Developing a no-code SaaS Marketplace with Bubble
The pandemic showed us how important it is to have a side hustle or to be a full-fledged entrepreneur.
Today’s recession and global pandemic has been a wake-up call to also have a second or third source of income. The U.S. Census Bureau figures show that approximately 4.3 million new business applications were filed in the U.S. alone in 2020. A majority of these new small businesses have been Websites, SaaS or Micro-SaaS products and services.
Do you have an idea for an app or website that you believe will help people in ways that doesn’t exist in the current market? The thing that is stopping many people from launching their very own digital startup is their inability to build their own website or app and a lack of understanding when it comes to digital technology.
This is where our team at Blur Apps comes in. Our mission is to take your idea and vision, and bring it to life. We help you build an MVP in a matter of weeks and eventually help create your final product using no-code tools.
MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. An MVP is the initial iteration of your product that you iterate on and customise until you find a great product-market fit. So, how does this help you as an entrepreneur?
Gone are the days when the starting cost and inability to code prevented aspiring entrepreneurs from making their dreams and ideas a reality. The perfect solution is to implement a cloud-based, no-code MVP using tools that replace code with graphical programming interface.
Is it an app that you’d like to build? Or it could be a platform, a marketplace, a booking website, a social network, or anything else you can think of; the team at Blur Apps can create an MVP for you. Plus, we build it in a fraction of the time and cost compared to what it would traditionally take with standard coding.
The sooner you get your product, the sooner you can share your product with the public and gather real-world data from real-world users. Making the MVP available for the public to use allows you to gather real-time feedback from your users to improve your initial product.
The reason we can provide such fast and reliable results is because of our no-code approach to development. We can create complex and fully functioning MVPs with little to no coding. These can be integrated with mobile, cloud, and physical devices.
Recently, we created an MVP for a U.S-based cyber security start-up. They needed a SaaS product that provided a platform for businesses and experts in the cyber security domain to interact and work together, a cyber security freelance platform, if you will.
We take you behind the scenes to show you how we make this start-up’s idea a reality.
Understanding the Project Requirements
Our client's startup was envisioned to be a multi-tenant web application in the cyber security niche.
I’m sure you have heard of freelance platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork. The goal was to create something similar for our client, but specific to cyber-security services.
Access to the platform was split into three roles – employers who posted a job, freelancers who bid for the job, and an admin user who has the ability to manage the platform in the background.
Each user would require a dashboard that showed information specific to their role; an employer’s dashboard would display the status of each of their projects while also giving them the ability to create new project listings. The freelancer’s dashboard would list the projects they're currently working on, their earnings to date, and the ability to view listings of projects matching their skills so that they could bid on relevant ones.
Finally, the admin dashboard would need to have the capability to allow our client to manage the platform, review new users and provide customer support such as resolving any issues or disputes between users.
Apart from the dashboards, this platform would require an internal messaging system, a payment processing functionality, and a collaboration feature that allowed employers and freelancers to co-manage a project.
Believe it or not, we did all this with no code.
Building the Platform with no-code on Bubble
When it comes to building MVPs, using a no-code cloud-based approach reduces production time and allows unlimited storage and scalability when needed.
Since the client was already aware of the versatility of the no-code Bubble platform, they requested that we use it to build their website.
A no-code platform is a powerful tool in an entrepreneur’s toolbox. Just as the name suggests, these platforms allow you to create powerful and fully functional MVPs by dragging and dropping modules on their interface. There is no need for any knowledge of code; you can build your own MVP without any prior programming experience.
Using Bubble, you don’t have to worry about user management, data security, or hosting issues as you grow. It allows you to build prototypes (MVP), launch your customer-facing application, iteratively improve as you gather valuable insights from your users, and scale your project as you gain traction and popularity.
We build all the pages of this Web App with Bubble's UI element editor, assigned dynamic data to the content and set up internal variables and data flows to ensure a smooth User Experience.
A core part of this project was designing and setting up the database as well as managing User access efficiently. With both basic and complex workflows, we set up all the required logic and ran several rounds of QA testing.
We used Bubble’s API functionality to connect to the Stripe Plugin to create the payment feature. We created user profiles, a system that allows users to make, manage and publish projects. The dashboards acted as a project management tool for both the employers and the freelancers. We also created the ability for the employer and freelancer to share files and collaborate on projects.
A project like this could have easily taken 6 to 12 months to build if it wasn’t for our lean no-code approach. Our team created a fully functioning MVP in just over a month for our client to deploy to initial customers.
Seeing and experiencing the capability of Bubble firsthand, we can honestly say that the platform can be used for more than just building MVPs, it can be used to create the final product as well.
Conclusion
Bubble has become the best no-code platform of 2021, beating the likes of Wix and Squarespace due to its versatility when it comes to full-fledged Web Apps.
No longer do you have to break the bank and spend several months working on an idea, only for it to backfire after your big launch. Bubble allows you to create an MVP, make it available for people to use and provide feedback which you can then use to improve your product iteratively. All this can be done in a matter of weeks. We have also started deploying finished Apps on Bubble, easing the process of transitioning from MVP to production even more.
You can stop worrying about things like programming, data security, or hosting as your business grows. It allows you to pivot your vision until you get it right, which has never been this easy to do.
Don't worry if learning Bubble sounds like a challenge. Blur Apps can create your MVP for you. Come to us with your vision, and we will make it a reality.