October 2023 Summaries

At BubbleCon, co-founders Josh Haas and Emmanuel Straschnov discussed various topics including the future of no-code development, feature updates, and the company's plans to continue growing its community. They addressed questions on perceptions about no-code being lesser than native code, plans for adding HIPAA compliance, and how they weigh tiny UX papercuts versus large upgrades. The team also talked about their roles as co-CEOs, changes in their roles over time, and future plans such as releasing a load testing feature, improving the group focus element, and developing a database update that could make third-party integrations obsolete. They mentioned seeing Amazon Web Services as a potential competitor and plans to increase plugin development support. The team also discussed expanding Bubble's Developer Certification and introduced changes in their design system behind the scenes to standardize the UI and UX across the editor.

Taylor Bennie, head of digital education at University College London Medical School, transformed the institution's outdated Microsoft Access system into a dynamic, web-based platform using Bubble, a no-code development tool. Initially challenged by the high costs of traditional software solutions and the unique requirements of medical education, Taylor leveraged his background as an instructional designer to create a custom tool for managing medical school tutoring and curriculum mapping. Over six months, he independently learned Bubble and developed an app that now supports 12,000 users, incorporating student feedback to enhance functionality and user experience. This collaborative, iterative approach has not only streamlined internal processes but also attracted interest from other universities, leading to the Curriculum Map being offered as a software as a service. Integrations with Microsoft 365, Sendgrid, and other tools have further enhanced the platform's capabilities, making it a potential revenue source for the school and demonstrating the transformative potential of no-code solutions in educational settings.

BubbleCon 2023 marked a significant milestone in the company's growth, with over 3.3 million apps built on its no-code platform. The event highlighted the company's commitment to accelerating trends in the no-code industry, including scale, artificial intelligence, and democratization. Bubble's vision is to enable all creators to leverage technology, accelerate development, and make software creation faster, more intuitive, and accessible to all. Key product announcements included native mobile app building, AI-powered design, data, and logic tools, bulk data operations, a reimagined expression composer, and returning data from custom events. These features aim to further strengthen the Bubble platform, making it an attractive option for developers worldwide. The company's focus on scalability, security, and compliance ensures that its no-code ecosystem can support growing businesses and entrepreneurs.

Immerse is a pre-accelerator program by Bubble that provides underrepresented founders with the resources and support needed to build a production-ready app. The program runs for about two months and includes guidance from the Bubble team and mentor volunteers. Founders learn about architecture, design, development, and product roadmap creation. By the end of the program, participants have a fully-functional app and the tools necessary to take their project into the real world. Immerse aims to marry ambition with opportunity and resources with agency, providing a platform for underrepresented founders to succeed.

At a recent conference, the founders of successful businesses that utilize Bubble as their platform shared insights on scaling their companies. Sarabeth Jaffe, CTO and co-founder of Hello Prenup, discussed her experience making a deal with Kevin O'Leary and Nirav Tolia on Shark Tank. Chad Sakonchick, founder of BetterLegal, talked about generating $2.7 million in revenue in its fifth year of business. Adam Alphin, the founder and CEO of KleerCard, shared his background working with Fortune 500 firms at a global tech company before founding his own firm. The discussion was moderated by Carly Blumenfeld, director of product marketing, content, and education at Bubble.

VP of Product Allen Yang shared insights into Bubble's product strategy at BubbleCon, giving attendees a glimpse into the company's upcoming roadmap. The event also featured a Q&A session hosted by Director of Partnerships Alexis Barker, allowing attendees to ask questions and engage with the speakers.

At BubbleCon, a panel discussion was held where four team members from Bubble shared their expertise on managing apps with large user bases. The speakers included Andrew Vernon, Maria Posa, Sam Morgan, and Nick Carroll, who are all experienced developers or managers at Bubble. They discussed the best practices they use to shape and manage these types of apps, which have over 3 million users.

At BubbleCon, a panel discussion was held to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact the capabilities offered by no-code platforms. The discussion featured Emmanuel Straschnov and Shishir Mehrotra, co-CEOs of Bubble, alongside Scott Belsky, chief strategy officer at Adobe, who shared their insights on the role of AI in shaping the future of no-code development. Nidhi Jain, a software engineer from Bubble's AI team, moderated the discussion. The panel aimed to provide a platform for experts to share their perspectives on how AI will continue to evolve and enhance the capabilities of no-code platforms, making it easier for users to create applications without extensive coding knowledge.

The winners of the #BubbleCon2023 hackathon with a "Bubble for Good" theme were announced at BubbleCon, highlighting the innovative solutions created by participants. The event was attended by Emmanuel Straschnov and Josh Haas, co-founders and co-CEOs of Bubble, who also served as speakers. The announcement marked the conclusion of BubbleCon, where attendees could catch a replay to relive the excitement of the hackathon.

Gregory John, founder of Buildcamp, shared his expert tips on creating a design system for your app that scales as you build at BubbleCon.

The young product analytics software company June.so has achieved significant success by partnering with Y Combinator and gaining recognition as a top data and analytics product, including a partnership with Bubble to help users visualize app metrics. June's official Bubble plugin allows business-to-business SaaS apps to easily track user data at a company level, making it easier for founders and teams to make informed decisions about product usage and strategy. The plugin is easy to install and set up, even without an existing June account, and offers various ways to use June in conjunction with Bubble, such as tracking key performance indicators, identifying top-performing companies and user types, and measuring feature usage and retention.

Nichole Bestman, Director of Founder Inclusion at Bubble, shares her career journey and how she arrived at her current role. She started as a new-business development and marketing research intern in New York City, working with various brands including Carrie Underwood's clothing line and Russell Simmons' daughters' footwear line. After stints in academia and non-profit work, she co-founded a company that aimed to solve the shipping industry's problems for textile and apparel companies. Joining the inaugural cohort of Immerse as an entrepreneur, Nichole later joined Bubble full-time to lead founder inclusion efforts. Her motivation for pursuing a career in diversity and inclusion stems from her curiosity about solving real-world problems and discovering talented individuals who can build solutions for their communities. The Immerse program empowers founders with skills that unlock ownership, agency, speed, and economic opportunity, aligning with Bubble's values of empowerment.

Not everyone who works at Bubble comes from a traditional tech background, and the company prides itself on welcoming people with diverse professional experiences. Andrew Vernon, a current Bubble Developer, transitioned from working in his family's school portrait business to building custom software solutions using no-code tools like Bubble. He initially used Airtable and Zapier to automate processes, but was limited by their segmentation and lack of front-end capabilities. Bubble allowed him to build a custom front-end and connect it with workflows, creating a business management app for school photographers that eventually became his first paying app. Vernon joined the product team at Bubble and is now responsible for building and maintaining bubble.io, which also happens to be built on Bubble. He finds that no-code tools have unlocked doors for his career, enabling him to build software solutions without extensive coding knowledge. With four live apps in the school photography industry, Vernon is proud of what he's accomplished and believes no-code will continue to empower people with ideas and problems to build custom apps themselves in less time and for less money.

Synthflow, a startup co-founded by Hakob and Albert Astabatsyan, has rapidly grown since its launch in early 2023, securing $29.1 million in funding and attracting over 6,000 app users. Built on the no-code platform Bubble, Synthflow enables users to create AI agents to perform tasks without writing code, addressing the technical barriers faced by non-developers in the AI space. The company has leveraged its fast iteration capabilities on Bubble to adapt quickly to market demands and expand its product offerings, including AI agent capabilities for voice assistants in sales. As a testament to its growth and community support, Synthflow's Bubble plugin has garnered more than 1,200 users, and the startup continues to thrive by building on Bubble's extensible platform, aiming to revolutionize the AI ecosystem while maintaining scalability and flexibility.

The Bubble pre-accelerator program, Immerse, has completed its eighth cohort, with four finalists - Ana Saldaña, Deb Shelby, Princess Agina, and Vaishnavi Srivathsan - set to present their projects at Demo Day. The participants have been working on strengthening both their business and technical skills, with the goal of building a product on Bubble. Each founder has a unique story and mission behind their project, from improving access to veterinary care for families to leveraging global insights to connect people and communities. Through Immerse, these founders have gained valuable experience, support, and resources to help them grow their businesses. The program's focus on empowering underrepresented founders, particularly women and femme-identified individuals, has been a key aspect of its success.