solutions fall short when it comes to building sophisticated internal tools around data.

Noloco is a fully no-code solution focused solely on web apps. We connect to relational databases like PostgreSQL as well as no-code backends like Airtable and Google Sheets, enabling companies to build powerful apps on top of their existing business data from multiple sources. We believe that we’ve got the balance right between simplicity and enhanced configuration ability for power users who want to go deep with customisation: filtering, validation rules, database permission rules etc.

It took us a couple of pivots to arrive at this system. Initially we were building a feature-rich full-stack website and web app builder—but no one could build anything useful with it. We decided to revamp the product to make it much simpler. A few weeks later, we had our first version of our client portal builder. This was a step in the right direction, but our value proposition around centralising customer interactions in a custom-made client portal wasn’t resonating with prospects. Finally we realized that what our most successful customers wanted was to share their existing data with their team or customers. This led us to revamp the product once more to make the focus on connecting your existing data. Once you do so, we’re able to automatically build an app around your data meaning that you can launch a whole lot faster with much less of a learning curve.

The starting point for building an app with Noloco is adding data. If using an external data source like Airtable or Postgres, you provide your connection details, choose what tables you want to import and then Noloco syncs your data across. Once the initial import has finished, Noloco instantly builds an app for you around your data—including collections, forms and record pages for each database record. From there, you can customise the app and select the most appropriate layout options to display your data like tables, kanban boards, calendars and charts.

You can set database permissions by user role to control what records different users have access to and what fields they can view and edit. This means that you can confidently invite your team or customers and allow them to view, create and update data.

In case you’re interested, here’s a video of us building a Lending App from Postgres data:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVDHCvPqgsg

If you’re interested in trying the product, we recently launched our free tier and you get a free trial of all premium features when you sign up. Here’s a link to our sign-up page:

https://portals.noloco.io/register

We’d love to hear from the HN community about your experiences using and building internal tools.