10 FlutterFlow Lessons I Wish I Knew Earlier

🚀 Want to build your app startup together? Check out Dreams Into Apps: www.ambitiousl...
My name’s Alim and over the last 10 year I’ve build 12+ apps. At age 21 I co-founded SeasonShare, a B2B SaaS for sports ticketing and grew the company from an idea to $10M in revenue. Then I built PrizePicks, the #1 daily fantasy sports app in the USA.
Throughout my career I’ve mentored 100+ early stage startups and angel invested in several.
Now, I’m the founder of Ambitious Labs, the leading no-code app building academy in the world. We’ve trained 450+ entrepreneurs on how to launch their app ideas themselves.
🚫 I’ve spent over $500k+ hiring developers on Upwork/Fiverr just to be ghosted and left with unusable code
🚫 I’ve written code for 15,000+ hours.. Lost sleep, been hospitalized for stress, and suffered extreme mental health issues. TLDR: coding sucks.
🚫 I’ve watched hundreds of founders burn their hard earned cash without validating their idea
🚫 I’ve seen people take out new credit cards to launch an app.. Just to lose it all…
And i do not want the same to happen to you.. Now in the area of no-code and AI, the smartest builders are
✅ Staying in control of their app by building it themselves using No-Code and AI
✅ Focusing on a lean MVP scope to avoid building something no one wants
✅ Following the same framework that billion dollar apps like Duolingo, Calm, Headspace, Tinder and others use to build revenue generating products
Through my failures and wounds - I built a launching acceleration platform called Dreams Into Apps that over 450+ builders are actively using to bring their ideas to life.
Learn more about Dreams Into Apps here: www.ambitiousl...
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🐦 X/Twitter:
x.com/alim_721

[@Gn_Agency]

Outstanding video. Really appreciate your take on the service considering your obvious years of developer experience. You totally could have extended this to a 30 minute video like most do but the concise format is so refreshing. Easy subs for your channel.

[@ambitiouslabs]

I want to stay focused on the 3-7 minute videos. Thank you for the feedback. Do you have questions I can answer in future videos?

[@Gn_Agency]

@@ambitiouslabs as our team works on apps, we'll have tons of questions. We did get confused by the Preview, Test and Run options. Maybe it would help to have a video explaining them and how database access works with them? Or how to test with sufficient database access while not messing with the live database?

[@ambitiouslabs]

@@Gn_Agency added to our video queue!

[@ambitiouslabs]

@@Gn_Agency make sure you join the community to get fast responses to your questions! We have 1k+ builders

[@mark3r442]

if you’re wanting to build something like an e-commerce store or social media, how do you get around the web app issues? Is there another way to connect what you build in flutter flow with something else for the web side, or are you pretty much just out of luck with flutter flow at that point?

[@varungehlot5221]

+1

[@practical-skills-school]

Very clear comment about support. I asked support, I left a comment under official FF video and I left the question. Nobody gave a clear hint. The question is - how to show a specific screen once a backend event happened. Like show "There's a match!" screen once you've got a pair in a dating app. Or "The trip is over" in a taxi app once the driver finishes the trip. I can't put a periodic check of this even ton every page, that's would be ridiculous. But how it can be done?

[@ambitiouslabs]

Hmmmm. You would absolutely need to poll an API for that or use sockets. Instead of checking on every page, you could poll on a single widget and import that widget into pages that require the check. I wish FF had a feature for injecting code on application init where the code would init once and be available globally

[@practical-skills-school]

@@ambitiouslabs Thank you for the hint

[@imonforum3499]

does flutterflow have a way of dealing with widget extraction to avoid code duplication? I've been told the quality of code it produces is not great.

[@ashishk5016]

Can you share videos of admin plan of Firebase with roles( admin, editor,viewer) where by admin- add,update,delete profiles ,products,etc For shopping cart app firebase basically admin panel with client in one app using flutterflow

[@wrillywonka1320]

Could you use flutterflow to build a search engine?

[@yj-in-the-world]

Wow awesome. I signed up for the free course!

[@rsentertainers9505]

How to download images from firebase

[@devjesusc]

I love videos where you put great ideas in a short time, like in your video. Thanks.

[@starpause]

Good to know about mobile apps vs web. I really want to make PWA to stay out of app stores so flutterflow probably isn't a good fit for my project. Too bad because there's so much to love otherwise! May still give it a go just for a prototype.

[@ambitiouslabs]

Pretty sure you can use Flutter as a PWA. Why don't you build a web app with flutter and publish it on the web? flutter.dev/multi-platform/web

[@HayMap]

FACTS. Thanks for the tips!

[@eleeyaso]

Am I able to connect a discord bot to show users discord account on the app?

[@miguelesparza1081]

hey bro, i just subscribed! where did you buy your glasses they are cooool

[@ambitiouslabs]

Costco! Ray bans

[@lukadijak3156]

Can you upgrade to pro just in months when you want to publish the app and download the source code and then cancle the plan?

[@devjesusc]

I have a question. Can someone learn faster to build Flutter apps with Flutterflow? (by downloading the sourcescode, and learning from it)

[@Marc-cn6nd]

Thanks for the video, great content! I have one question: do you still have to pay the 70 USD per month for the whole lifecycle of the app even once it's published? Or you can stop paying to FF and then simply pay for DB expenses directly to Firebase or any other DB you're using?

[@ambitiouslabs]

The latter. You can downgrade anytime and re-upgrade any time. I DO HIGHLY recommend though that before doing that you export a copy of the code in case anything happens on FlutterFlow's side while toggling between subscription tiers.

[@nathanjmc]

Great video!

[@iiwakenashi]

I am interested in your FlutterFlow course but why no total PRICING shown on u page?

[@ambitiouslabs]

Our new course, the Academy launches next month and will launch at $795.

[@iiwakenashi]

thank you fro this info. I could't find any curriculum, could you give a link to that too? I know that u want to make a phone call, but I would like to know some info before making commitment. @@ambitiouslabs

[@fonzy1987hh]

Can I use flutter flow to make a card reading app like a tarot card reading app?

[@SimonOttoFootball]

can you deploy the app while on the pro membership for one month and then cancel right after?

[@YOZZI]

Why no one of you talking about some complicated structure like building app that has server proxy or autamtion tool saas? I checked a branch of KZbinrs only talking about data and how to make an easy app... Please if you are really advising people can you do complicated thing and show us?

[@ambitiouslabs]

I’m happy to.. email me some ideas [e-mail]

[@watantcha8866]

​@@ambitiouslabs😂😂😂😂

[@JonnyBanana21]

Im preimarly interested in building a web app sad to hear that the webversion is not so performent

[@dominickrodriguez3856]

I do not see the free month signup subscription link to FlutterFlow in the description. Could you provide it?

[@emerson-sheaapril8555]

Great vid, I'm looking at your links, and they look slick as well, what did you use for those landing pages? I want to learnt flutter flow, flutter and dart, so I'm really considering this. Ive done JS and some frameworks but I find JS to be overwhelming with the options and the mutability of the language makes it to do wierd things.

[@ambitiouslabs]

Landing pages in webflow. Custom UI designed

[@ambitiouslabs]

Come join our community!

[@empuraan4710]

Would FF be a wise choice to implement a full on ecommerce website and then go mobile with at a later stage ?

[@ambitiouslabs]

Why not use shopify? You could - but if you can move faster with shopify, why not?

[@empuraan4710]

@@ambitiouslabs would prefer the flexibility and control costs on that front as I do know some tech and want to build from the ground up and offer a platform for others... of course that brings some other paid players in to the mix..

[@ambitiouslabs]

@@empuraan4710 makes sense - come join our accelerator. We’d love to help with this idea. calendly.com/ambitious-app

[@kaptainkyle70]

@@ambitiouslabs This is the way.

[@IsaacBG84]

I want to deploy a mobile+web portal. Can i do both on FF? Do i have to build a project for mobile and then for flow?

[@ambitiouslabs]

Yes you absolutely can. We are building our Ambitious Labs Builder Dashboard in FlutterFlow. It’s a web app. Message me in slack if you need help!

[@pranavmenon2319]

I didnt find the one month free trial link in the description.

[@rhyme-illy6746]

Hi I have a question regarding a custiom widget. Can you please make a video on how to implement an OCR-Text-Recognition-Widget (extract and store text from Word, PDF ect.) in FlutterFlow using the phones camera? I have treid to use this pubdev widget but somehow it wont work: mlkit_scanner: ^0.3.6. Thx.

[@MrAndarstand]

Great Video .. helpe a lot to decide.. do you think i can use an api/webhooks based ai chat widgets like sendbird while using fkutterflow to design an app ?

[@ambitiouslabs]

However you can move the fastest! API based chat is fine. FlutterFlow has easy api integration

[@user-wd1jd9iq1u]

Sorry, I have several ideas for applications and I need to use flutterflow .. How can I get the free month .. Thank you

[@ashokmanian4733]

Thanks for the video. Can existing Flutter projects be imported into Flutterflow?

[@ambitiouslabs]

It's not very intuitive. But you can.

[@unknowntrauma5742]

Great video Sir ❤. I have some question about flutterflow, I want to become a app development freelancer in my community cause people from outside our state reaping us by charging unreasonable high amount for building an app, i am not good with programming so i have to take no code way, So my question is flutterflow a good platform for people like me? Which plan i have to go with? How much app can i make with that plan?

[@moistmansion6927]

recently started using flutterflow for an app i plan to launch. fairly new to no-code app creation & in getting familiar with the platfrom i've noticed that (on desktop) my app appears rather blurry... even in the beginning turorial for that travel app, dropping widgets in and seperate pages appear blurry. Is this just due to being on desktop & will be more clean/clear on mobile? If anyone knows, would appreciate a reply, thank you.

[@ambitiouslabs]

Post a screenshot in our slack community and I can help you best. Link in description -Alim

[@moistmansion6927]

@@ambitiouslabs EPIC! Will do!! Thank you for the reply my dude & appreciate the content as well, super helpful, seriously.

[@ZeNex74]

info overload, consuming so many in 24hrs.. but $70 a month but if i only wanted to build 1 app for now and see? ty

[@ambitiouslabs]

You can build for free too! Come hang with us in slack

[@ZeNex74]

@@ambitiouslabs but costs the 70 to save and publish? And each month?

[@yapyh2872]

I passed my flutterflow code to a flutter developer and he said everything has to be changed in order to make it scalable.

[@ambitiouslabs]

Get a new flutter developer

[@Wizdom909]

Lies, I'm a flutter developer. The developer is simply insecure about his job. Get a new developer ASAP

[@user-tf4jx4lv1s]

What king of "I wish I know" video is this? lol, all the stuff you mentioned its standard, right there in front of everyone.. you wish you know you can download the code? lmao, it's right there.

[@sol-evolutis]

Just a suggestion, but maybe don't advert/plug yourself on the first item on your list.

[@ambitiouslabs]

Appreciate the suggestion. This was my first KZbin breakthrough video. I’m getting better!

[@kaptainkyle70]

I honestly didn't mind it. At least he's transparent about it.

[@deordered.]

Here's a question: I would like to develop an app that offers its services through sold membership via cards that contains QR codes with limited use per each, is possible? Thanks

[@ambitiouslabs]

Yes! Absolutely let’s build it together. [e-mail]

[@toddnaknakim2203]

Can flutterflow be useful for creating a language app.

[@ambitiouslabs]

What kind of language app?

[@toddnaknakim2203]

@@ambitiouslabs for my native language nothing exists yet for it so it’s an amazing opportunity to try it out

[@toddnaknakim2203]

@@ambitiouslabs do you know flutter flow well? If so can we chat privately or do the ideas have to be posted?

[@ambitiouslabs]

@@toddnaknakim2203 Yes! I'm an expert FlutterFlow and mobile engineer. Ask me anything. Join the Slack community. Link in description.

[@toddnaknakim2203]

@@ambitiouslabs Hey i see it open up slack, but i' not sure how to join the flutterflow community on there. Link in slack whats the name of the community?

[@greendsnow]

this is a flutterflow promotion channel

[@ambitiouslabs]

We LOVE FlutterFlow and startups! This channel is about the future of startups and app building.

[@filipzawadzki9424]

I don't know what are you talking about 😂

[@ambitiouslabs]

Why?