Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.

He came to Lovable to build a new product line, a nurse study product for educating more nurses. He built the admin tools for the program, the scheduling for nurses getting their licenses, and the certification management. He could take it to market because the company already had access to nurses who wanted their certification.

Then he took the same approach into the back office. The company has replaced more than 10 tools with bespoke applications, and it is saving more than a million dollars per year.

Cost is one reason to build a custom tool. Another is specific requirements that existing tools aren't suited for, and in those cases bespoke solutions make sense.

Tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, the Google suite, the Microsoft suite, and Slack can stay underneath, with a bespoke interface on top. Connecting to them, Lovable guides the user through each step and gives a clear overview of how the data flows, so the wrong person doesn't get access to the wrong data.

Why do companies usually buy software instead of building it?

A vendor spreads the cost of building a product across thousands of customers, so each one pays a fraction of the development bill. The vendor also handles updates, security patches, and support. Building in-house moves all of those costs to the company itself. The software-as-a-service model took off in the 2000s because it made that trade easy to buy by subscription.

How does a custom interface sit on top of existing tools?

Tools like Salesforce and HubSpot expose application programming interfaces that let other software read and write their data. A custom interface calls that interface to show only the fields and actions a particular team needs. The original tool remains the system of record, so the data is stored in one place. Permissions in the underlying tool decide which records each user can see.

How do nurses get licensed in the United States?

Each state's board of nursing issues licenses, and applicants for a registered nurse license take a national exam. That exam is the NCLEX-RN, which is administered by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. The test adapts to each candidate by choosing questions based on earlier answers. Passing it is a requirement for licensure in every state.

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