so I’ve been bubbling from Aug '19 and I’ve spent a lot of time in Bubble. I almost finished my second project which took two months of work (my time tracking software says it was about 250 hours). I would say it was an app of medium complexity (think Product Hunt + community). Previously I’ve been building a to do, project management style app which also took about 4 months (didn’t finish that one though)
Sadly most of my time is spend on design (I would say 70%-80% of total time?) and redoing a lot of elements because they just “don’t feel right”. I’m getting better at it but I am aware how much time I waste on it which drives me nuts sometimes as the deadlines get moved further and further. But I digress. (Any tips on that?)
Question for people who do not consider themselves beginners: how long did it take you to build your app in Bubble? (please consider describing the complexity of the app for the context)
It is the classic how long is a piece of string but…
We usually look to get something built in 120hrs as a Minimum viable product that we can then test our hypothesis against. If you spend longer (and its very easy to spend months) then you are wasting money.
I think you can test most ideas/markets with a 120hr built app.
I know it’s a funny question and I was hesitant to ask. But the amount of time that I have spent to build an app that would be considered an MVP (or better MLP) got me thinking how I benchmark against other bubblers.
My first ever project on bubble took around 5 month of work. It was 12 hour 5 month of work on CRM system, it was hard and this app never reach success, I was always thinking that it is not that good and I need to rebuilt it from scratch.
Now I sometimes look at this project and think, listen, and it looks not so bad, everything works, a huge database, complex connections. Even the design isn’t so bad.
I don’t think there’s a better way to learn what to do here as in your project.
My next projects took less time. I agree with you about the design, it remains the longest work for me.
I think this is a great question, and especially for new Bubblers to get some insights from those of us who have been at it for a while. I started Bubbling over a year ago, and am still not quite ready to launch my first project. My biggest time drain is going back and fixing things that I did extremely poorly during my early learnings.
On the other hand, I recently built a fully functional app for a friend’s non-profit in about 80 hours. Now the scope of the 2 projects are vastly different, with the non-profit being about 20% of my personal project, but my speed of development is lightning fast now compared to my initial slow burn.
My personal punch-line is that once you have a good handle on how to do each of the following, development in Bubble can go extremely quickly:
About 2 months for the initial version. Strong believer that you need to have your products mockup, functionality, database design, everything, ready to go before you begin development. If you don’t, you’ll get caught in a never-ending swirl, trying to perfect everything. I’d recommend keeping everything super super simple, until you have a MVP out to the public, then you can try adding cool designs, features, etc.
Rework is pain in the ass. That’s why I wanted to hear from someone who is not Bubble beginner, because of course we all did the same mistakes when we first started out. But starting second app with when you can say that you know 80-90% best practices should speed up the development immensely.
agree 100% but that work should be done BEFORE you open a Bubble editor.
I already have a good feel for UI (as non-designer) but for my next app I will pick UI system before hand and stick to it. Do the design before you start building the app. By design I mean of course the work of UX but for me more importantly the UI side of the app.
I agree with your POV on everything you’re saying, but I have a slightly different lens on this point. I differentiate between understanding UX/UI in general, and understanding what Bubble can do for you and your app for UX/UI.
Here’s an example:
When I first started out I would over complicate workflows and setting custom states to filter lists. I only realized much later on that you don’t need any of that, just use the input elements themselves. With that understanding, I can now experiment with UX/UI in a flash. But of course this needs the editor to be open
Sure, I get what you mean, but that was, let’s call it a gap, in your understanding how to do things the best way at that point in time. Of course if you find better way/more efficient way to do sth then it is in your design you should change it - but we can safely assume after 1 year of bubbling that your intuition on how to structure your DB , workflows, front end workflows (states etc) will be right 99% of the time.
I would say the hard work of building the app is before Bubbling, especially for me it’s UX compatible the right way with UI. If I get this wrong (and I tried to be smart about it in the second app, but of course messed couple things up) that means hours upon hours of dumb rework just because I didn’t put enough thought into it beforehand. I had whole pages rebuilt just because I found better UX/UI solution somewhere else.
My point is: if I had the mockups, functionality, DB design before starting to build I would cut the app development time at least in half!
I’m sorry if I’m rumbling but I’m talking mostly to myself as a reminder
Sure, for DB I use excel, but I’m with you with the pen and paper for the UI. Yes you can call this mockups, but design takes it a step further
e.g. (not my design btw)
Simple example of thinking how your app should work and look before you start bubbling. I think there is no shame on spending a week or two thinking about it and sketching the UI, making changes on the paper rather than in the app if you jump to it too soon.
I would say that having good design/mockups means building the pages the way you have it on your design (elements alignment, layout etc, no new elements, no new ideas). And doing it only once, and not coming back to the page one week or two from now to change the layout just because you thought about something better.
That kind of thinking + pick one UI style = it can save you a lot of time.
“The lesson of the MVP is that any additional work beyond what was required to start learning is waste, no matter how important it might have seemed at the time.”
― Eric Ries
I get what you’re saying @NigelG but many hypothesis have already been tested in the marketplace and most of the apps that are created here are slightly different than available solutions on the market (maybe same solution for different niche). Of course if we talk about apps with pretty original ideas I agree 100% but if someone wants to build a job board for remote work should dismiss the quote (and some part of the lean philosophy).
I am a beginner here. I have never used Bubble before, but I am very keen on it. I see many positive reviews, so I decided to give it a try too. I am from Italy, watch Venice Webcam. I do not have a very strong technical background but I am still learning. So I believe this software will help me enhance my skills much more effectively. I hope I will benefit from it. Do you agree?
