September 2024 Summaries

Emmanuel Brown and Day Edwards founded ChurchSpace, an Airbnb-style platform designed to utilize the often empty spaces in churches by connecting them with people in need of affordable venues. Using the no-code platform Bubble, they developed an MVP three times faster and at a significantly reduced cost compared to traditional coding methods. This innovation allowed ChurchSpace to grow rapidly, now boasting over 11,000 users and supporting 84 churches in avoiding financial stress. The platform's success is largely attributed to its user-friendly interface and effective communication features, such as SMS integration, which improved host responsiveness. As ChurchSpace prepares to launch its native mobile app nationally, the founders aim to expand beyond churches to other underutilized community spaces, demonstrating the scalability and adaptability of their no-code approach.

Missy Kelley, Director of Product Design at Bubble, is leading the modernization of their editor to make building on the platform simpler, sleeker, and more intuitive. She will share her team's progress and results at BubbleCon 2024. With a background in digital creation, Missy focuses on empowering people through creative tools. As Director of Product Design, she ensures her team has everything they need to make the best decisions while maintaining strong partnerships with engineering and product teams. A successful design team, according to Kelley, balances user needs, business needs, and tech needs while pushing for best practices where it makes sense.

Bubble's team of developers faced an exciting challenge when tasked with creating a landing page for their annual conference, BubbleCon. The design aimed to reflect the liveliness at the heart of the conference and evoke ideas of infinite possibilities, freedom to build anything, and looking toward the future. To achieve this, they used animation, leveraging CSS, plugins, and keyframe animations. They also utilized custom CSS for more complex backgrounds and a Lottie animation for the hero section. The team relied on external resources like AI and community forums to fill in knowledge gaps during the process.

Bubble's Immerse Impact program supports underrepresented founders of social impact startups by providing a fully funded virtual residency program focused on no-code web app development. This year, they have assembled an impressive team of mentors with diverse backgrounds and expertise in various fields such as AI, software engineering, product management, and startup leadership. These mentors bring their experience from working at top tech companies like Amazon, NASA, Mailchimp, Google, and more to help guide the founders through their entrepreneurial journey.

BubbleCon, a technology event, will be hosting a hackathon where developers are challenged to create custom apps based on a chosen theme within 48 hours. Last year's hackathon focused on "Bubble for Good," resulting in projects aimed at reducing carbon footprints and promoting healthy eating. The winner of the Rookie category, Aanya Shah, is preparing to compete again this year with her app DoubleKarma, which was inspired by her great-grandmother's charity work. Since winning last year, Shah has been sharing Bubble tutorials and creating a free course to help others learn about no-code app development. She believes that the future of no-code platforms like Bubble holds immense potential for solving real-world problems and empowering people from all backgrounds to create impactful apps.