Why I Stopped Recommending Bubble.io (And What I Use Instead for Client MVPs)

Last year, a potential client approached me with an exciting opportunity: build a two-sided marketplace platform with a substantial budget. The technical challenge was interesting, and it would have been one of my biggest projects to date.

I said no.

Here's the thing - they came to me excited about the no-code revolution and tools like Bubble.io. They'd heard these platforms could build anything quickly and cheaply. They weren't wrong technically, but their core statement revealed the fundamental problem: "We want to see if our idea works."

After years of working with startups on MVP development and watching the no-code hype cycle, I've learned that the constraint isn't building anymore - it's knowing what to build and for whom. Most founders are optimizing for the wrong thing entirely.

In this playbook, you'll discover:

• Why I rejected a high-paying Bubble.io project (and what this taught me about MVPs)

• The hidden costs of no-code platforms that nobody talks about

• My alternative approach that validates ideas in days, not months

• When Bubble.io actually makes sense (and when it's a expensive mistake)

• A framework for choosing the right MVP approach for your situation

Check out our SaaS playbooks for more startup strategies, or explore AI automation guides if you're looking to streamline your development process.

The startup world has fallen in love with a seductive narrative: no-code tools like Bubble.io have "democratized" app development. You can now build complex applications without writing a single line of code. The promise is intoxicating - get your MVP to market faster, cheaper, and without technical debt.

Here's what the no-code evangelists typically tell you:

1. Speed to Market: Launch your MVP in weeks instead of months

2. Cost Efficiency: No need for expensive developers or technical co-founders

3. Flexibility: Iterate quickly based on user feedback

4. Validation: Test your concept without massive upfront investment

5. Technical Simplicity: Focus on business logic instead of infrastructure

This conventional wisdom exists because it addresses real pain points. Traditional development is expensive, slow, and often overkill for early-stage validation. The success stories are compelling - companies like Tinder and Zapier started with simpler tools before building custom solutions.

But here's where this advice falls short in practice: it confuses building with validating. Most founders using Bubble.io are still trying to build their way out of uncertainty, just with different tools. They're optimizing for the wrong constraint entirely.

The real issue isn't whether you can build something quickly - it's whether you should build it at all. And that's where the no-code narrative becomes dangerous, because it makes building feel so accessible that founders skip the harder work of validation.

When that marketplace client came to me, I could have taken the project and delivered exactly what they wanted. A functional two-sided platform built on Bubble.io, complete with user profiles, messaging systems, payment processing, and all the features they'd mapped out in their detailed specification.

But something felt fundamentally wrong about the approach.

They had no existing audience, no validated customer base, no proof of demand - just an idea and enthusiasm. Their entire strategy was: "Build it and see if people use it." The Bubble.io platform would have made this expensive experiment feel cheaper and faster, but it would still be an experiment based on assumptions.

I'd seen this pattern before with other clients. The ease of no-code tools creates a false sense of progress. You're "making progress" by building features, but you're not actually getting closer to product-market fit. You're just creating a more sophisticated way to test unvalidated assumptions.

The client had convinced themselves that using Bubble.io was the lean approach because it was faster and cheaper than custom development. But faster and cheaper ways to build the wrong thing are still wrong.

Here's what I told them instead: "If you're truly testing market demand, your MVP should take one day to build - not three months." Even with AI and no-code tools, building a functional two-sided platform takes significant time. But your first MVP shouldn't be a product at all.

This conversation forced me to examine my own assumptions about MVP development and led to a completely different framework for early-stage validation.

Instead of taking that Bubble.io project, I recommended a radically different approach that challenges everything the no-code community preaches about MVP development.

The Manual-First Validation Framework

Here's exactly what I told them to do instead:

1. Day 1: Create a simple landing page or Notion doc explaining the value proposition

2. Week 1: Start manual outreach to potential users on both sides of the marketplace

3. Week 2-4: Manually match supply and demand via email/WhatsApp

4. Month 2: Only after proving demand, consider building automation

The lesson? Your MVP should be your marketing and sales process, not your product. Distribution and validation come before development.

The Bubble.io Alternative Strategy

When clients insist on building something, I now recommend this hierarchy:

Phase 1: Paper Prototypes - Sketch workflows and user journeys. Test these with real users before touching any technology.

Phase 2: Manual Concierge - Become the "algorithm" yourself. Manually perform the core service to understand what actually needs to be automated.

Phase 3: Minimal Automation - Build only the pieces that are genuinely painful to do manually, using the simplest tools possible.

Phase 4: Platform Decision - Only now, with real user data and proven demand, choose between no-code, low-code, or custom development.

This approach completely flips the traditional MVP narrative. Instead of "build fast and cheap," it's "validate first, build last." The goal isn't to create a scalable product - it's to create a scalable understanding of your market.

For the tools themselves, I've developed specific criteria for when each approach makes sense, which I'll share in the framework cards below.

The marketplace client followed my manual-first approach, and the results validated my contrarian stance completely.

What Actually Happened:

Within two weeks of manual outreach, they discovered their original marketplace concept had a fundamental flaw - the supply side they'd planned to target had no real pain point that justified switching platforms. However, through the manual process, they uncovered a different opportunity serving the demand side directly.

They pivoted to a service-based model that required no complex platform development at all. The "marketplace" became a curated service offering that generated revenue immediately through their manual processes.

Three months later, they had paying customers and a sustainable business model. If they'd built the Bubble.io platform first, they would have spent months building the wrong solution for the wrong market.

The Real Cost Comparison:

Manual approach: 2 weeks to discover pivot opportunity, immediate revenue generation. Total cost: their time investment.

Bubble.io approach: Would have taken 2-3 months to build, required ongoing platform costs, and would have built the wrong solution entirely.

This experience reinforced my belief that the constraint in early-stage startups isn't technical capability - it's market understanding.

This experience taught me that the entire no-code vs. custom development debate misses the fundamental point about early-stage validation.

Key Lessons Learned:

1. Manual Beats Automated for Discovery: You learn more about your market in one week of manual service delivery than in months of feature development

2. Tools Don't Solve Strategy Problems: Making it easier to build doesn't make it easier to know what to build

3. Speed to Learning > Speed to Market: Getting to market with the wrong solution faster isn't an advantage

4. Complexity Hides Assumptions: The more features you build, the harder it becomes to identify which assumptions are wrong

5. Revenue Validates Better Than Usage: People using your manual service for free tells you less than people paying for it

6. Platform Lock-in Is Real: No-code platforms create technical debt differently than custom code, but they still create it

7. Distribution Comes First: The best-built product on the best platform means nothing without users

What I'd do differently: I wish I'd developed this framework earlier in my career. Too many clients paid for solutions to problems that didn't actually exist because building felt like progress.

When this approach works best: Early-stage validation, service-based businesses, and any situation where you're unsure about market demand. When it doesn't work: Post-validation scaling, highly technical products, or when you've already proven demand through other means.