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- [00:01]
Michael Stelzner
Hey there, Mike Stelzner. Before we get started with today's podcast, picture this. While your peers are struggling with basic chat GPT prompts, you're the marketer everyone turns to for AI solutions. You're automating tasks that used to take hours, creating stunning visuals in minutes and analyzing data like a pro. This, my friends, is not a fantasy. It's exactly what's happening to marketers. It's in the AI Business Society. When you join the AI Business Society, you get monthly live training from leading experts, real world examples you can implement immediately, and a community of innovators pushing the AI boundaries. Don't let this moment pass you by. Visit socialmediaexaminer.com AI and start your AI transformation today.
- [00:53]
Molly Mahoney
Welcome to the AI Explored podcast, helping you put AI to work. And now, here's your host, Michael Stelzner.
- [01:05]
Michael Stelzner
Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the AI Explored podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers, creators and business owners who want to know how to put AI to work. I am very excited about today's show. If you've ever dreamed of, like, developing your own app, your own web based application, but you said to yourself, I don't know code, I don't know user interface design, I don't know all these things, what if I told you that you could just prompt yourself an app and literally come up with some incredible applications to help your business, to help your customers, to help your employees? And that is all possible today. And we're going to be talking about this today with Molly Mahoney. Molly has developed an incredible competency in this and she's going to lay it all out for you and she's even going to give you some super cool resources at the end to allow you to do this very quickly on your own. By the way, if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us because we've got some incredible content coming your way and you don't want to miss it. Let's transition over to this week's interview with Molly Mahoney.
- [02:13]
Molly Mahoney
Helping you simplify your AI journey. Here is this week's expert guide.
- [02:20]
Michael Stelzner
Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Molly Mahoney. If you don't know who Molly is, she is the founder of Prepared Performer and author of AI your Business. Have more fun and make more money doing what you love. She's also the founder of the AI Content Club, a membership that helps coaches course Creators and creative entrepreneurs use AI in their content to generate qualified leads and AI Stars is her advanced membership. Molly, welcome back to the show. How you doing today?
- [02:49]
Molly Mahoney
Hey. I'm so grateful to be here. I just. I love what you've been doing with this podcast. You know, I love everything that you create, and so I'm just. I'm really, really grateful.
- [02:57]
Michael Stelzner
Well, I'm super stoked to have you. Today, Molly and I are going to explore how to use AI to build powerful apps without any coding experience. And trust me, folks, you do not have to be technical or a coder to benefit from today. And let me just start by asking, are you a coder, Molly?
- [03:13]
Molly Mahoney
Oh, my gosh. Well, now, I mean, no, I'm not. I'm not. But I do know how to have conversations with the tools that will help me be able to code out very beautiful, useful tools. And so I'm excited to create these apps together.
- [03:27]
Michael Stelzner
Awesome. So let's start with this question. Why should marketers and entrepreneurs who are listening right now consider making apps with AI Said another way, if they pay attention to what we're about to talk about today, what could it make possible for them?
- [03:41]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, so many things. So some of the problems that this has solved for me comes down to not only what I use for my clients, but also how I've used them for myself. So if you have clients who you want to go through a certain process, an app is something that can help them to complete that more quickly, more completely. And you can build in all sorts of fun, interactive assets, features within these apps. Now, we are consistently being pulled in a million different directions. Whether it comes to social media or the actual media on the tv, we're being pulled in all these different directions. And what I have found is building an app like this gives us a little hub that is very interactive and helps us to accomplish even more than we could if we had a simple Google Doc or a basic website. It really is a. A whole new world. It's like stepping through Narnia, where all of a sudden something is really interactive. It can be playful, useful, helpful. It's just been really, really awesome.
- [04:41]
Michael Stelzner
Well, what I'm really excited about is building an app is something many of us have always desired. We've always wanted to start, like, a software company or we wanted to build something out. We say we wish tool that did this right, but it was beyond so many of our possibilities. And I know because I'm actually developing a software app, and I've hired a team in Argentina and invested ridiculous Amounts of money. And it's complicated. But what we're going to talk about today is a way that you can do this so that you can actually say, oh, wow, I can bring my creativity to the table. And with the proper prompting, I can actually, in a very short period of time, get something that serves a function. Like you said, that function could serve your clients if you have an agency, or it could serve internal uses if you run a business and you have staff. Or I would imagine it could be something that you use on customer facing side of things. Is that right?
- [05:32]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. We've had people who have signed up for programs where they get this app or this tool. As a bonus, we also use these as the actual lead magnet that we're giving people. And if you have a framework or a workflow that you're going through behind the scenes, creating an AI tool like this can actually make that whole workflow happen on its own. So it doesn't need to be something that you manually say, okay, we're going to do this, then we'll do this, then we'll do this. You create your workflow and then it can all happen on its own, which is. It moves into that more agentic AI, which is pretty wild.
- [06:07]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay, so what do we need to be thinking about before we begin creating an AI app? Because this is new ground for most of the people that are listening to this show today.
- [06:18]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, so this is something that I've had to be really clear about, because if you do not have coding experience, you're going to see things happen at a pace that you're probably not used to. Even if you do have coding experience, you may be like, whoa, that happens faster than it did when I used all my magical coding skills. Right now, people out in the world are calling this vibe coding, because really you can show up and just kind of vibe with the AI and tell it what you'd like, and then it's going to, at a rapid pace, write all the code that goes into the backside of this app. If you're not familiar with that, it can be a little scary. So I have created a little system that you want to have in place before you start doing this. It is five Cs and I can jump into them right now.
- [07:06]
Michael Stelzner
Please do. Yeah.
- [07:07]
Molly Mahoney
Okay, so the first is you want to be really clear about what it is you even want. What problem are you solving for? One thing that I think is a trap that we fall into quite often is that these new AI tools, the new possibilities, they're really cool. They're really fun once you get into it, but they don't always lead to actual business results. So I'm always clear, what is the objective? What is the problem that I'm looking to solve with this tool? So the first of these five Cs is you want to have clarity. Okay. The next thing is courage. I can't tell you how many people, and I don't know if you've experienced this, but so many people have told me that they. They're like, I. I don't know, it just seems really overwhelming. It seems really overwhelming. And then I finally get them in front of the computer and I'm like, just type these ten words. And then magic unfolds. But the time that they spent between wanting to have this tool and typing those 10 words, there's this big courage gap. Have you noticed that people seem to be a little bit afraid of it?
- [08:04]
Michael Stelzner
I've not tried it, so I don't know. But I trust you on this one for sure, because we're getting into virgin ground for me here. So I'm following along. I trust that that's correct.
- [08:12]
Molly Mahoney
Okay. And I'll be showing you later that you can actually do these things right within ChatGPT, right within Gemini, right within Claude. And then I'm going to give you my favorite tool for making this happen. But sometimes all it takes is just clicking the button and it's that courage of, like, do I actually click this? Because it's such unknown territory for most people. So courage is the second step C, and then the third C. Once you push through and you've used that courage, you've strengthened that courage muscle, you start to gain confidence. And I'm going to add a sixth C in here. That's not officially a part of the plan, but what I've noticed is it's almost like you have to learn the choreography of how you're working with these AI tools. So now my team jokes around about it all the time because they're like, you know, we know you can make these apps in your sleep. I've started to understand what I need to have up front and what to click and what to, you know, it's like this and then it's done, and it feels like actual magic. And that's where you start to get the confidence. So be brave enough to play with this and that confidence will come. Okay, two more Cs. The next is kind of surprising. It is creativity. And I know you mentioned that earlier, I love the idea that these tools don't replace us as humans. They amplify our awesome. And it's been amazing to me to see how I am actually becoming more creative while I get in here. And I do think, like, I'm one who has a background as a professional artist. I was a musical theater performer professionally. I have loads of artist friends, and I know a lot of people are really scared that these AI tools are replacing us, but I've actually become more creative because once I start getting in there and playing, it's like. It unlocks. It's like a video game. It's unlocking these new levels of creativity that I didn't even know I had.
- [09:58]
Michael Stelzner
Love it.
- [09:58]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah. Okay. And then the final one is critical thinking. This is another one where, I swear AI sometimes causes people to forget that they have the ability to read because they're just like. I'm used to pushing buttons. All I do is push buttons. But we're having a conversation with these AI tools. So if you get to a point where there's an error or something is not working, it's broken. What usually happens is these tools will say, hey, this is broken. Would you like me to fix it? Most people will look at it, and they'll see the error, and then they're just like. And frozen. We got to slow down. Would you like me to fix it? Yes. Click the yes button. Right. The other thing is, sometimes you'll get down a path where somehow the code on the back end just got a little convoluted, and it's just not working. Usually you can actually back up a few steps. And I loved the Nancy Drew books growing up as a kid. And this is where I find that I get to use my inquisitive Nancy Drew style, where I get to look in here and, like, figure out, okay, how can I make this connect even better? Where may things be a little bit off? And this is what real coders do. Things don't just work perfectly every time. I'm sure you've experienced this with your team. There's times where things are broken, and they have to get in and do that investigating.
- [11:15]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay, so what I heard you say is you got to be clear on what it is you want. You have to have the courage to go for it. You have to develop your confidence a little bit. That'll come the more you mess around with this thing. The creativity unlock. I love. I've been saying, like, privately, I had a meeting with one of my staff members just before we came on here, and they were like, wow, how did you do that? And I said, well, I feel that anyone who has a creative skill that they've been developing over many years that understands how to use AI, it's like a massive amplifier for our creativity. So for those of you that are already creative, this is the unlock, this is the unique advantage you have, is that you can bring your creativity to a tool like this and you can actually create something where others that lack creativity will struggle a little bit. And then of course, you got to have that critical thinking. And I love that bonus. See that everything is choreographed kind of together. So, okay, so now let's talk about, like some examples of apps that you created. And I know you have three examples. What I'd like you to do is talk about the problem for each one of them. And then we're not going to get into how you made him, but how did it solve the problem? We want to just talk about, like what you did and the problem that it solved, really, so people can begin to wrap their brain around this a little deeper.
- [12:25]
Molly Mahoney
Okay, so the first one that I did, just going to tell you this, helped one of our clients to bring in a $40,000 sale. And I am so blown away. I am using this app every single day. And so here was the problem. Inside our higher level coaching program called Multiply, we have this set of five action steps that you can do every single day that will help to unlock more revenue in your business. So some of the things, I'll just give you a couple of them are very simple. The first is set your intention, and then we have a whole thing for connecting with your vision and really being clear about what you want for your day. The next is talk to humans. And then we have little messenger templates and email templates that we give them. But even though we have this all templatized in a Google Doc, I found that a lot of our clients weren't actually putting these things into action. So I created this thing that we call a task buddy. So this task buddy takes whatever those actions are, the habits that you want to build, and then it turns it into an app. And so now this app, it's our star task buddy. And what this does is it gives them a prompt every day to complete their star tasks. And these five things, when they click through it, they can record did they set their intention and then make a little note. There's also links that go back to our portal if they want more support and how to create their vision and then they can check it off for the day they do the same thing for all the other steps and then all within this app that I created just by talking to AI it then goes to a calendar where you can see whether or not you have actually completed the tasks, how often. And then once people started using it, I added another section where at the end of every day, they record how many sales did they make and what was the new revenue they generated. Then on our coaching calls, when someone tells me that they're stuck, I can say, great, pull up your task tracker. Let's look at your task buddy. And if they haven't been doing their tasks, then I can say, okay, well, this is why it's not working. Right. It gives us a starting point to help them be more accountable. It has been awesome.
- [14:29]
Michael Stelzner
I love it. You got two more examples?
- [14:32]
Molly Mahoney
Yep. Okay. The next one is an onboarding map. And so Secret, I'm actually going to give you this one as an example at the end of this podcast Episode.
- [14:40]
Michael Stelzner
Episodes.
- [14:40]
Molly Mahoney
So keep listening. This onboarding map I have been using for two different things, mainly. One is for our courses and our programs, when people come into the program. So in AI Stars, for example, there's a lot of content that they get, and so it can feel really overwhelming. Now, this isn't just for people who are teaching online courses. I've recently been going to this super awesome golf gym with my husband, and when you first do something new, whether it's in person or an online program, it can feel overwhelming because you're not fully onboarded yet. Right. And so what I did is I created an onboarding map that gives them a little quiz that they go through. They go through this quiz, AI is on the backside of this app, and then it creates their own bespoke journey through the program based on their own desires, needs, and all of that. And then it links them back to where they need to go.
- [15:35]
Michael Stelzner
So the problem with this one was what exactly?
- [15:37]
Molly Mahoney
That people get overwhelmed when they're first starting something. And even though you are super clear in the emails that you send them in the thank you page that they get after they buy it still can feel really overwhelming. And so when they go to the app, it feels like they get to be a part of the onboarding process because they go through this quiz. Now, here's the secret in our program, everyone, no matter what level they're at, they all start in the same place at the start here course. But still we get so many people saying, oh, my gosh, I don't know where to start. And then I say, go where it says, Start here. Well, this has made it more like it feels that someone is giving them a hand holding as they're going through the process. Everyone is led to that start here spot in the program. And then the rest of the journey is really customized to who they are, their own unique experience within the program.
- [16:32]
Michael Stelzner
I love this because you could develop it differently if you had like what we have with our AI business society. I could see an app that asks them a series of questions and then recommends a series of training. Customized just for them.
- [16:43]
Molly Mahoney
Right, exactly.
- [16:44]
Michael Stelzner
Because we have a lot of stuff in there based on what their particular interests are. So it could take them to a custom place if you wanted to. Right. Which is kind of cool.
- [16:51]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that ours does take a custom place after the first one. The first one is the same. Don't tell anybody. Right. But like if you have recordings, I'm sure you guys have a bunch of recordings, recordings of calls and all kinds of things in there. Yeah.
- [17:03]
Michael Stelzner
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [17:04]
Molly Mahoney
And so this can. It customizes it for them based on what they want right now.
- [17:09]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay. And then you've got another one.
- [17:11]
Molly Mahoney
Okay. And then the third one is something that I call Workbook Magic. So if you are hosting a workshop or you are work taking someone through a course or a class, or we could even have done it for this podcast episode. To be totally honest, oftentimes there's a couple of problems that come up. People are taking notes and they're not really fully paying attention and they'll miss things. If they have a Google Doc, then it's like just a standard thing that they read and they can kind of tune out. But what we have found, and I'm sure you've seen this, even when people are speaking at events, when someone hands you a workbook that you fill in as you go, that's interactive, it really brings the learning into a full like 4D type of learning where they're fully engaged and interacting with you while you're teaching. And so we created an app that is a workbook for a two day workshop. And it gives them like just enough to get them started, but they feel like they're a part of the process. And people were blown away when we first released this over a two day event. Things that I had been teaching them for months, they all of a sudden got. Because again, it felt bespoke. It gave them that interactive experience.
- [18:22]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay, folks, so you just heard three examples. The Task Buddy, the onboarding map, and the Workbook Magic. Opt just to Kind of whet your appetite of what is possible and what Molly has done. And I feel like that was really important for us to spend a minute on that because so many of us, the idea of building an app is just like, we just think of these crazy, complicated apps that we use every day, like Asana or Streamyard or whatever the heck, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you know, it doesn't have to be that. It could be very, very specific, which is what I love. Okay, so now let's get into the practical brass tax of it all. What are the apps, the tools? I'm not even gonna use apps. I'm gonna say what are the tools that we need to use in order to be able to create our own app?
- [19:05]
Molly Mahoney
Okay. And I'm glad you mentioned the word app also, because sometimes I get stuck because it's. You can build things that are applications inside, like the Apple App Store and the Play Store with Google. What I'm talking about today is more of a web based app. And then you can take another step to actually turn it into something that you download on your phone. I think that word can be a little confusing sometimes. So this is a web based app, an application. All kinds of things can happen with this. And there are several tools that you can use and the tools may actually really surprise you. So ChatGPT is the tool that I find most people are familiar with. So let's just start with the easiest way to do it. And ChatGPT just had a huge update which is inside the Canvas section inside Chat GPT. So if you're not familiar with it, when you're in chatgpt, there's a little section called Canvas. And what it does is it's almost like it opens up a little bit of a Google Doc inside Chat GPT. Well, now that Canvas section, you can actually ask regular chatgpt to create an app for you, a website, whatever it is, and it will create it inside that Canvas. And then at the top right, there's a little button that says preview. And now all of a sudden it's a real standalone web application hosted within ChatGPT.
- [20:25]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. So you can do that with ChatGPT and others too, right?
- [20:29]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah. And so then you can actually do this within Gemini. It's also called Canvas. So when you click on Gemini, it looks a little bit different on the bottom of the screen. You just click Canvas. And the same process, it works the same way. I've tested it across all of these tools and, and we're going to get to the one that I love the most, I would say chat GPT is the most basic. Then the next one would be Gemini. And Gemini does the same kind of thing where it builds it in there, you get a preview link and then the third one is actually within Claude. You can do the same thing and you'll get the preview link. You do that inside artifacts inside of claude. Now, there's one big caveat for all three of these. When you share the link and someone else opens it on their side, it will have a little warning on the bottom of the screen that says something like, someone else created this tool. Be careful. And I personally don't ever want someone to think they're going to be hacked because they're using my app. So that's one thing to be careful about with the first three versions.
- [21:32]
Michael Stelzner
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- [23:27]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, it is. And I think you made a really good point that not only does the coding world love Claude, Claude loves the coding world. So they have recently said they are going to double down on being the best coding application, the best coding AI tool. So they. I know they are going down that path. Now some of the problems that we run into though if you're using something like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, is that you don't have a password protection. So what you can do is take the code from Claude or Gemini or ChatGPT and embed that code inside another tool like High Level or Kajabi. They all have the ability to embed the HTML code inside, which is great. The other thing is when you're using those entry level tools, if you ask it, how do I put this behind a password protection, things like that, it will explain it to you. If you ask it how do I make this a Chrome extension? It will walk you through it. So I've made Chrome extensions using Claude, using Gemini, using ChatGPT. And it's great at telling you what to do. The problem is, is that it takes a lot of time and if you aren't a coder it's like, and you don't have the option to see what people are doing with these tools or to see like a database of who's using it if you're simply using it on these more entry level types of tools. So there are several tools that you can use now where you're able to build something a little more high level.
- [24:59]
Michael Stelzner
A little more sophisticated.
- [25:01]
Molly Mahoney
Sophisticated, that would be a perfect word. Sophisticated, elegant, right? A little more advanced. Some of them are things like Lovable, Bolt. And my favorite, my absolute favorite for getting started with this is called base 44. Now I'm going to tell you some of the problems that I've had with other tools and why I love base 44 so much for this. So in the other tools that are a little more sophisticated, you actually have to connect it to some sort of database on the back end if you want someone to have their own unique information when they log in. So for example, in my task tracking app, when any of my members log in, every time they log in, the numbers are the same. I have been tracking my tasks for about a month and a half now since I created this new task app. And when I go there, my tasks that I logged from last month are still there, the notes that I took are still there, and no one else can see that information. With base 44, it actually sets up the whole thing for you and without any fancy need to add another, you know, forward facing login page. It's all built in. It allows people to have their own individual login using the Google email world. So as long as they have a Gmail account, they can log into this app and you can set the privacy on the back end for how you want people to be able to access it.
- [26:28]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah, and just a little bit because I've been going down, like I mentioned, you know, we're becoming a software development company and the database is the key to the whole thing because with a kind of a one off app, you know, where it just does the basic function every time you come to it, it forgets who you are, it forgets everything about you. But the idea of a database allows all that data to be stored so that when you come back to it, it's essentially continuing where you left off or allowing you to reference what you've done. And that's kind of the key thing. And with a lot of these other tools, you have to take the code, then you have to go set up a Firebase account with Google or some other cloud based thing, and then you got to figure out how to get the APIs to talk. It's kind of a nightmare, right? And there's a lot of that stuff. But it sounds like base 44 is like an all one solution. Is that kind of what I'm hearing you say?
- [27:13]
Molly Mahoney
100%. And it has integrations on the back end. Now if you are a fancy coder and you have the ability to do all those fancy things, this may feel like child's play to you, but to the rest of the normal humans on the planet, this is like actually magic. And our clients have just been blown away that I've been able to create these tools for them and I've showed them how to create tools for their clients as well. It's awesome.
- [27:37]
Michael Stelzner
So with base 44, do you have to bring your code from one of the platforms or can you use it to prompt the code in? Do you understand what I'm asking?
- [27:44]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally understand. So that's what's really so magical about it. All you have to do. So you could start by saying, create an app that tracks my water intake.
- [27:54]
Michael Stelzner
With base 44 is what you're saying.
- [27:56]
Molly Mahoney
So with base 44, okay, yeah, so there's, when you log in, there's a chat feature on the left hand side. And it's basically just like you're talking to ChatGPT. It will chat, it chats back and forth with you. And then on the right hand side, it has a preview option there where you can see the updates happening in real time and you can test it. Kind of like if you're using WordPress and you're able to be in that version of WordPress where you can edit things on the front, you can see it like that and see it in action. Now, I have learned through my trial and error with this that it's the best if you can give it all the information up front so that it creates it from the beginning with everything that you want.
- [28:37]
Michael Stelzner
Now, before we get there, we're going to get to how to build it in just a second. Talk to me about. So far, what we know about base 44 is it sounds like it's got a database. It also sounds like it hosts all the code. So you can have instead of that error message, you can send them to a link. Is that correct? And it's like your own little installation of WordPress or whatever. Right? And then.
- [28:55]
Molly Mahoney
Exactly.
- [28:56]
Michael Stelzner
And then talk to me about visuals too, because I know that was an important.
- [28:58]
Molly Mahoney
Oh yeah. So I was showing Mike the visuals before we actually recorded this because I used the same exact prompt within ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Base44. And it was night and day because the visuals that come out of base 44, they just look more elegant.
- [29:19]
Michael Stelzner
When we say visuals, you mean kind of like the user experience, the visual interface kind of thing? Okay, got it.
- [29:24]
Molly Mahoney
The way that it looks as a user, some of the things that came out of Gemini I couldn't even read because the color contrast was way off. The buttons that you click just weren't laid out. There was not a good UI to it. And overall it just has looked so much better than what I've been creating with the other apps.
- [29:45]
Michael Stelzner
By the way, folks, this is like a big deal. For those of you that don't understand coding, typically you have to go hire a user interface user experience designer. They have to design it in a tool called figma and then you got to export all these things out. So this thing literally sounds like it does everything.
- [29:59]
Molly Mahoney
I want to be careful about the word better because I know that better is not a quantifiable term, but it's.
- [30:05]
Michael Stelzner
Better than what the typical AIs will produce, the LLMs.
- [30:09]
Molly Mahoney
And it's more user friendly, it's more visually appealing, it's more Coherent, it looks more elevated. And these are little things, like behind a box, there'll be a shadow that makes a box look like it's standing out. Whereas in the other apps, it all just kind of looked the same, as if it was almost a Google Doc with color behind it.
- [30:26]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay, so base 44, what does it cost?
- [30:30]
Molly Mahoney
Ooh, that's a good question.
- [30:31]
Michael Stelzner
Is it pretty reasonable?
- [30:32]
Molly Mahoney
I mean, yeah. And I'll explain, like, the way that they set up the payments, actually. And I'm going to look it up right now. So I'm not lying to you. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. We talked about this. I forgot. There is a free option, which obviously eventually you're going to have to pay, but the free option, you can definitely get started with it. And they charge you based on two different things. One is how many messages you're sending. So that's why we're going to get to it. But you want that first prompt to be really good. And then you want to try and chunk your prompts together, because each message that you send, you get a certain amount of messages. And then the other thing is, if you end up integrating it on the back end to something like OpenAI, it will charge you based on those integrations as well. But after the $0 free plan, there's a $20 plan, a $50 plan, $100 plan, and a $200 plan. So I find that it's really nice that it grows with you. It's amazing.
- [31:26]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so here's what we know so far. What we know so far is that if you wanted to, you could go ahead and go over to Claude or whatever your system is and start ideating and take the code potentially, or the prompts or whatever, and go into base 44. But what we're going to talk about is a presupposition that you're starting with just a really good prompt. So let's talk about how do we actually build this app? And we've already hinted it's a prompt, Right? You hinted it could be as simple as 10 words. So, like, what do we need to know?
- [31:52]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, so it could be as simple as 10 words if you know what you're looking to create. So let's use the water tracking app, for example. Then you could go in and you could say, please create. I'm always kind to my AI. We never know what's going to happen in the future. Let's see. Please create a water tracking app with private login. That's 10 words.
- [32:12]
Michael Stelzner
Okay. Yeah. It doesn't have to be 10 words. Okay, but keep going. So in an ideal world, what do we include in the prompt?
- [32:17]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, so actually, and I'm going to read this off of a list of things that I've put, because I actually created a really long system for it, which I'm going to give you right now. You want to make sure that you have the user types. So identify. Do you want people to be able to edit this on their side? Do you want an admin login? Do you want to private login? One mistake that I made in the beginning is I wasn't clear that I wanted to have a log out button. So now.
- [32:41]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, that makes sense.
- [32:42]
Molly Mahoney
Right? And so you have that, you know, you want to be clear about what type of user types.
- [32:46]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, real quick, let's just go through these one at a time. So on the user types, when you say user types, you could have different classes of users. Right? For example, Premium versus Basic, an administrative login that has special features. That's kind of what you mean about the different types of users, right? Is that really what I'm hearing you say? I think that through little bit, yeah.
- [33:05]
Molly Mahoney
And then the other thing is, and this is on the back side of base 44, you can actually set how people log in. So is it invite only? Is it something where anyone with the link can log in? Or is it just public where anyone can see it, you know, at any time? I didn't realize until playing with it a few times that you could actually set it so that anyone could edit it, which I think is crazy. But if it's like a collaborative tool, kind of like Wikipedia or something, you can set it up that way as well.
- [33:34]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, cool, Keep going. So first we've got the user types. What comes next?
- [33:37]
Molly Mahoney
Okay. Then we're going to move into the core features. And so the core features are things like I want them to be able to. I'm going with this water tracker idea, but I want people to be able to take a photo of their empty water bottle to prove that they've done it and upload the photo. I want people to be able to click each time they finished a gallon of water. I want people to be able to, you know, you want to know what they're going to be able to do. Then you want to be clear about how you want the data to be connected on the back end. Another mistake that I had made one time I created an app and I wasn't clear that each person's answers should only be stored in their individual data set. So with their unique id, and what ended up happening with that one is that the answers were shared all across the board. That is not what we want to do. So now I'm always really clear that we have each person who logs in has their own data set that is only shared with them.
- [34:33]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, real quick, summarizing so far, what I've heard you say. First of all, think about those user types. Secondly, think about the core features and also think about the data access. Who gets to see what you call the data structure? I believe, back to the core features. If you don't know what the core features should be, I can imagine you can go over to your AI tool of choice and you could say, I'm developing an app to track people's daily water intake. What do you think some of the features should be? Right. I mean, you could start doing that over there, right?
- [35:06]
Molly Mahoney
Definitely. And then you're going to use less messages inside of base 44, so you can use ChatGPT to brainstorm it. We have two different GPTs that we've created for this. One is just to help you to come up with the idea in the first place.
- [35:18]
Michael Stelzner
Right.
- [35:18]
Molly Mahoney
And then the other is to help you figure out everything that needs to go in there. So, like, for this task tracker that I made, and it not only tracks the tasks, it has the calendar display and it has a whole other dashboard that shows them their progress overall. So you can have the different types of displays, different buttons that you want them to be able to have. Is it tracking their progress? Are they unlocking badges? Different things? Like that would all be features.
- [35:44]
Michael Stelzner
One of the things we talked about when we were prepping was user flow. Talk to me about that and why that's so important.
- [35:49]
Molly Mahoney
Okay, so in the quiz one that I did, the onboarding app, what I wanted to happen with the user flow with that is that when they first came to this onboarding app, I wanted them to see something that was like, welcome to the program, welcome to the magic. Here's your quiz. And so when they go through the quiz, then it's going to give them their individualized path. Every time they log in after that, it gives them the path. They don't have the quiz anymore. But I realize sometimes people change, and so I wanted them to have an ability to go back and retake the quiz. All of that is really the whole experience you want them to be able to have through it. And you can play with that stuff after you started building it. But as clear as you can be ahead of time, the better so that the backside is all set up in a nice way without a bunch of band aids.
- [36:37]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay, back to the data structure thing, which we kind of hinted about a little bit. I think we talked about the data access. I want to talk about structure a little bit. Like, if this is in a database, I would imagine we have to kind of identify what the, for lack of better words, variables are that we're collecting. Right. And storing. You want to talk about that a little bit?
- [36:56]
Molly Mahoney
Sure. So this is one that I have gotten very specific about, and I've also stayed kind of like open. So sometimes if I have, let's say, a Google Doc of a process, I will load the Google Doc in and say, this is what I want you to do. And then it kind of, you know, comes up with the. The cells or those little. I don't know what you want to call it. What do you call that?
- [37:15]
Michael Stelzner
Fields.
- [37:16]
Molly Mahoney
Like a field. Thank you. Yeah, like a custom field. An email provider. You know how you have the custom field or in many chat. It's like a bot field, whatever that field is, that is storing information on the back end. And so when you look at the back end of this, you'll find that even if it's not something that they're typing the answer in, it actually will save a field based on what they're clicking on, different things like that. So it will put this whole data structure behind the scenes. Now, one thing that's a little different about base 44. And so if you just to keep this in mind, since it is creating its own data structure right there, and you're not connecting it to something like airtable, it's going to create that data structure on the back end. And from what I've seen, and I've built a lot of apps here, you're not actually able to see who answered which questions or who did which thing. So as the creator of the app, you'll have that database. You can see when they're logging in, but I'm not able to see every person's individual. Like, there's a little more privacy for the people who are using it, which I think in the long run is a good thing.
- [38:20]
Michael Stelzner
When people start to think about the wormhole of data, there's a lot of fascinating data. Like you could ask it to log. Each time they log in, count a number increase by one. You could have it track, for example, when they log in, you know what I mean? And the date and the location. There's like lots of data that you could do with this. Right.
- [38:38]
Molly Mahoney
That is a really great idea that even on the task tracker, that could be something that shows to them that's like, hey, this is your 39th time logging in. Congratulations.
- [38:48]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah. And that's just another piece of data that you got to track. Right. But obviously we're not trying to get complicated here, but we're just helping people open their eyes to the possibilities. Now, you mentioned integrations. Let's talk about automations and integrations.
- [39:00]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, so they actually have several integrations built in that are easy, that you can just click and say, like, I wanted to integrate with this. I don't have the whole list. And I know that it's updating all of the time, but you can actually connect it to several other tools. And there's an option for you to be able to build in your own integrations with APIs and webhooks and things like that. But just right out of the gate, there's several things that you can connect it to. Also, I find it amazing that you don't even need to connect it to something like ChatGPT or OpenAI in order for it to have the ability to give people an AI generated response. So we've had some clients that it is giving them individual, not like a if this, then that type response, but it's actually writing AI language, like it's writing things with AI on the back end without actually connecting it to anything else. And so you'll see within there there's a charge for that, just like with any tool like this. But it's pretty wild.
- [39:58]
Michael Stelzner
So typical integrations might include something like Zapier, make N8 and those kind of integrations. Are those included?
- [40:05]
Molly Mahoney
So I can show you? I'll. I just pulled it up. It has Monday.comopenai text to speech, which I think is cool. HubSpot Explorium. Oh, these are the most upvoted. Hold on, let me show you. Okay. Yeah. Slack.
- [40:18]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah. There's a million of them, right?
- [40:19]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, they're all here.
- [40:20]
Michael Stelzner
All the big tools everybody probably uses. Right. Which is kind of cool.
- [40:23]
Molly Mahoney
Just like anything, there's more and more that they're adding every day.
- [40:25]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah. Like if you use Asana, and Asana is one of the integrations, this could be an internal tool for your staff. Right. For all sorts of cool stuff. Like, for example, we could create a tool for onboarding speakers as well at our conference, you know, and it could go right on into a sauna.
- [40:37]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah.
- [40:37]
Michael Stelzner
So, okay, talk to me about, like, editing and design layout stuff, because obviously you're going to want to do that kind of stuff, right?
- [40:45]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah. So this is something else that I think is really neat. You can use different icons or different images, and if you have a public image file that you can load in there, it can bring your images in, which I find to be super awesome. But then it also pulls icons from different public icon databases. And so you can customize, I mean, with one of them, I got so specific about customizing the exact hex code to, you know, in a gradient on the actual little square image thing. So I've had so much fun playing with this. And they have several different style guides that they give you where you can choose between these different styles if you want to use one of their set versions that they have. Or you can actually create your own style as well. You can even take screenshots of other tools or apps that you love and base it off of something that you love, or design it inside of Figma or Miro or something else like that, where you're actually designing it ahead of time.
- [41:41]
Michael Stelzner
Can you edit it once you've created it? Well, let me back up, actually, I might be getting ahead of myself. I'm assuming we're creating a huge prompt, right? And we have, like, descriptions on user types and the core features and descriptions on the user flow and data structures and layout and buttons and images and all that kind of stuff. Once you've done that, how does it work if you want to modify it? That's probably the big question because, you know, with software you're always going to want to improve it, right?
- [42:06]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah. And I actually was a little concerned about one of the apps that I built because it's very similar to one that I'll actually give you today. It was an onboarding app for a workshop that we did on how to build an app. And it had the four tools that I recommended, and then it had pros and cons for each, like, for the free and the paid version on each of the tools. And then it had a button at the bottom with where to go to get the tools. But the two boxes on the top, one had more text than the other. And so the buttons were not lined up. They were like, askew a little bit. And I thought, man, on a WordPress website or in a tool like High Level or ClickFunnels, I can go there and I can set the margin and like, guide it. But you can't do that necessarily here. But they do have an option for you to click and edit it from the visual side so that you can select the exact section and then talk to it right there. But what I usually do is I take a screenshot of the section that I want to fix. And so what I did with this is I said, hey, these buttons are not even. Can you please add more of a margin on top of the button?
- [43:10]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, now that is killer. Because everybody's like, wow, that's the magic unlock, right?
- [43:15]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah.
- [43:16]
Michael Stelzner
You're effectively telling it in. In everyday language, writing it in with the screenshot. Hey, can you figure out how to align this?
- [43:22]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, that's it.
- [43:23]
Michael Stelzner
That's, like, what everybody wants. Because normally they'd have to call up a person, say, hey, I need you to monitor, blah, blah, blah, blah. Instead, you're telling it to the AI, and the AI is effectively recoding the whole thing for you. Is that what I'm hearing you say?
- [43:33]
Molly Mahoney
100%.
- [43:33]
Michael Stelzner
Wow.
- [43:34]
Molly Mahoney
I've had moments where, you know, it's not exactly perfect. And so then sometimes I'll get, like, very stern with it and be like, yo, you know, I want this to match this. And I mean, it has been absolutely amazing. I can say things like, for example, it had a little button, a little, like, circle next to a bunch of things that said in progress or something. And I said, all of the in progress buttons, please remove those. Bloop. All of them were gone.
- [43:57]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so be honest about how much time this really takes when you go down this rabbit hole. You know what I mean? Like, I know the first prompt is easy, but there's going to be enormous amount of modifications that you're going to want to mess with, Right?
- [44:08]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah. And so what has happened for me is I've actually found that I now have five templates that I can use as a starting point because of the different things that I've created. So I duplicate it and then I make adjustments.
- [44:21]
Michael Stelzner
Love it.
- [44:21]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah. I mean, I've granted the first couple that I made that first start task one that I did with the first task tracker, it took me a long time. I stayed up for several hours overnight playing with it because it was building not only just the task tracker, but I was linking each of those sections back to individual links inside our portal for people to get the exact resource they wanted. Really? What happened for me with that one, it was pretty good, just within 15, 20 minutes. But I thought, wow, this could be even better. Oh, my gosh, it could be even better. Like, you know, the Savannah bananas.
- [44:57]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah.
- [44:57]
Molly Mahoney
Okay. I am 100% obsessed, and I've been going back and listening to Jesse's yellow Tucks podcast from, like, 2017, and he talked about the idea of plussing. Do you know that idea?
- [45:08]
Michael Stelzner
No. Jesse Cole, right? Isn't that his name?
- [45:10]
Molly Mahoney
Yes.
- [45:10]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah.
- [45:10]
Molly Mahoney
Yes. Okay. And did he speak at Social Media Marketing World?
- [45:13]
Michael Stelzner
Nobody's been on my podcast. And he's been. He was a regular at Social Media Marketing World when he was building the Savannah Bananas brand.
- [45:18]
Molly Mahoney
I remember always seeing him and now knowing what he's built. So if you don't know what the Savannah Bananas are, they are basically a comedy baseball troupe. I love them. And I got to see them here in Anaheim two weekends ago. They sold 90,000 tickets. It was their biggest weekend ever.
- [45:32]
Michael Stelzner
So what's the concept you're about to introduce?
- [45:34]
Molly Mahoney
Plussing is a concept that he got from Walt Disney. And it's this idea that we always want to be making things better, that, you know, it's a living, breathing thing that can continue to be improved upon. And that's another thing that I love about this tool. And I get goosebumps when I think about it, because now I've deployed this task tracker, right? One of our members, within a week, brought in an extra $40,000 because she's using this thing. And then on the call, someone says, man, I wish I could track my revenue on it. And I'm like, oh, you can. So I go back and I ask it to add that, and it instantly updates it without breaking things across everyone's app. Who has it?
- [46:12]
Michael Stelzner
I love it. Well, what's really cool is folks that are concerned about the time Molly has put together a cool little resource. She has a custom GPT that will allow you to go from idea to app prompt generator. So why don't you tell everybody where they can get that? Because this can save them an enormous amount of time. Right?
- [46:30]
Molly Mahoney
Okay. Yeah. So what I did is I took all of the really important core features and I've created a GPT that will write. I call it the source prompt. So it's that initial prompt that will get you started. This is going to save you on the amount of messages that you have to send. It's going to give you clarity because it's going to ask you questions until you get all the proper information in there. If you don't know the answers it'll make, you can just say, make it up and it'll make it up. Okay. But to get it, you're gonna go to molly live m o l l y dot live slash a I e.
- [47:04]
Michael Stelzner
Pod p o d for AI explored. So it's molly.live.com aie pod perfect. And that is a custom GPT, everybody. So that means you can like just open up Chat GPT, click on it, and then it's free, right?
- [47:20]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, it's. Even if you have the free version of ChatGPT, this is something that we have in our higher level programs. But when Mike and I were talking about this, my real mission is for people to realize that they can do this. Like, it can actually be easy for you. You just need to have those foundations in place and have the courage to be able to push the buttons to move forward.
- [47:41]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, we have another resource that Molly's given away. We'll mention just a second. But first of all, I just want to say thank you for making this approachable and easy to understand. Because I know everyone that's listening is like, okay, I've got confidence now that I listen to this podcast and I listen to Molly. I want to ask, where can people discover you on the socials? And then if they want to work with you, where do you want to send them? And then we'll mention that last resource.
- [48:06]
Molly Mahoney
Okay. Yeah. So Molly Mahoney is my name on my personal Facebook profile and LinkedIn, where I do loads on Facebook, a little bit on LinkedIn. But if you're hanging out on Instagram, the prepared performer is my handle there. I would love to connect. Send me a message. I have so many resources. I'd love to get you going in the right direction. And same thing, the PreparedPerformer.com has all sorts of information on how you can actually put this stuff together.
- [48:29]
Michael Stelzner
Sweet. And then go ahead and mention that other resource that you put together.
- [48:32]
Molly Mahoney
Yeah. Okay. So what I decided to do also, I took the onboarding app that I built for an event that we did called an AI Appathon, where we built out four different types of apps during the appathon and I gave you a little streamlined version of it. And so it's going to have links to all of my favorite tools and the ways to use them to be able to create these apps yourself. And to get it, you just go to Molly Live/AI a guide. So it's like AI app guide, Molly Live AIA guide. And I'm sure both of these will also be in the show notes.
- [49:06]
Michael Stelzner
They will. You'll find them wherever you're looking, listening to this podcast in the show notes. Molly Mahoney, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today.
- [49:12]
Molly Mahoney
I'm so great. I can't wait to see you again at Social Media Marketing World.
- [49:16]
Michael Stelzner
See you then.
- [49:16]
Molly Mahoney
Bye.
- [49:17]
Michael Stelzner
Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@socialmediaexaminer.com a61 and if you're new, follow the show on your favorite app. And if you've been a listener for a little while, I would love it if you would give me a review and or share this with your friends. You can tell tag me on socials and do check out our other shows, the Social Media Marketing Podcast hosted by me and also this social Media marketing talk show. This brings us to the end of the AI Explored Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may AI help you become more successful.
- [49:54]
Molly Mahoney
The AI Explored Podcast is a production of Social Media Media examiner.
- [50:02]
Michael Stelzner
Just a quick reminder before you go. If you're ready to become indispensable in the age of AI, the AI Business Society is your solution. Join now and secure your discounted membership by visiting social mediaexaminer.com AI I can't wait to see you inside the AI Business Society.