I’d ilke to propose starting a separate thread on the topic of product philosophies. It’s a good, valuable discussion, but it feels a bit off topic from the original spirit of this thread.
Thoughts?
Short reply, promise. I’m not sure who you are arguing with Nigel, you are talking about validating an app by building a mini app. This is a common and valid use case. In Bubble this should take just a few days to a week or so. (There are also other ways to validate an app idea - such as going to a Meet Up and asking people whether it’s something they would find useful, putting up a single landing page with email wait list, online survey etc.).
And I am talking about building an app post-validation with proper well-thought out UI designs for your developer, short release cycles and short contracts, with professional visual design when you are ready for paid marketing, so that Bubblers like @philnauta don’t get burnt like he has.
Well-thought out UI designs (UI designs are wireframes not visual design) are essential to prevent the scope creep philnauta describes.
And yes it would be nice if consumers thought design <> functionality but they do, especially in the B2C market. A quick scroll through the App Store shows you how valuable good design is in those few short seconds.
@andrewgassen last one, behind my back pinky promise.
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Much obliged, friend.
Great post and discussion and unfortunately a story I am all too familiar with! This story is the very reason I ended up trying Bubble and even though it is frustrating at times, if you take the time and put in the personal investment it pays off!
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Wow it really hurt to hear over $10000 down the drain… I’m guessing you we’re an amateur at the time and didn’t know how to build the app? I don’t know exactly what the app did but it sounds easy enough to build in 4-5 weeks to an average standard and in 7-10 weeks have it fully done.
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Very short - I thought this was pretty unhelpful and not at all supportive of the community. So thought I would explain why.
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Anything useful, ugly, beautiful, etc. all go to show us what we can do, should do, and shouldn’t do in Bubble. I agree with Nigel, even if it is a terrible design or doesn’t work as advertised, it is still a teaching tool. Through our interactions with these apps, we can better understand how to build our own.
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Thanks for your story, @phil.
Like many have said, you are not alone. personally,I spent lot money trying get project done by mainstream developers and got nothing. In my case my dev’s constant complaint was changing of scope even though I provided the devs with wireframes made using Moqups.com. Though the solution was suited for mobile, I was advised to start with web then do native app when the web is done and tested. I agreed for due to lack of experience.
Anyway, after all disappointments, I found Bubble in late 2016 and got down on it. My solution needed Android app solution. But just decided to do Bubble web hoping it would work for me. I think I didn’t like the end results so I decided not to have it tested with real customer. I fell back to mainstream developers, this time round, an Android developer. His assignment was simple. Develop android fron-end to use my existing bubble back end. It did not work for him. Instead he proposed to do entire project with a separate back-end. He gave a timeline of two weeks for the entire project. I agreed. And the cost was higher that what you paid. One year later, I got no product with money fully paid.
With all the pain of losing money, I checked through Bubble and found Dropsource. I am happy to say, with help of my bro, we are now in my final stage of project completion.
I think your story is just a pointer to how important Bubble and other visual programming language’s such as Dropsource are place in solving human problem. A lot of people have brilliant tech ideas that never see the light of day simply because they can’t code. Your story testifies how this is changing fast.
As for @NigelG and @cowontherun debate, I think they are both right. It all depend on target market. Like in your case, I think the schools won’t care how your solution looks. As for my solution, it has to look great and solve the problem easily. Could be it’s something in me, I just can’t take poor looking product to the market.
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Hi Jess - wanted to reach out about a project. Can we connect offline?