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No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

reuters.com

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Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#241

Post by rchaud »

rorykoehler wrote: post #131
lucasverra wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply not true. I’ve been programming with bubble from “technical aware founder PM/founder” and bubble is liberating. In the past i’ve built a webapp that : - Renders desktop - Renders mobile - store in database - after a conditional form - create a complex journey of to do list with defaults based on answers of previous cond. form - connects to an external system with cron daily - sends email daily from backend - u…

I just looked through there website and I fail to see how it would be quicker or better than spinning up a quick rails app with a bootstrap template. Most of my time developing is thinking about the domain model and workflows. Once I've decided on that it takes a matter of minutes to code features and then you are not restricted in your ability to adjust and enhance after the fact.

Your approach requires learning HTML, CSS, Bootstrap and Rails documentation in order to create a prototype.

You may as well be saying that getting furniture from IKEA isn't any simpler than buying lumber, saws, wax and paint from Home Depot and building your own.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#242

Post by encryptluks2 »

redisman wrote: post #64
encryptluks2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is how I often feel about cloud providers like AWS. If you have to invest most of your time in becoming an AWS pro in order use it correctly, why not just learn how to build out a cloud using open standards.. at least that way you actually learned something useful, and not just a vendor solution that serves little purpose outside of its locked-in ecosystem.

Can you really compare these two without completely ignoring reality? With Bubble you can do some limited MVPs. With AWS you can deploy services to billions of people.

> With AWS you can deploy services to billions of people.

Yeah for tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. You can do the same for free or a fraction of the price with other services (Cloudflare, etc).

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#243

Post by rory »

lenkite wrote: post #169
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…

I know excellent mathematicians who cannot code. The guy can solve Math Olympiad problems and puzzles but he despises coding. Old school chalk/board or pencil/paper for him all the way.

Are they not able to learn to code though, or is it simply a matter of comfort and preference?

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#244

Post by rco8786 »

zubairlk wrote: post #198

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 th…

Very cool! I have not tried a ton of Nocode but have been watching with interest from afar. My main question is: How do you go from Nocode MVP to a fully productionalized system? It seems like there's a gap there that would still require a team of engineers building the thing with code. Or do tools like Bubble provide ways to incrementally transition?

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#245

Post by treespace88 »

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 need to checkout some of these low / no code tools to see if anything is new since I last checked.

In the past I have found that as soon as a server push action is required things break down pretty fast.

IE display alert at a certain time but not if the user has focus in a text field. Show an message indicator instead.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#246

Post by rchaud »

solution-finder wrote: post #112
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…

I can talk about one of the low code/no code product: Power Platform. It is a Microsoft’s low-code/no-code platform that let users create apps, develop workflows, develop chat and desktop bots and also use commoditized AI models. The platform is now in business since 4+ years and I know many Fortune 100 companies who have got 5000+ apps - both for internal org and for business with external partners, subcontractors e…

It always amazes me how so few HN'ers know about the largest no-code platforms out there: Salesforce and Power Platform.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#247

Post by PragmaticPulp »

zubairlk wrote: post #198

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 th…

I think two things are simultaneously true about no-code apps:

1) They really are a fast way to get an MVP that can be shown to investors and customers and even process customer transactions for simple businesses. Many simple businesses don't fit into pre-packaged SaaS platforms like Shopify, but don't really need a fully custom solution built from the ground up. No-code is good for these.

2) No-code quickly hits a wall when things start to get more complex or as the scale grows. At some point, trying to coerce the no-code solution into doing what you need becomes increasingly painful and a custom solution becomes necessary.

In reality, I think many small businesses and simple startups are actually a good fit for no-code websites. The Wordpress analogy is a good comparison because we all know how unnecessary it is to write a blogging platform from scratch in 2021 (unless for hobby, of course). Likewise, it's going to become silly to write a custom backend and frontend solution for a client whose entire business is basically a couple of web forms and simple workflows.

It's all about picking the right tool for the job, and no-code tools can be the right tool for many jobs.

But they're not the right tool for every job. Knowing the difference is important.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#248

Post by ak39 »

mrspeaker wrote: post #48
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.

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…

Thank you for sharing this experience.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#249

Post by rchaud »

thrav wrote: post #40
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…

I’m interested in what these things do better than Salesforce, which is incredibly powerful Apps for gaps foothold, and allows both code and no code development. I suspect the answer is that they don’t require you to buy seats for all the users, but wonder if anyone is familiar with both.

Salesforce's pricing model is quite clearly aimed at large organizations. People still consider it to be primarily a CRM that can be customized to build web apps.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#250

Post by Salgat »

zubairlk wrote: post #198

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 th…

Sounds like a great case for MVPs and startups. Perfect for basic CRUD web apps I imagine. Also the extensibility with plugins means you can still "code" in things you need, which helps with edge cases.
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