Hi!
I am thinking about using an agency to build my web application in bubble.
I have seen the company on this forum as well, but I want honest answers from someone that don’t earn money on me using them.
My dilemma is that I have a choice of either going full custom python development that I probably would need in the future anyway. But to go fast to market, bubble seems like a good solution. But how good is it?
I have been scoping the market to find good development firms for a fully custom solution as well. And the two with the best impression we are looking at $3-400k and $140k for the MVP.
And one or of those development firms said that bubble is not a good solution.
They also said that it’s not possible to retract the user base to another system if I would change to full custom, Something that seems a bit strange in a modern system.
10.000 active users in my system would be a minimum revenue of $252m
So I don’t need that many users to generate a lot of revenue, but I really need to hold the users and make them active on my platform.
So I have some questions…
Should I trust that bubble is good enough?
Is it possible to move your userbase to another system in the future?
Is bubble fast? low latency?
Is there any other good questions I should ask about bubble?
Yes I have worked in the industry a long time. An already have a couple of companies in the industry.
Issue for me is that I would need investors for the custom solution. Because there’s hiring here as well. Its actually don’t work like $2100 subscription. The subscription is free.
I already have two investors that really want to do this and are handing out money. But the reason I was looking at bubble was to have a product that already has users and KPI’s to show my investors. Then they would give me more money for growth and take less of the company.
Another professional alternative is AirDev@vlad@kevin12@stephanie@fayewatson based in San Francisco. They service enterprise customers with Bubble like HP, Lenovo and others. They approach the build full circle just like a conventional software development firm but using Bubble. Very talented folks there.
I currently handle thousands of data requests a day from my systems. I utilize Bubble for all my solutions, but here is the warning I would give. Before taking investment money, make sure you are comfortable enough with Bubble to navigate and troubleshoot. Working with an agency is fine, but you should have a core understanding of the platform to help diagnose issues that will inevitably hit you.
Whether Bubble will work for you depends on the type of app. It’s the most powerful no-code system I’ve found, but there are limitations and it’s not the best fit for everything.
More generally… I think the true challenge in building an app isn’t just the initial build, but the iteration. Hiring an outside custom developer would only be the start – you’ll probably need to then iterate the app to find a successful approach. I think that’s a true strength of Bubble – if you want to change something, just go in and change it, vs. what would be a slow and expensive back and forth with a developer.
I think most entrepreneurs developing on Bubble are “starting small” – bootstrapping the business, keeping costs very low, getting a MVP out to a small audience and iterating and experimenting until they find the approach that gets traction. Then if they get big (as some have) and if they hit limits with Bubble they go custom – but at that point they know exactly what they need so there’s not much iteration needed, and they have the revenue to justify spending $$ on developers.
That said, you may be in a different boat. If you have investors wanting to write big checks, they may want a traditional VC-type “go big or go home” approach, where you spend a lot of money on a custom build and staff, come out with a burst of marketing, and the app either gets traction and you get more funding, or it doesn’t and the business collapses.
PS: there are some posts in the forum from people who needed to migrate out of Bubble for whatever reason, and I’ve never seen anyone say it can’t be done. Re: that agency that says a user base can’t be transitioned, I’d ask them for the technical reason why.
