Happy to say this is my first of many more posts to come. I’ve been an eager consumer of the forum for about a month or so since I decided on a huge career change. This may be a little long but bear with me. Would really appreciate any insights. (@georgecollier feel free to chime in - been absorbing your gems).
For a little background - I stumbled upon Bubble when I was looking for a career change. My background is in structural engineering and I just had a successful exit from a real estate development project that really pushed my stress level to the edge. I enjoy construction, but I no longer wanted that to be my “bread and butter” I figured I’d be better off learning a new high-demand skill with the eventual goal of starting an agency for cashflow that can be used to invest in other areas. I’ve always been interested in tech but I have no coding experience, so when I found out about Bubble I figured all it would take is hard work and patience to become competent.
Fast forward to today, I’ve been waist-deep in bubble for the past few months. I think I am finally ready to start my agency, but need some clarity on a few things:
I’ve been doing some research on the subscription pricing model and how it could be used to provide services with Bubble. @georgecollier really gave some great insights on this so shout out to him again. I like the idea of providing a solution for a fixed price, but I am no designer. Does it make sense to learn Fig ma so that I can replicate something from Dribbble for example. For the most part, all web apps have a pretty standard look. If I get a request for a unique MVP for example, I figure I could hire a designer to provide that service. Or should I just leave the design to someone else and stay focused on functionality?
I have literally been dedicating as much time as possible to learning Bubble, but I personally don’t want to be the person actually building the product for the client. The goal for me is to complete a few small projects personally and work my way up to hiring a dev that is much better than I will ever be to complete the work. How much competence might I need to start my agency? Obviously this isn’t Facebook ads and I think you should have a certain level of competence just to be able to communicate with clients, but my strength would really be in managing the process and building the agency, versus doing the work myself.
I’ve been thinking to become good enough to pass the Bubble certification program which will help my agency to stand out. Is it worth it to invest that much time?
Any insights from more experienced agency operators would be greatly appreciated. Other than that, looking forward to sharing my insights as I learn more about building with Bubble!
IMO, unless you are a savant, it will take you quite a bit longer to be good enough at Bubble to be a quality developer. And you mentioned your lack of design experience—this is a huge piece of web development and will also take a lot of time to master.
From what I hear you saying, I’d focus on finding a solid developer (or a few) in a country with lower wage expectations.
That way, you can manage the clients and the overall project while someone with more experience can build the apps.
That said…
Just an FYI, from experience (I worked for a Bubble Gold Agency), running a web dev agency can be quite stressful.
Clients can be a huge pain in the ass. And they do not care about your other clients/projects—they want your full attention.
Good luck, my friend. And again, welcome to the wonderful world of Bubble. I hopped out of a different career path and also landed in the world of Bubble. That was over six years ago…and I’m still here every day!
Why would that be? If you have enough enthusiasm and a bit of natural competence (which you naturally would as a structural engineer) you can be good yourself.
I either copy designs from Dribbble, use a client’s Figma design, commission designs on the client’s behalf, or just do my best (the latter is the most common). Design is easy to change later, app structure and logic is not.
+++ the way I work (which you seem to have read about) its all about choosing the right clients. The ones that will appreciate well meaning advice coming from experience and understand Bubble’s strengths and weaknesses. I have the luxury of being able to turn down clients either with piss off pricing or outright denial. And that’s not always because the client is difficult - it can be because I genuinely don’t think Bubble or my agency is right for the client.
You really need to think about why a client would choose you, especially at the start. What do you offer that others don’t?
It sounds like you have lots of experience and enjoy real estate development/construction. Why don’t you target these types of companies to get started (or forever…)? That’s why people will choose you—you know their business.
Yeah, going into a niche is a good idea. Market yourself as the real estate internal tool development company - build property management tools bespoke for the estate agent. Charge $10K.
If the company has 25 employees averaging $40/hour, you need to save them 250 total hours in a year for the platform to pay for itself = 10 hours per year per employee = like 20 minutes per week. If you can save each employee an hour a week, you can justify a price of $30K to the client etc… price on value not development time…
I personally don’t think you need to take the time (6 -12 months) to learn Bubble enough to be able to build a decent app, and definitely don’t need to take the time (18-24 months) to learn enough about Bubble to be considered ‘high intermediate’ to ‘beginner expert’ in order to start your new career as an agency owner.
In business, there are often partnerships created where each partner plays the role that they are suited for and caters to their strengths. Since you do not have enough experience to build an app, and 6 months from now if building full time, you may have enough experience to build an app for a client at a low price point, you might want to focus on a skill you already likely have, which could be generating the client interest and forming a solid client funnel. Then you could team up with an experienced Bubble expert who does all the development and potentially leads the team of developers that would be needed to satisfy all the client demand that you are drumming up.
Thanks for your insights @mac2 !.. Much appreciated.
I definitely agree with trying to find a solid developer. Think I will start looking now. Still want to continue building my own skills so I can actually have an intelligent conversation with my dev and clients. Also just because I think it’s a great skill to have.
Thanks @georgecollier . So in that case, I shouldn’t necessarily become proficient with design but just understand how to use Figma so that I can replicate a particular design or just be able to wing it. I have done alot of research on the agency model and I know not all clients are considered the right clients.
No reason to learn Figma. Just learn how to use Bubble flexbox responsive design system and be capable of seeing a Figma design and replicate it inside of Bubble. The only thing I need to know about Figma is how to inspect a design to get the spacing, sizing and color so that I can do the same thing inside of Bubble.
Even despite the fact that the import figma design feature doesn’t work that well, I personally would not find it more efficient to build in figma the design and then take the steps to import when I could more easily build the design in Bubble to begin.
The only reason I would import from Figma, if the feature worked, or tried a newish plugin or extension (forget what it is) that imports chunks of the Figma, is if a client provided me with the Figma design already.
So in either case, I still would not bother learning how to design in Figma.
Personally, I am not an artistic creative, so I never try to sell a service of providing the design and I require my clients to provide the design or allow me to do what I can which is to follow standard UI design concepts to make something that looks good, but is by no means going to elicit a response of ‘oh, wow that is so beautiful’.
Some already do. I bring it up in my conversation regarding pricing of the project and let them make a decision on if they want to source the design on their own or not.
Forget the technical part, Bubble, or other tools. You are not developers, and you should not be developers anymore after these years in real estate because your power is not in this area. Your power lies in your connection to the real estate community. You should focus on that and rebrand yourself as a businessperson or investor in information technology, regardless of the tool or technology. For that, you don’t need to learn Bubble or other tools; you need to build a company focused on finding solutions for real estate companies using any technology. Then, select the team who will execute this solution. Depend on the best technology and best prices, and simply deliver the solution to get the benefit from the different prices and support.
Hey @NeilW - Welcome to the world of Bubble. I found this tread very interesting as I too am relatively new to Bubble and have been learning the platform for a few months. Personally, I initially found it a little challenging with a learning curve but nothing that overwhelming. If you enjoy it, you learn it more easily. I would agree with may of the comments here in that UI/UX is a deep topic that requires a specific skill set - of course, you can cobble something together that looks pretty but there are so many design best practices to consider and if you are not in the field, it can be a significant investment in learning these on top of what you are learning in Bubble. Leave it to the UI/UX experts and source it to them on your projects. Clients will be much happier.
If you are interested in learning Bubble, I’d focus on the backend business logics. In fact, you will want to make sure that Bubble’s backend can scale and even perform this logic depending on your requirements. I have found that there are limitations and performance issues where I have needed to turn to Xano for the backend and Bubble for the frontend.
To get started, simply pick a small project of your own and dive in. There is plenty of help online (videos, documentation, community, support, etc.) that you can use as resources to find solutions to any roadblocks. It might make sense to sign up for a tutorial or course. I actually hired a Bubble expert to help build a few examples and then just had him walk me through what he did to get me started but you could try one of the many online courses.
If you ever want to just jump on a Zoom or MS-Meets video call and talk/demo Bubble, let me know. It would be great to share ideas as we learn.
Hey Kevin. Thanks for your insights. Yea the consensus definitely seems to be not to get too caught up on the UI/UX and worry more about understanding the backend of bubble.
I’m definitely up to connect sometime. Just send me a DM and lets chat.
