How to Make an App For Business in UNDER 15 Minutes

Today, we’re building a custom app for your business in fifteen minutes without writing a single line of code. Now you’re not building an app to look cool. You’re doing it because your team is stuck chasing information across emails, texts, spreadsheets, and apps that don’t talk to each other. And with no single source of truth, frustration kicks in, and so do the delays and complaints.

Why This Matters

So in this video, I’ll teach you my four step process to building a successful business app Knack by my twenty years of experience. And thanks to our partner, Knack, it’s easier than ever.

Step 1: Identify the Right Problem to Solve

Let’s put fifteen minutes on the clock and start with step number one, figure out the problem that’s worth solving.

You wanna know the biggest trap in app building? Building something that no one uses.

That happens when you don’t solve the right problem. Today, we’re building an app for my donut shop, David’s Donut Den. We also run a consulting arm to help small bakeries grow, and we’ve got two big problems. Number one, our consultants forget to log their hours daily, so they’re missing out on money.

And number two, clients dispute our invoices since we only bill with a lump sum. Now to discover your problems that are worth solving, first brainstorm a list, then ask your team to rank how painful and how frequent each one is.

If it’s painful and it happens often, it’s worth solving. Once you’ve got your top problems and you think an app can help, it’s time for step number two.

Step 2: Build with a No-Code App Tool

Use a no code app builder. We’ll use Knack, an app builder and database all in one. Click the link in the description to get started and come follow along. From the landing page, fill in your email and password and then click the create account button to start your fourteen day free trial.

Knack might ask you a few questions to help you get started. Fill them in and come meet me on the home page.

Choose a Template

Here, you can create a new app, and I recommend you use a template to get started. So click on start from a template. You can search for templates based on your key problem or filter by your industry.

Now our time card and invoice problems are actually a project management problem, so let’s search for project management templates.

Freelance project management is the simplest template that also mentions invoice Knack, so let’s select it and click create app.

Test the Default App View

Now the app takes about ten seconds to set up. So when it’s ready, click the go to app builder button. This creates a fully functioning web app, so let’s check it out by clicking the go to live app button in the top right corner.

This brings us to a portal where we can log in as a freelancer or a client. Let’s start with I’m a freelancer.

We’ll use the provided email address and password and then click log in.

Review Project and Task Functionality

Now even though this says it’s for freelancers, I’m thinking this should work for consultants too. And if I’m a consultant who’s just logged in, I can see all the projects that I’m working on, and I can drill into any project using the view details button. Here we see the same project details as earlier, but we also see a set of tasks and a set of time trackings.

Time trackings look similar to time cards, but there’s no date associated with them. We’ll definitely need to update that later. In the meantime, let’s add a time tracking so we know what that experience is like for our consultants.

Here, we can fill out hours spent, and it looks like we need to select a task and who accomplished that task. And once we click submit, we can go back to the project by clicking the link in the breadcrumb and then scroll down to see the new time tracking. If we scroll down to the bottom of the page, it looks like we can also issue invoices, which is great.

Client View and Invoice Setup

Now let’s see what that looks like from the client’s perspective. Go back to the home screen by clicking the home button in the top nav bar and then click on I’m a client. Now don’t worry. This is expected.

Freelancers don’t have access to this page, so let’s fix this by clicking on our profile icon in the top right and then signing out. Now we can fill in some test client information and log in.

Branding and Renaming for Business Fit

Now that I’m a client, I can see my projects.

Instead of drilling into the details like last time, let’s go to our invoices through the button in the top right. Looks like I have one invoice. And if I view the details on it, we’ll see the total hours and tasks, but no date. So clients will dispute these invoices too.

So Nat gave us a great start, but we need to make this way more relevant for our business. And I don’t mean just branding. I mean solving our problems and renaming concepts in the app to match what we call them at David’s Donut Den. So let’s start making these changes from the page we were on before we clicked go to live app.

Customize Tables and Fields

First things first, let’s get our brand in here. So click where it says freelance project management in the top left. Then rename the app to include your brand. I’ll call mine David’s Donut Den consulting and press the enter key.

Next up is updating table names and field names. Now just like spreadsheets, tables store data. And here, we can manage all of the data that we just saw in the app. On any table page, you can click on the fields button to change any of the columns associated with that table.

Add Dates and Improve Form Inputs

Let’s start by renaming freelancer to consultant. Click the freelancer field to open its settings, and then rename it to consultant. Then click the save button. We’ll repeat this process on the time trackings table.

Once again, click the freelancer field, rename it to consultant, and then click the save button. Now, notice we don’t have a freelancers table here. That’s because it’s a type of user that can log in to our app, and you can find those user types in the users tab on the left sidebar.

Just like tables, these users have fields too. But this time, we need to rename the whole table. So let’s click on the ellipsis next to freelancer and then click user role settings.

UI Text and Navigation Updates

And here we can rename what Nat calls a user role to consultant.

Then click save. Next, we need to remove any mention of the word freelancer from the app itself. You can do this by clicking on the pages tab on the left sidebar. All the app’s pages are shown in this side pane.

Let’s start by clicking on the home page. We’ve got to rename I’m a freelancer to I’m a consultant, so click on this button. Then click the pencil icon to make changes. On the right hand side of the screen, you’ll see the settings pane.

Change the label text from I’m a freelancer to I’m a consultant, and then click save changes. Next, we need to change all of these sections to say consultants instead, and that’s easy enough. Once you click on each page, go over to the settings pane and change freelancers to consultants, Then click save changes once again. Go ahead and make the same changes to these other two pages.

Date Fields for Timesheet Accuracy

Now the word freelancer showed up on a lot of other pages, but let me show you something on the projects page.

See how on this grid, the word freelancer was replaced by consultant?

That happened automatically because we changed that field name on the projects table. Now let’s move on to the next task. Timesheets need a date. Back on the data tab, click on the time trackings table, and then click on fields.

Automate Reminders with Knack Flows

Click the add field button near the top right of the screen. Pro tip, always make these fields easy to understand. We’ll call it date. We also need to change the data type from text.

If we scroll down, you’ll see the best option here is date slash time. This opens some other settings for us. Let’s simplify by unchecking include time because for the timesheet, we only care about the date. Finally, I’ll mark this field as required and then click save.

Final Testing and Wrap-Up

And now you see the date in the table. Now we’ve got to update the app to show this date field. Go back to the pages tab, then expand the project details page. We’ll edit both of these time tracking pages starting with add time tracking.

Add the Date Field to Consultant Forms

Remember, this is the form that consultants will use to log their hours. So let’s add the date field here.
Click on the form, then click on Fields and Display Roles in the right sidebar.
Find where it says Date, then click the checkbox.

Click Save Changes in the top right to update the app.
Now pause the video and try to do the same thing on the Edit Time Tracking page.

Display the Date on Client Invoices

That’s good for the consultant side, but our clients need to see this date too.
Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the pages, expand Clients’ Invoices, and click on Invoice Details.

You’ll see the Time Trackings table doesn’t have a date field.
Click on the table, then click on Data Display in the right sidebar, then the Fields tab. Click the checkbox by the Date field.

Click Save Changes.

Confirm the Updates in the Live App

To check our work, let’s go back to the live app.
As a client, I can now view the charges for any invoice broken down by date. Mission accomplished.

You can get sample data in there by using the Edit Timesheet form we just saved.
(P.S. — The Knack team is building features so you can turn this app into a full customer payments portal too!)

Automate Daily Reminders with Knack Flows

Now we need to remind consultants to fill in their timesheets without manual follow-up.
Let’s send those reminders automatically using Knack Flows, which are workflows made of Triggers and Actions.

Create Your First Scheduled Trigger

Back in the app builder, click on the Flows tab and click Create Flow From Scratch.

Set up your Trigger by clicking Add a Trigger.

Choose Scheduled Trigger and click Continue.

Click the clock icon to set the schedule — 4:30 PM daily — then click Save.

Find Consultants Who Haven’t Submitted Timesheets

Click Add an Action, choose Search for Multiple Records, and use the current app.
Choose the Consultants table and click Continue.

On the filter screen, we can only filter by fields in the Consultants table (not timesheet fields), so we’ll handle that next.
Click Save.

Iterate Through Consultants One-by-One

Click the plus button and then Tool.
Scroll to find Iterator and click Select.
In Settings, choose the consultant records from step 2 as your row field, then click Save.

Search for Today’s Timesheets per Consultant

Click Add, then Action, then choose Search for Multiple Records in Knack.
Select the Time Trackings table and click Continue.

Add filters:

• Consultant = Record ID from Iterator
• Date = current date from System Settings

Use AND as your match condition.

Route Based on Timesheet Presence

We’ll now determine whether to send a notification.
Click Add Tool, select Router, and set the Value to the number of timesheets found.
Choose Records → Amount of Elements from the Step 4 results.

If the value is zero, proceed to the email notification step.

Set Up the Email Reminder

Add an Action and choose Send Email via Gmail.
(Assumes you’ve already connected your Gmail.)

Click Continue.
In the To field, select the consultant’s full name from the Iterator.

Subject: Timesheet Reminder
Body: A message asking them to complete today’s timesheet.
Choose HTML for formatting, and send it to yourself for testing.

Add a Blank Step for Flow Control

Add a Tool, use Date and Time Modification, and set it to modify the current date.
Click Save.

Return to the Router and assign:

• If zero records → send email reminder
• Else → go to the blank step

Test the Flow Functionality

Click the Tables tab and open the Timesheets table.
Click Add Record, and enter a timesheet for “Robert Doe” for today’s date.

Click Save Change, return to the Flows tab, and click Test.
Only consultants who didn’t submit a timesheet today (like Abigail and Emily) will get an email.

Wrap-Up and Pricing

Congratulations! You just built an app that includes:

• Forms Tool
• Client Portal
• Timesheet Tracker
• Workflow Automation

Knack offers unlimited users starting at $19/month, unlike many app builders that charge per user.
Use the link in the description to support the channel and try Knack yourself.

Thanks for watching — drop a comment with what you want to see next, and see you in the next one.