Rise, citizen developers. It's time to shine.

Business is about planning and precision, but it’s also about solving problems. And real-world business requirements call for rapid solutions. That’s what a low-code platform like Zoho Creator offers.

Let’s say, for example, that you oversee goods travelling from multiple suppliers to retailers. You’re a manager, and your team uses a planner to track details like supplier’s name and storage facilities, their modes of transportation, the amount of goods they deliver, the status of delivery, and the condition of products delivered to the retailer.

While you’re occupied with the big stuff, like meeting with new vendors and inspecting warehouses, your team members check off a lot of the smaller tasks: Someone requests a delivery, another approves a purchase, and someone else sends out invoices.

Though all this vital, deceptively incremental progress occurs regularly, you almost always never learn about it when it happens. Instead, you hear about these activities at your weekly review meeting. And by that time, you’ve missed a majority of your team’s work.

What you need are instant notifications so you can monitor and motivate your team further. But what if your current tool doesn’t offer notifications for your team members’ tasks?

You don’t wait. You don’t wait until your review meetings to follow up with your team. You customize your planning tool, and configure the notifications you need—all by yourself.

That’s how you become a citizen developer. With a proper low-code development platform like Zoho Creator, anyone can build a feature—or an entire app. You just assemble a few blocks, tighten some screws, and end up with a personalized solution to your problem.

So now that you and your team have a Zoho Creator application, word of it starts getting around. All of a sudden a colleague from customer support decides they need customized reports for their team. They come to you for help. What have you gotten yourself into?

Cast stereotypes aside—you don’t have to be a nerdy programmer with round, wire-rimmed glasses. You’re still a solution-provider. You’re motivated and already have a low-code platform. There’s nothing to keep you from helping your colleague.

Take the stage

If you’ve got a knack for solving business problems, we’ll help you take your skills to more people. Publish your app in our marketplace, to an audience of over 25 million users. Who’s to say, perhaps it could help another team. Regardless, you can continue to develop apps for your team at work and be a friend indeed to your colleagues in need.

As a citizen developer, you’ll serve the business needs of fellow citizens—and maybe get paid for it, too. Ideas for apps popping into your head already? Get your motivation running with these 7 best practices for becoming a world-class citizen developer.

This post was co-authored by Jaanu Surendran.