#23: In Frankfurt, Artur Mkrtchyan breaks down Softr's approach to AI-powered app building

DISPATCH 23 · FRANKFURT
Artur Mkrtchyan, co-founder, Softr

FRANKFURT — A platform that started as a visual front end for Airtable is now a full-stack builder with its own database, workflow engine, and AI layer. Artur Mkrtchyan sat down at No-Code Week to trace that arc — and explain why business teams need platforms, not just prompts.

On the ground with
Artur Mkrtchyan is co-founder of Softr, the no-code platform he and Mariam Hakobyan launched in 2020. With 15-plus years as a software engineer, Artur built Softr for the teams engineering departments never had time to serve: marketing, sales, HR. The platform now powers internal and client-facing tools at companies from TED to MIT.

What we covered
00:00 The repeating patterns of software engineering
03:30 Why Softr: the Zalando origin story
10:56 From interface builder to full-stack platform
23:53 AI meets no-code: the Softr approach
26:13 Why vibe coding alone fails business teams
35:37 What's next: MCP, agents, and the roadmap

From the notebook

• Softr — https://www.softr.io/
• Airtable — https://airtable.com/
• Make — https://www.make.com/
• Zapier — https://zapier.com/
• HubSpot — https://www.hubspot.com/
• Notion — https://www.notion.so/
• Salesforce — https://www.salesforce.com/
• Snowflake — https://www.snowflake.com/
• Cursor — https://cursor.com/
• Claude — https://claude.ai/
• Stripe — https://stripe.com/
• Shopify — https://www.shopify.com/
• TED — https://www.ted.com/
• MIT — https://www.mit.edu/
• No-Code Week — https://nocodeweek.com/
• MCP (Model Context Protocol)
• REST API, SQL databases, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Excel
• Google Tables, AppSheet (both discontinued/acquired by Google)

Find Artur

• LinkedIn — https://de.linkedin.com/in/artur-mkrtchyan-27282b256
• Softr — https://www.softr.io/

Next stop
Another city, another builder. Next dispatch drops soon.

No-Code World Radio is hosted by Alex. New dispatches from a new city, wherever you listen.

Get in touch with Alex on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexiskovalenko/) or by email at alex@hosakka.studio.