Customer acquisition & market segmentation on Sparkster’s no code platform

Sparkster
Sparkster
Published in
5 min readMar 23, 2019

At Sparkster we get a lot of the same questions. One of the biggest is where do our customers come from? Our no code vision is innovative, and it can be hard for people to understand who would want to use our platform. They might think that developers don’t need a no code platform, and non-developers wouldn’t be able to use it.

But we know that both of those assumptions are false. In fact, we’ve identified both developers and non-technical employees as our target customer bases. To understand how we’ve drawn that conclusion, you need to see the current market — and its opportunities — the way we do.

The market as it stands

There are two basic markets in our arena: low code and no code. Low code refers to platforms that need users to do a little coding to make a complete app, where no code needs, well, no coding.

Below is a chart created by Garter, comparing competitors in our emerging industry. The companies included have all released publicly available coding products.

[Note: Sparkster haven’t released our no code platform publicly yet, hence our exclusion.]

Many established companies are playing in the low code space, such as Oracle, Salesforce and Zoho. Others are receiving major financial boosts from giant names. Mendax was recently acquired by Siemens, and Out systems recently received a $360 million investment from two investors in a round led by Goldman Sachs.

The low code and no code industry, then, is populated by big companies and supported with some serious finance. So what do these high-profile companies see in low and no code platforms? Like all businesses, they see opportunities.

The customer opportunities in the industry

Right now, most businesses focus on providing low code solutions to software developers. These platforms allow developers to build apps and other software, without having to build the architecture. Developers still have to define what the software does and how the software works, so users still need to be able to write code.

But by eliminating the need to build the architecture, the repetitive bits that don’t change much from app to app, developers can code 20 times faster than without the low code platform. They don’t have to write out every line of code, and they don’t have to worry about bugs and mistakes creeping into the thousands of lines of computer-generated code.

It’s pretty obvious, then, why tech companies can see the opportunities in the market. Coding faster saves serious money, and products can be rolled out faster, with fewer mistakes, which fattens up the profit margins even more.

Sparkster’s customer opportunities

Our platform isn’t low code, it’s no code. We put our tools to the test against traditional development and found we can build applications at least 100 times faster than traditional coding alone. Our tools are five to ten times faster than low code tools as well. That’s because users don’t have to write any code. They simply take our blocks, written in plain English, and snap them together to create bespoke software. Software developers can use our tools to build apps nearly instantly, they can test and refine all in one place, and they don’t have to worry about bugs slipping into our code, either, since it is generated by a computer.

All the efficiency and monetary savings found on low code platforms can be found with our platform, except more.

Moveover, anyone can use our platform. As mentioned above, low code platforms can speed up software developers’ work, but they still need to be developers to use those tools. Absolutely anyone can use our tools. And that’s how we’re going to disrupt this industry.

Our disruptive market segment: the spreadsheet hacker

When you’re a startup, taking on the likes of Oracle and Salesforce, you have to be disruptive. And our technology absolutely is disrupting the industry, because we’re not just catering to developers.

Don’t get the wrong idea: we are talking to teams of software developers, especially c-sharp Microsoft developers. These are the developers building business applications within their companies, and we think they are a key group who we could have a substantial impact on. After all, they can benefit most from the efficiency savings our platform offers.

But we think there is an overlooked market: the non-coder who uses things like spreadsheet hacks to piece together the software they need. These people work in human resources, purchasing, accounting and production planning, and they are using these hacks when the tools the company provides don’t quite meet their needs. These employees have lots of ingenuity and are self-motivated, but they might not have all the technical training they need to build apps.

That’s where we come in. Again, our no code platform just uses plain English commands on blocks that users drag and drop into place. People like our spreadsheet hackers can just think about the problem they want to solve, move the instructions into place and have a fully functional app almost instantly. Then, they can start using it right away, making adjustments as they need to. That means Debbie in HR is building the tools she needs to work exactly as she needs them to, and she can even update or scale those tools whenever the need arises.

Many companies overlook the Debbies of the world because they aren’t already buying and using coding products. But with no code solutions like ours, anyone can build the software solutions they need. That means that instead of only focusing our time and energy proving ourselves to coders, we are also talking to employees outside of the IT departments. We are bringing our technology to the people who use spreadsheets as the glue between business applications, and that is how we are going to disrupt the customer acquisition and market segmentation model using our no code platform.

Join the revolution: http://sparkster.me
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sparkster_Me
Telegram: https://t.me/SparksterICO

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Sparkster
Sparkster

Build smart software in Plain English! Run at 10 million TPS. Join us at https://sparkster.me/ @Sparkster_Me