I understand that bubble is a new technology. And they’re trying to get the ecosystem around technology to be nice and healthy.
However, having signed up as an agency we started receiving RFPs.
95% of these RFPs read something like: "I want to build some thing like eBay. " and the associated budget is usually under $100.
Perhaps it would be good if someone it bubble triaged these request. As of right now they a distraction and a joke.
yeah… i’d first try to convince them but if they weren’t having it, i’d direct those individuals to fiverrrrrr and let them experience why you cost more. I went through this process and ended up learning to code. others will learn to pay. weed out the noise
I have been thinking of switching our main account to an agency but only work on projects for my local area. With an agency account, do these RFP come through emails? Do they require to respond? Can they easily be ignored?
Do you mind to share here if you had any successes being listed as an agency?
We’ve been an agency for less than a week. We received emails that could be ignored probably three or four times a day perhaps Half a dozen. Not a single one has any sort of real requirements are any sort of realistic budget. It’s just whatever somebody types on the Internet they just passed straight along. They look something like this:
Company:
Description: I want to build a SAAS MVP with the following features. Designed for end-user (log-in / log-out):
Inventory Management - Creation and Tracking of how much inventory is available
Sales Management - Input Sales and see sales reports.
CRM - Save Customer Data
Budget: $200
RFP reference: 2111-2444
Thank you for sharing. I see. So maybe what can change right away is the request intake form where it asks questions that imply realistic expectations. I am glad that there is no requirement to reply as this can become troublesome for me.
Leads that first find Bubble are usually more DIY people which is how they find an App Builder versus an agency in the first place. So unfortunately most leads through there or even the forum are the ‘base level’. Not ideal for professional agencies. To help Bubble and agencies it would be good if the RFP and agency list could set expectations of pricing to self select people submitting requests, and even include more technical questions to get better submissions (most people do not know how to express their wants in an app without specific questions)
In Bubbles defence - these RFPs are a specialty to them. A lot of clients that have posted minimum budgets, generally do not know what to put, so put minimum amounts but for us have ended up being really long term clients.
I agree it is not perfect, but what other platform allows you to have these requests and help you get enquires.
They need to be triaged by a human.
Many many development tools do this.
Blind defense of bubble will make them worse, not better. Better is the goal.
Agree, a client putting up $100 usually means, I have no idea, you tell me.
Don’t try to do that which you won’t do well.
Or
“Do or don’t do. If ‘sort of.’ Get squished like grape”. -Miyagi
Ya it is bad, but occasionally one will come across that has a real budget 5k+, the emails are formatted. I was able to build a parser that weeds out the no budget ones, without much trouble.
It would be nice if this was built in…
Does anyone have any success stories from these emails?
Deathly silence around success stories @rico.trevisan 
Hi @rico.trevisan and @lindsay_knowcode .
I don’t know about those emails, I’m not signed up as an agency. But I follow this Jobs/Freelance category, and these are my numbers:
I’ve just checked my sent messages: I’ve answered to 37 different people looking for a bubble freelancer (I only answer to those proposals that make sense for me). Most of them didn’t ever answer back. Maybe 10 or so answered, and I got 3 projects. So that’s an 8% success ratio. Don’t know if this is good or not, but my initial expectations were a bit higher.
@rico.trevisan
I gained one client from such e-mails. Even though it was not an e-mail like “I have no idea and only $100”. It turned out into a long-lasting relationship which easily increased the budget by 7 times.
But I think it’s rare.
