Aye. The mythical man month…
@sboyd, I feel your pain. I looked into this a while ago and found that the agencies who are in the Bubble “tiers” get their Gold, Silver status etc. based on the amount of money they bring to Bubble. I.e., if an agency takes on a lot of small projects and delivers poor quality work but convinces every founder to pay for the Developer subscription, then they will move up the tiers faster than an agency who takes on more complex projects and provides better quality.
We were “suckered” quite frankly, by the status of an agency. Poor quality work and twice the time to build ultimately cost us more in the end than if we’d looked for someone based on skills. The old adage really rings true here: “You get what you pay for”. Bubble have since started gathering feedback from founders but it’s slow progress and doesn’t seem to have much effect on the tiers. Right after we complained about an agency they moved up to Gold!
AirDev have a flex option that we found helpful - one-on-one interviews with a dev until we found one that was a good match, and then only dealing with that one person afterwards. We then have the option to grow the team we use at AirDev as our business grows.
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I’ve discussed this on Twitter with other business owners, and I want to be proved wrong, but 99.9% of all agencies suck.
Doesn’t matter what you’re hiring an agency for. The business model of an agency is to grow. And to grow they need to take on more work. If they were once qualified, those they bring into the company after their first phase of growth will usually be less qualified, not more.
So there is a constant quality reduction.
Then there are all those agencies that have no idea how to do the work, so their outsource everything to equally less competent people.
I’m bitter about this, but I’ve been in my industry for the last 10 years. We do low to mid 8 figures in annual revenue, with offices in multiple countries. So the need to find qualified contractors in all types of business services is a constant for us.
I can confidently say, I can’t think of a single agency I’ve hired in any industry where I would recommend.
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Been developing with Bubble for the last 4 years. But, prior to that I have been a former Finance & IT executive for 15+ years. I understand your feeling. The way I see this is pretty simple guys. Bubble IS A STARTUP, meaning by that GROWTH is the North. That said, is exactly how they will handle their community, agencies partnerships, etc. Surprised by what you found? Well, you are building on top of a startup technology mate… Best of luck and wishes, really nice industry and product you have. KEEP GOING!