With the App Store projected to reach 5 million apps by 2020, it might seem like everyone’s building an app of their own — and now you can too, whether or not you have the coding skills to back it up. There’s a solution on the market that’s intentionally designed for business-minded (read: non-technical) professionals who don’t have the requisite budget or funding to hire engineers.
Bubble is a visual programming language that helps users build apps just by pointing and clicking. Unlike some website builders currently on the market, Bubble doesn’t offer templates, but instead encourages total customization — and as an added bonus, some technical education.
“With Bubble, you start from a blank page and define your design pixel-by-pixel, followed by your workflows action-by-action,” explained co-founder Emmanuel Straschnov. “Our users have to get in the mindset of learning how an app is built. Templates, on the other hand, can give the feeling there is nothing to learn.”
As a nontechnical professional with a big idea, Straschnov fit the exact mold of his target audience. Before launching Bubble, he worked in management consulting in China. It wasn’t until after he earned his MBA from Harvard that he switched gears and landed in tech.
At a time when people were saying that learning how to code was the only way to start a business, we were building an alternative."
“What interested me in the idea was the empowerment aspect, and the non-intuitive goal we were pursuing,” he said. “At a time when people were saying that learning how to code was the only way to start a business, we were building an alternative.”
Straschnov and co-founder Josh Haas launched the company in 2012 and remained two employees strong while they bootstrapped. In 2017, the team grew to six employees in engineering, customer support and business operations. The company currently has more than 120,000 users — some of whom have gone on to elite startup programs and raised funding of their own.
The irony is that, while Bubble was built in New York by a team native to the city, the service isn’t necessarily targeted to locals.
“We started Bubble because we felt too many projects were not happening — especially in areas where funding options and engineering talent are lacking,” said Straschnov. “In New York or San Francisco, an entrepreneur can probably manage to find funding, but there are areas in the country where finding angel money is just not an option. We need a solution for these people as well.”
