No-code startup Bubble raises $100M • Hacker News Board

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#191

Post by xchaotic » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 12:42 PM UTC

murukesh_s wrote: post #110

ramraj07 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People (especially the kind that hangs out in HN) dont seem to understand that there’s a vast ocean of fairly smart people, much smarter than the average (or even above average) programmer, who are unable to build what they can imagine because of the coding bottleneck. I know many, and it’s not for a lack of significant effort that they are not able to learn to code in a way that’s meaningful. I suppose there’s somet…

Totally. I use this analogy where if photoshop did not have this low-code interface and all artists have to do was program strokes code by code, how many artists who couldn't learn or understand "coding" would be left out? IMO Bubble is only ms-paint+ (entry point lowcode) and Photoshop (or Figma) is yet to hit the market.

well, Bubble can simply add more features to become the equivalent of Photoshop for web design...

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#192

Post by datavirtue » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 12:45 PM UTC

adwn wrote: post #142

flarg wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In life sciences the people are smarter than any developer but software is IT-captured so all they can work with is Excel. No code is meant for these people. Software developers will never deliver what life sciences needs without no code.

If they are really that much smarter, why don't they code their own tools? It's not like there's a programming guild which enforces the monopoly held by certified software developers.

Hopefully one day...

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#193

Post by eastendguy » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 12:46 PM UTC

deeviant wrote: post #10

I think the biggest problem with this approach is at some point, they necessarily reach a level of complexity that it takes the same amount of time to learn how to use their "no-code" tools than it does to just learn how to code.

"Low code" tools like Sikuli, Selenium IDE, UIPath or UI Vision are often used for test and process automation. They work well and have their place.

Could you do everything with pure Python or C++? Sure, but it would be much slower. Low code is useful if your need is not covered by an available application, and on the other hand you lack the resources and/or time to develop an app from scratch.

But I fully agree that "No-code" is a marketing term only. Even the easiest "No-code" app requires a good understanding of concepts like "if/then". The term "Low-code" is more honest.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#194

Post by tyingq » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 12:51 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #137

I wonder how long it will take until I see “must have 10+ years of X-low-code-solution experience” in job searches and cold calls/emails from recruiters Personally, I think low code is a farce. It’s useful for prototyping but beyond that I wouldn’t use it in any production system.

Already there...

"QuickBase Application Developer 11-15 years of experience. QuickBase application development and implementation, specifically in building/updating custom applications, developing custom pages, building dashboards, and translating business needs into technology specifications."

https://www.indeed.com/q-Quickbase-jobs.html?vjk=5024b4c17aa...

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#195

Post by drewdog75 » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 12:52 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #60

darepublic wrote: post #45

If Bubble is not a bubble, a coder should be able to sit down and figure things out intuitively and start getting better results than they would busting out create-react-app, or their java spring framework backend. Wait, that's not that unbelievable!

It's all fun and games until you get a requirement that requires you to code. Now you have to code anyway, but using something that has 0.001% of the support online in terms of docos, solved problems, stackoverflow answers, and ongoing support from Oracle/MS/Facebook etc. of mainstream frameworks. Bubble is great if you can't code and you want to save $5k on a developer (if the project is >$5k then its probably alrea…

There is a plugin system. You would write (reusable) code there.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#196

Post by tyingq » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

Inspiringer wrote: post #138

Have they ever addressed what would happened to the app you build if their company disappear one day? It doesn't seem safe to build your system on Bubble or any SaaS for that matter unless you know the company will never go away e.g. Salesforce.

Happened with DabbleDB. It was popular and gaining momentum. Twitter bought them, probably for the dev talent, and shut it down.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#197

Post by JohnWhigham » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #105

mrspeaker wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works best for prototyping and rapidly testing ideas. I joined a startup that didn't have any deep coding skills - but had a great idea and vision for a product. They had made a pretty decent prototype with Bubble and could quickly implement suggestions from the beta testers. When I joined I instantly suggested re-writing it in a "real" stack. But when I dived into it, there was a lot of built in features of Bubbl…

People (especially the kind that hangs out in HN) dont seem to understand that there’s a vast ocean of fairly smart people, much smarter than the average (or even above average) programmer, who are unable to build what they can imagine because of the coding bottleneck. I know many, and it’s not for a lack of significant effort that they are not able to learn to code in a way that’s meaningful. I suppose there’s somet…

Absolutely. It can't be said enough how much of a bubble there is here. Smart entrepreneurs who know how to get shit done don't want to waste their time learning a bunch of rote arcane commands to reify their vision. That said, these kinds of no-code panics happen twice a year around here, and looking back long enough, they're never more than a niche product. We'll see about this one.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#198

Post by zubairlk » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

It seems like all the comments here are from non bubble users.

We have worked on over 20 client projects in the past 1.5 years using bubble.

Specialising exclusively in bubble now.

A way to describe the platform would be WordPress for Web Apps.

There was a census recently. ~75% clients are startup/MVPs ~25% SME making business tooling

Out client portfolio is similar.

I've hired fresh graduates in Pakistan, trained them in 2 weeks. And now have them working on a customer production app.

I've also taught bubble bootcamps. After 8 weeks of weekly 2 hour zoom sessions, I doubt you'll get much progress in a coded bootcamp. But these guys were building their app ideas. All sorts of backgrounds. Accountant. Art student. Podcast editor etc.

I have a client who needs a quick 2 week MVP. Done. I have a client whose 40+ employees use bubble app daily across four counting. Core business tooling.

The four pieces needed for a web app are Design Logic Data Hosting.

Bubble combines all that and reduces the barrier to entry.

No need to make comments like the famous Dropbox comment. Why not just SSH sftp xyz.

NoCode is definitely rising. We have won bids against coding agencies due to cost/time. The competing coded agency suggested 3 months. I quoted 2 months.

The day rate is somewhat similar. The speed is much faster. Very much needed for MVPs

That being said. There are drawbacks. You can throw 30 software engineers and have a system and increase velocity that way. However, bubble/NoCode is more suited to small teams (afaict yet)

Feel free to ask me anything.

Bubble.io coach, bootcamp instructor, agency owner here. Bubble all day every day.

Email : hn@azkytech.com

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#199

Post by goto11 » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 1:00 PM UTC

yourenotsmart wrote: post #164

capybara_2020 wrote: post #35

Can someone help me understand the no-code movement and what supposedly has changed in the last few years? I know Microsoft tried to allow non-developers to create apps without developers, and they have been trying for decades. But failed! They built an app that allowed you to drag and drop blocks, and they tried a visual query builder(not sure what the exact name was) for SQL. They added a workflow builder to ShareP…

> Can someone help me understand the no-code movement and what supposedly has changed in the last few years? It's a basic error of attribution. We need complex systems, and we build them typically by text source, which is the most efficient way of coding a system (as we've found over the decades). Because the source looks arcane to an untrained eye, people attribute the complexity to the form of the code: text source…

I remember similar sentiments among geeks when GUI's became more commonplace compared to command line interfaces like DOS. But the reality is that for the majority of people using a GUI is much easier than a text based interface.

A full-blown general purpose text-based programming language is of course always more powerful, but a task-specific GUI can be much more efficient for the particular tasks they are designed for.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#200

Post by fakedang » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #61

deeviant wrote: post #10

I think the biggest problem with this approach is at some point, they necessarily reach a level of complexity that it takes the same amount of time to learn how to use their "no-code" tools than it does to just learn how to code.

I hope with $100m they can solve this. I think the only way to solve this is to hard-code so many different use cases into the gallery of controls, workflows and repeaters etc. that anything you dream of is easy to build. They also need to invest heavily into UX and the ease of figuring out how to do something. I've used Bubble and similar tools, and they share something in common with coding - you need to watch/read…

Exactly. I had my tries with a few code builders, and soon enough I realized that it's often better (and sometimes faster) to simply learn how to code.

Most code builders don't even give the devops/authentication bits.