September 2021 Summaries

In 2018, Jof Walters was introduced to the concept of no-code technology by Simon Jenner, which sparked his interest in its potential impact on the startup landscape. He co-founded Million Labs UK, a company that provides early-stage investment to no-code startups like Bubble, which is a no-code tool for building web applications without coding. Jof has experience in financial technology and has worked with various platforms, including the first internet credit card and alternative currencies. As one of the Bootcamp instructors, he shares his expertise and teaches entrepreneurs how to build their products using Bubble. According to Jof, the key to success lies in practicing and building small projects before moving on to more complex applications.

Paytable is a no-code platform that allows users to easily add a members area to their site to sell secure access to various productivity and collaboration tools such as Airtable, Notion, Coda, Sheets, and more. Founded by Joel Rosen, a designer with experience in building digital products, Paytable was built on Bubble due to its user-friendly interface and setup. The app enables users to create products that work like their own membership space, allowing them to securely embed documents from these tools within each product. With over 732 users, 132 products created, and $250 MRR, the app has seen steady growth since its launch in May this year. Paytable is now bootstrapped but plans to explore investment opportunities to further scale its business, which has been successful with some sellers making over $1,000 a month through curated information or saved content sales.

Token Rex is an entertainment technology that brings creators and fans together on one platform, offering a community where fans can watch movies and listen to music without paying, while also investing in the best content by buying tokens. Pro users can create and sell their own tokens, follow the community, and anticipate future productions. Charlotte Letrillard, founder of Token Rex, chose Bubble as the no-code platform to build her app due to its features and flexibility. The app allows fans to watch and interact with content, while pro users can create and sell tokens, and engage with the community. Charlotte's background in the cinema industry and MBA in Cinema and Animation Production influenced her decision to build Token Rex on Bubble. Currently, Token Rex is still in its early stages, but plans include developing an entertainment community, integrating the Token Rex technology, and offering the app on app stores.

Tinyask is an audio Q&A platform that allows users to hear how others have built their careers by breaking down big career milestones into tiny questions to navigate the ambiguity of career progression and transitions. The app, built on Bubble's no-code platform, enables direct building across all three parts of the app in one editor while still being able to connect to external plugins and APIs. With 150 users growing at a rate of 12% each week, Tinyask has achieved significant milestones, including launching its v1 after a year of building out the MVP and making its first dollar. The co-founders aim to continue expanding access to career advice while also being open about their own journey in building the app, with plans to host cohorts where users can give back to the community at scale and get paid doing so.

Peter Nilsson, a Swedish no-code instructor and entrepreneur, has played a significant role in introducing UX design to Scandinavia before transitioning into entrepreneurship. He now helps others develop their own startups using Bubble, a no-code tool that enables users to build SaaS platforms, marketplaces, and CRMs without writing code. Prior to no-code, Peter was a real programmer who introduced UX to Sweden and managed several startup companies before becoming a coach in the startup ecosystem. He discovered Bubble through his experience building apps for various clients worldwide and chose it because of its ease of use and time-saving capabilities. Peter enjoys teaching Bootcamps and finds it rewarding to help others launch their app businesses quickly. According to him, entrepreneurs should focus on launching with less functionality and gathering real customers early on to understand the market's needs.

Teaching Startup is a membership-based app that offers affordable on-demand advice for entrepreneurs from vetted expert entrepreneurs. The app removes the friction of traditional startup advisor sessions and provides useful, affordably delivered advice on leadership, management, tech and product, sales and marketing, operations, and growth and investment. Founder Joe Procopio, a multi-exit, multi-failure tech entrepreneur, built the app using Bubble's no-code platform to provide affordable advice to a large number of startups, with the goal of making more and better entrepreneurs. The app has already shown promising results, including an NPS score of 87 and profitability within its first year, and Joe plans to continue building out automation on the expert advisor side and implementing additional features to enhance user interaction.

Jacob Gershkovich never thought he'd enjoy teaching as a full-time career, but after teaching English in Korea, he discovered a passion for interacting with students and Bubble, a no-code tool that allowed him to professionally build apps. Now, he's combining both passions as an expert Bubble Bootcamps instructor, leading the Jumpstart program, which helps entrepreneurs start building on Bubble through four consecutive days of online instruction. Jacob Gershkovich, a Canadian who has lived in various cities, enjoys teaching Bootcamps because it allows him to explain complex concepts in an easy-to-understand way and see students grasp new ideas. He advises entrepreneurs to talk to their customers before starting to build software, as this is crucial for validating the needs of potential users and avoiding mistakes. Jacob's career path has been diverse, involving playing music, teaching English, and building apps with Bubble, which eventually led him to start his own agency on the platform.

Immerse is a 10-week, fully-funded virtual residency program for Black startup founders and entrepreneurs. It aims to help early-stage entrepreneurs build their products efficiently and with speed, starting with their first high-fidelity MVP. The program connects participants to the tech ecosystem, coaches them through business and product fundamentals, and provides tools and frameworks beyond Demo Day. Immerse was created to address the historical disparities in tech funding and software creation, particularly for underrepresented minorities in tech. It empowers founders of color to take control of building their products without needing external developers or engineers. The program has hosted successful cohorts with diverse founders from various geographies and industries, and offers a range of benefits, including prizes for best pitch, product, and fan favorite presentations.

We built an app called CS Protect that helps fight Covid by allowing users to check-in at businesses across Scotland. The platform was created in around four days using the no-code tool Bubble, which allows for quick creation of robust platforms and rapid changes. By signing up once, guests can store their visits at multiple locations without having to hand over their contact details to each individual business. The app has expanded into 17 separate apps for different areas of Scotland, with over 600,000 users and 1000 locations using the platform, and has been featured in news stories across the country. We aim to eventually "end" our need for the platform as it serves its purpose in fighting Covid.

Strabo is a portfolio tracker that provides users with a holistic overview of their financial accounts, including bank accounts, investment accounts, cryptocurrencies, pensions, real estate, and alternatives across different countries, in one dashboard with seamless FX and forward-looking portfolio analytics. The platform uses open banking APIs to connect financial accounts together, allowing users to see what they have in any country and its value in real-time. Strabo was built on the no-code platform Bubble, which provides a simple front-end and back-end environment for building consumer-facing finance platforms. The founders, Michael Magdongon and Ben Waterman, are passionate finance and business people with experience spanning wealth management, operations, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and sports. They chose Bubble due to its ease of use, scalability, and large community of developers who have built free plugins for various features. Strabo aims to provide users with the best end-to-end experience of any financial platform, offering comprehensive asset coverage, analytics, and customizability. Long-term plans include automated tax filing, account opening, complex analytics, and tailored financial education.

Maryssa Salomon created TravelTrunk, a platform for group travel, after being left financially strained by her friends' lack of reimbursement following a trip to Las Vegas. She initially struggled to translate her vision into reality due to her lack of technical background and had to work with multiple freelance engineers before realizing she needed to take control of the project herself. Maryssa discovered Bubble's no-code tools while working on a group project, which convinced her of their potential. After applying to Bubble's Immerse program, a 10-week pre-accelerator for Black entrepreneurs, Maryssa honed her prototype and built her pitch to investors and judges at the program's Demo Day. Since graduating from Immerse, TravelTrunk has undergone significant changes, including an updated mobile look and feel, and has seen substantial growth in terms of sales and user base, with over $127,000 in sales for the year and a feature on Forbes.

EasyQ is a no-code platform built using Bubble that empowers businesses to digitise and automate their physical queue management processes, primarily targeting Food and Beverage (F&B) places but also applicable to other locations such as clinics and retail stores. The app allows staff to log in and manage customer information, send SMS notifications when tables are ready, and provides customers with the option to check their queue status online. Elston Yee, the founder of EasyQ, chose Bubble for its no-code platform, which enabled him to work out product specs, wireframes, database structure, and build his app quickly without needing extensive coding knowledge. With a total development time of under 40 hours, Elston plans to roll out the app to various verticals and add more features based on customer feedback.

The iGrown platform is a solution that helps in identifying and retaining talent and accelerating careers through intelligent technological solutions, connecting people to their real possibilities and encouraging autonomy in career management. The app works by answering questions in three quizzes to increase self-knowledge, and provides predictive analytics for companies to identify talent and employee adherence to current and future positions. iGrown was built on Bubble's no-code platform, which enabled the team to save up to 70 percent of development and design time, lightening the burden on the IT industry and enabling constant implementation of initiatives. The app has gained prominence in various media, been nominated for several awards, and is now expanding to help people define their career path and accelerate their professional journey.

IntHunter is a no-code app that offers professional security camera installation, guest internet hotspot and networking installation, and real-estate photography services. The app allows users to obtain estimates, create invoices, and pay online. It also provides a dashboard with information on ongoing projects, invoices due, total orders done, total revenue, and more. Prasad Patel, the founder of IntHunter, built the app using Bubble's no-code platform due to its efficiency, ease of use, and graphical user interface. Patel discovered Bubble through Google search and chose it for his motel operations as well. IntHunter has had great success so far and plans to add a recurring payment option in the future.

Atlancer.com is an online platform that connects freelancers with businesses, taking full responsibility for the quality of work done through it. The app allows businesses to search for services they need and view freelancer profiles, reviews, and work samples. Freelancers can set up their own profiles, add price packages, and toggle availability. Users can compare Atlancer.com to traditional agency-hiring a freelancer vs in-house. Atlancer.com aims to create a space where freelancers can flourish and businesses can receive quality-checked work. The platform uses no-code tools like Bubble, which has enabled minimal complications and easy maintenance over time. Atlancer.com is currently in open beta and hopes to change the way people view work, giving them control of their careers and flexibility to work remotely.

Jon Melo is a Human Resources expert who discovered Bubble while working on an HR-related startup and has since become a no-code instructor for the company's Bootcamps. He was initially frustrated with traditional developers and found Bubble too difficult to learn, but eventually became motivated to learn its fundamentals after experiencing a costly mistake. Today, he teaches others how to build web applications using Bubble's no-code tool, which allows users to create SaaS platforms, marketplaces, and CRMs without writing code. Jon values the educational process of teaching Bootcamps, as it helps him stay up-to-date with Bubble and learn from participants' ideas and questions. He advises entrepreneurs to lower their expectations and break down large goals into smaller, manageable objectives, and emphasizes the importance of naming elements in the development process.

This platform aims to modernize mentorship by making it easy and accessible for growth-minded workers to find skilled industry mentors who can guide them in achieving their career goals, on their own schedule. The app uses a no-code platform called Bubble, which allows the founder, Erika Gemzer, to build and launch her app quickly and efficiently. With Pocket Board, users can search for mentors, read their profiles, and book sessions that fit their schedule, with the option to become a mentor themselves over time. The app has already seen success, including launching an alpha version with two mentors and 30 bookings in the first month, and achieving an average net promoter score of 10. Erika plans to continue recruiting mentors, particularly in sales professions, to expand the platform's offerings.