Has anyone figured out a way to work with 3rd party developers that limits the risk of the app being copied?
I have built a desktop version of my app that has a considerable amount of proprietary backend work flows that I don’t want to risk of being copied. I need to make the app mobile responsive and unfortunately bubble doesn’t allow for sharing just the front en UI with developers and I want to limit access tot he back end workflows which isn’t possible.
Are there any creative work around that you’ve found to be effective in limiting the potential for the application to be copied by a 3rd party developer?
My goal is to limit this risk and then hire someone else to make the app mobile responsive.
NDA, contracts etc. are not viable as I plan to hire developers from other countries.
Otherwise you have the changelog tab in version control if you’re on agency plan, growth or entreprise plan, but it doesn’t say when something is just copied…
I’m not sure you’ll find a solution arount this other than trust ? If there is one I’d be happy to know as well
You can split your app in two different apps. One running the frontend, another running the backend, and connect then throw APIs.
It would be huge but effective. Otherwise, you can work with NDAs and contracts. We are a US company, which offers a fully legal protection in that case.
We can work with the frontend, or splitting the app so you have the backend fully protected and are free to hire an abroad developer later on.
Hey @andi, you can ask them to build the design as a reusable element in a separate app. Once the design is finalized, you can simply copy and paste the reusable element into your app. This way, you’ll have full control over everything.
Thank you for your response @nadeemwebror. I have so many workflows and conditions on elements that I think it would be quicker to just to the responsive work myself in this case.
Thank you for your response. I may consider this in the future. I think it will be fastest to just do the responsive work myself at this time but I’ll keep this in my back pocket for a future solution.
Also, our experience shows that the app, system or technology, alone, usually isn’t the main asset of a successful company. Doing all the other hard required when running a business (marketing, management, finance, etc) is usually much more relevant to the success of the business, than the technology itself.
Having a regular developer copying your app may not be a big issue, because it is unlikely a developer will put all the needed effort setting up a business to compete with you.
In terms of confidentiality, avoiding your current competitors to have access to your technology, business rules, and marketing strategies might be a bigger concern.
In that sense, makes sure you have good non-compete, non-soliciting and non-disclosure clauses lasting for at least a year after the end of the service, and work with partners that have a strong culture of confidentiality.
If you’re going to be the one maintaining the app, then that makes some sense. However, it’s far easier to create responsive assets (pages, reusables) from scratch than it is to convert / rework functioning non-responsive assets to be responsive.
If you’re willing to “re-wire” the logic of your app, there are at least a couple options:
Have another dev create the responsive assets (pages, reusables) in a separate app and then you copy them over to your app and re-wire up the logic.
Use a component library (Bubble’s own or one of the 3rd party libraries) and/or Bubble’s AI assistant to generate your responsive frontend and then re-wire up the logic.
With the above approaches, you might also find opportunities to simplify, streamline, and/or otherwise improve your app’s frontend logic.
Just makes it easier legally.