Interview with David: How He Built a $1M AI App with No Code

Interviewer: This is David. He built an AI app that is now valued at over a million dollars — and the crazy part? He built it all with no code.

He invited us into his house to show us exactly how he made it happen, all while managing a family, a full-time job, and just working a couple of hours a day.

David: It really took me just a couple of weeks. I learned everything mostly through YouTube.

Interviewer: David launched his product using a viral marketing strategy that got him thousands of users in just a few days. But what goes up must come down.

David: I blew through like $5,000 in days. I had a decision to make — either shut it down or keep going.

Interviewer: In this video, David breaks down how he bounced back, made his first dollar, and how he plans to build a business that won’t be replaced by ChatGPT.

David: My vision moving forward is to build something that cannot be replicated by ChatGPT or Microsoft.

David’s Background and the Start of His Journey

Interviewer: David, thanks for having me.

David: Thanks for coming.

Interviewer: I love your story. Tell me a little bit about who you are and what you built.

David: Sure. I’m David Brusser, and I built what was originally called Excel Formula Bot — now it’s just called For Real Bot. Microsoft actually issued me a cease-and-desist a few months ago, so I had to rebrand.

The software helps people work faster and smarter with data. There are really three main products:

AI in Spreadsheets — Kind of like ChatGPT inside both Excel and Google Sheets.

Formula Generators — Translates text into formulas with the help of AI.

Data Analyzer — This is where most of my time and resources go. It’s kind of like Zapier — you can upload your data and get insights, charts, and models just by typing in words.

The app has been around for about a year and a half, and in that time, we’ve grown to around 750,000 users, with 5,000 of them paying for unlimited access. That translates to around $226,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

Building While Working a Full-Time Job

Interviewer: As I understand it, you started this while working a full-time job. Tell me more about that.

David: Yeah, it was July 2022. I had this opportunity — my youngest was about to be born, and I knew I’d have about six weeks off. I’ve been working full-time since I graduated in 2011, but I’ve always had that entrepreneurial itch. So I told myself, Okay, I have six weeks. Let’s build something.

I’ve always been helping coworkers with Excel, so I figured, Why not solve that problem with AI?

At the time, ChatGPT wasn’t around yet, but the technology was. So I actually asked OpenAI’s API, Hey, what’s a good name for my app? One of the suggestions was Excel Formula Bot. I checked GoDaddy, saw the domain was available, and I was like, This is it.

Balancing everything was tough. I still had my full-time job, my family, and this idea I needed to execute. I’d sneak away to coffee shops, put my head down, and work. There were plenty of sleepless nights. My wife thought I was crazy because I didn’t have a clear plan — I just knew I needed to build this thing.

Building the Product with No Code

Interviewer: From what I understand, you have no coding experience. How did you build and launch something like this?

David: Yeah, I’m not a coder. If I see code, I can tell if it’s JavaScript or HTML, but that’s about it.

I knew if I coded this myself, it would take forever, and I wasn’t making any money, so I couldn’t hire anyone. That’s when I discovered the no-code space.

I found Bubble.io — it was the easiest and most well-known no-code tool. I read the documentation, but what really helped me was YouTube University — just watching free tutorials from top Bubble developers.

At first, the entire app was 100% no-code. Only about 5–10% of it is code now as I’ve learned more about its limitations.

Going Viral and Getting First Customers

Interviewer: How did you get your first customer and get so many people using it?

David: The first people I told were my coworkers. They thought it was amazing and assumed it took months to build — when in reality, it only took a couple of weeks. That speaks to the power of no-code.

Next, I needed to tell more people. So I posted in the Excel subreddit with a simple title:

“AI Excel Formula Generator (Free)”

It blew up — it became the top post of the day, then the top post of the week.

Someone in the comments suggested I post in the r/InternetIsBeautiful subreddit, so I did. That’s what really made it go viral for months — 10,000+ upvotes and thousands of comments.

Monetizing and Scaling

Interviewer: So you have thousands of users. How did you start making money?

David: A few days in, I checked OpenAI’s billing page and saw I had already spent $5,000 in API costs.

I had to decide — either shut it down or find a way to make money.

I put up a Stripe donation link that just said:

“Hey, I’m David. I built this app, and it went viral. If you like it, feel free to donate.”

I made a few thousand dollars back.

Then ESPN reached out — they run an Excel Esports competition and wanted to sponsor my tool. I ran some ads, made a little money, but ultimately realized ads weren’t the way to go.

Eventually, I put up a paywall and introduced subscriptions — that’s when things really started taking off.

Competing with Microsoft & ChatGPT

Interviewer: Your product became popular, but then Microsoft and ChatGPT entered the space. How did that impact you?

David: A few weeks after I launched, copycats popped up — Excel Formula Generator, Excel Formulator — you name it. They all looked the same.

Then Microsoft reached out twice — once for a cease-and-desist, and once to say,

“We want to build your app as an Excel add-on… for free.”

At first, I thought, This is awesome! Then I realized, Wait, they’re just going to copy me and integrate it into Excel.

Then ChatGPT came out, and I knew I had to build something that Microsoft and OpenAI couldn’t replicate.

Now, my focus is on building something unique — a data analytics tool that helps people get answers from their data without writing a single formula.