Project Management

No-code tools are typically used for building and deploying applications quickly, without requiring extensive software development knowledge. Bubble.io is one of the leading no-code tools that can speed up development tremendously. In the hands of skilled users, Bubble.io can be the main technology component of a simple commercial product. But how does it fare with more complex use cases? Here are some thoughts on Bubble and no-code development.

Note: Bubble is evolving rapidly and some of its drawbacks mentioned in the blog post are already being investigated by the team and might have been resolved.

Testing a Bubble App: Project Assumptions

We decided to explore Bubble.io in our internal R&D department to check if the technology can be recommended for commercial products for clients. We wanted to test it thoroughly to see its benefits, limitations, and specific use cases.

The tests started with an idea for a product — a manager for data sets that lets users add and edit entries.

Features and requirements

• Consistent updating: The tool must enable continuous updates of data sets, ensuring they remain current.
• Ease of management: The ease of use is paramount, particularly for end-users. Swift addition of new entries and data integrity should be ensured.
• Integration capability: The app should support integrations with other tools.
• API requirement: The app needs to expose an API for mobile applications. Instead of exporting entries directly to the application and then issuing it to the store, the goal is to have the application periodically fetch entry updates from the cloud.
• User role system: While initially intended for internal usage, the app should accept data from external users in the future.

Bubble: Overview of Out-of-the-Box Features

What is the Bubble platform?

Bubble is a leading no-code development platform that allows users to build web apps without having to write code. As an app-building platform, Bubble provides all the features necessary to design, develop, and deploy web apps and some basic mobile apps using a visual interface. With Bubble, even those without a technical background can turn their ideas into functional applications, democratizing the app creation process.

To test its capabilities, we decided to build a relatively simple web app with it. According to documentation, however, Bubble can be used to build social networks, marketplaces, SaaS tools, dashboards, and CRMs.

Here are some of the tools Bubble has out of the box and that we used to build our test product.

• Database access — Instant access to a database for storage and management.
• Frontend and backend development — Tools to create both frontend interfaces and limited server-side backend functionalities.
• API integration — The capability to integrate with almost any service that provides a RESTful API.
• File management — Features to store and upload files.
• User management system — A built-in yet flexible user management system, including standard flows such as user creation and social media logins.
• Pagination — In-built data pagination, beneficial for most apps.
• Pre-built components — Ready-made web application components, such as navigation bars and footers, that can be easily dragged and dropped.

Just like Pussy Galore stirred up controversies during the 1964 premiere of James Bond’s Goldfinger, mobile apps galore are plaguing the market. Countless poor products are released annually with millions of dollars wasted on their development.

Because it’s one thing to have an idea and quite another to know how (and if) to bring it to life. In other words, a great idea for an app doesn’t necessarily equal a recipe for a successful business. Because a tech product is much more than just an idea — it’s having a two-year runway, business infrastructure, or tech-oriented mindset, just to name a few. But it’s also the question of how much you need to rely on technology to bring the solution to people. In short, do you really need an app?

Are You a Content Creator or a Technical Person?

With social media platforms turning an average Joe into a content creator, many want to monetize their content creation efforts by releasing a mobile app.

Sure, a mobile app can be a lucrative venture, but there are many variables to consider before going down the mobile app development path.

These variables include:

• Should you build an app at all? How else can you monetize what you create?
• Is your app solving a problem by delivering content or giving users a tool to perform an action?
• Do you have enough runway to manage the team to work and maintain the mobile app?
• If you have to build an app to solve user problems, in what technology should you build it?

Let’s take a fitness app as an example. Usually, fitness apps are content driven — they are simply a viewer of data.

Content only

An optimal way to monetize content consumption would be to set up a community on Mighty Networks and share your content there. There’s minimum effort involved in this from the technical side.

Primarily content with some functionality

But if you feel that you have a strong following that would appreciate having a mobile app, you should validate this assumption by using one of the no-code tools. No-code mobile app builders help founders put together a working product that can be shipped to users in weeks (even days).

The upside of building with a no-code solution instead of going custom is that you leave a way to extend the app with features that go beyond content consumption (e.g., food tracking).

Functionality first, content later

But, if the problem your target audience is experiencing can only be solved through technology (for example, you’re delivering a complex CRM mobile product for people on the go), the number of variables drastically increases.

Here’s a three-question approach to making a decision how to best go forward with your idea:

• If your product is content and you want it to stay that way, use Mighty Networks or something similar to deliver the content to your audience effectively at a low cost.
• If your product is content but you might want to add features to it later, use a no-code tool to build a simple infrastructure that can be extended.
• If the core of your idea is to create business logic enabled by tech, you most likely need custom development and a solid business plan with financial backing. Most importantly, though, you need considerable technical knowledge to be able to manage the business and its development effectively.

If the third bullet matches your experience, read on to learn how to further validate this assumption and what custom development often entails. And if you can still choose a different path.

Find out where to find seasoned Flutter developers and how to include them in your next mobile app project.

What to Consider When Hiring Flutter Developers?

Native mobile development experience

Developers without native mobile app development might have gaps in knowledge that can lead to lengthened problem-solving. This can generate more costs and uncertainty if a solution picked by the developer is actually the most effective one. Developers with 3+ years of experience in native app development have a greater understanding of mobile environments and best practices. This helps them find the most optimal solution faster.

Cross-platform experience

For small projects that require only one developer, it’s great to find someone experienced in developing for two platforms: iOS and Android. This way, you’ll be able to release your product for two platforms and have certainty that the developer is familiar with the differences and requirements present on both platforms.

Drive to learn

Flutter is a dynamic technology that’s constantly evolving — you have to follow the news and upgrades to know which solutions work best for specific use cases. That’s why when talking to developers about your project gauge their eagerness and interest in the technology. Flutter is relatively young: not every use case has been explored. Also, while Flutter can be used for web development, there aren't that many libraries available for out-of-the-box integrations.

Why Do You Need an Experienced Flutter App Developer?

It seems like a no-brainer, but experience in native development is hugely important when considering Flutter developers. The development is rarely straightforward — there are always problems of varying complexity bound to crop up. Different issues can surface when inexperienced Flutter developers work on the project.

Here are just some of the possible scenarios:

• New product launch
• Additional maintenance
• Rebuilding the existing software
• Native app into a cross-platform
• Web into mobile (or mobile into web)

All these scenarios have edge cases that require experience to implement well. For example, during a new product launch, it might be wiser to hire a team that consists of a designer, developer, and product manager to validate an idea (by using no-code discovery) before jumping straight into development. That way, you can minimize the risk of spending money on a solution that doesn’t have a problem among your target audience.

Flutter helps you create pixel-perfect digital products that run on multiple platforms from one codebase. To fully leverage the power of cross-platform Flutter development services, the key is to approach the project in a structured yet agile way — positive business outcomes can happen faster when you make decisions supported by data.

Overview of Flutter Product Development Steps

While the product development cadence for Flutter is similar to that of other cross-platform mobile frameworks, Flutter’s flexibility lets developers improve efficiency during all stages of product creation. The code can be reused across platforms to make development and maintenance easier.

Strategy and idea validation

A product strategy helps ensure that the mobile app meets customer needs and is viable in the market. The validation process includes market research, user feedback, and competitor analysis. The results of the validation process will guide the development process. If the product should be available to audiences on different platforms and devices, picking Flutter as the frontend technology will help lower development costs: You can build Flutter apps for mobile, web, and desktop.

Product design workshops

Product design workshops let the team collaborate and discuss product requirements, user experience, and design elements. Workshops help ensure that the product’s UX and UI resonate with target audiences and meet the goals of the project.

During this exploratory part of the project, the team brainstorms to create people-centered designs. The team creates a roadmap for the product and discusses any potential problems that may arise. The workshops also help align stakeholders on the product vision.

Development services

Flutter lets developers create truly stunning digital products. The SDK has a set of customizable widgets and built-in animation support, which make it easy to create beautiful, fast, and responsive user interfaces. Flutter also has a hot reload feature that lets developers see the changes they make to their code in real time, which speeds up developments. A built-in robust testing framework for writing and running unit and integration tests improves the QA process.

But to develop great user experiences in Flutter across all platforms (iOS, Android, and desktop) the Flutter app development company should have native app development skills. This way, the app will have a familiar feel. Each mobile platform (be it iOS or Android) has its own unique set of characteristics and requirements, and using native development techniques ensures that an app will be able to take advantage of the full capabilities of the platform. Experience in developing native apps is crucial.

Product management

Skilled product managers navigate the product backlog through the availability of resources to meet the deadline and budget requirements. Flutter helps product managers communicate better because there’s only one team for the whole product regardless of the platform.

Fewer meetings mean more time for quality development work and the discovery of opportunities.

Quality and assurance

The quality assurance process for Flutter development is similar to that of other mobile app development frameworks. It involves testing the app to ensure that it is functional, reliable, and user-friendly. Testing for performance, usability, or UX lets developers identify any issues and make improvements before the app is released.

Support and maintenance

Support and maintenance services are essential for ensuring the success of a product. Ongoing support and maintenance ensure the product continues to function properly and provides a good user experience.

When providing app maintenance services, it's important to consider the following:

Engagement model

Different businesses have different needs when it comes to support and maintenance services. It's important to choose an engagement model that is tailored to your specific needs and goals. Some common engagement models for support and maintenance services include managed services, where the service provider manages all aspects of the support and maintenance process; and a support-only model, where the service provider provides support and assistance but does not manage the entire process.

Availability and uptime

‍One of the key goals of support and maintenance services is to ensure that your product is always available and functioning properly. This can improve customer satisfaction and drive business growth. When choosing a service provider, it's important to consider their availability and uptime guarantees, as well as their track record of meeting these guarantees.

Dedicated Flutter App Development Services

Flutter app migration from other tech stacks

Flutter can make it easier to manage a team and ship features compared to native app development and many other cross-platform app development technologies. It’s a cost-effective long-term strategy for products intended to be maintained for years. Still, keep in mind that migration is a big endeavor, so before deciding to migrate to Flutter, consider the following:

Compatibility — Is the technology you’re migrating to compatible with the features and functionalities of your existing app? How much effort would it take to write them? Can the technology meet your future scalability and extensibility needs?

Cost — Migrating an app to a new technology can be a costly and time-consuming process, so it's important to weigh the costs and benefits of the migration, in the short and long term.

Support — Will you have the support and resources available for the technology you are migrating to? Is the technology well-established and widely used, with a strong community and robust documentation and support resources? Are skilled developers readily available on the market?

Flutter app upgrades

Upgrading an app to the latest version of Flutter can provide many benefits, including enhanced business continuity, security upgrades, and improved performance. New Flutter releases also come with new features and improvements. To ensure the upgrade doesn’t cause regression or generate bugs, a team should review the app's code to check for potential compatibility issues.

Flutter product consulting services

Flutter product consultants help businesses determine how this cross-platform technology can support business objectives. Working closely with experts, businesses can improve their time-to-market, customer engagement, and business outcomes. With a customized approach to development, product consultants analyze data and conduct experiments to help companies get the most out of their investment in Flutter-based digital products and find opportunities within the target audience’s needs.

Flutter architecture setup

Architecture refers to the overall design and structure of a mobile application. It includes the high-level components and modules of the app, as well as the relationships and interactions between those components. A well-designed architecture is important for several reasons:

Maintainability — A good architecture makes it easier to maintain and update the app over time. This reduces maintenance costs and effort.

Scalability — A well-designed architecture can be scaled efficiently without excessive costs.

Performance — Architecture plays a key part in ensuring a close to native performance of the Flutter application.

Extensibility — A proper mobile app architecture lets developers add features to the app faster with little overhead.

Understanding Flutter’s architecture is another element that helps build the mobile apps architecture with best practices in mind.

Continuous integration (CI)

Continuous integration (CI) is a mobile application development practice where Flutter app developers regularly integrate their code changes into a shared code repository. Automated tools build, test, and validate the changes. Using continuous integration in mobile app development can provide several benefits, including:

Improved code quality — By regularly integrating code changes and running automated tests, developers decrease the likelihood of bugs and other issues, for example, those that affect performance.

Faster feedback — By implementing changes to the code daily, the team can get faster feedback to identify and resolve issues.

Better collaboration — Continuous integration improves collaboration among developers by making it easier to share and integrate code changes.

Today’s software development utilizes many methodologies to facilitate building applications and software solutions. We have Waterfall, Agile, Design Thinking, or Lean Startup as well as their combinations and variations. What are the principles of these methodologies? How do they support software development? Let’s explore the differences between the Waterfall methodology and a combined approach that includes Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile.

Waterfall

The Waterfall approach to software development describes a sequential process for building software—i.e., one step has to be completed before the next can begin.

In the Waterfall methodology, the project scope, outcome, and requirements are documented fully before any development begins. The documents, among many other aspects, include functional specifics, user interfaces, architecture, data structure.

The traditional Waterfall project structure is split into six phases:

1. Requirements and analysis. Collect client requirements pertaining to the product. The information collected during this phase should be enough to validate the product idea and let developers grasp the client’s intended vision of the product. The following is established: budget, risks, completion date, dependencies, and success metrics.
2. Design. Agree on a programming language, specific design elements, system design. Documents produced during this phase will be the framework for the implementation (coding) phase.
3. Implementation. Turn client requirements and design documents into the software.
4. Testing. Test the software for bugs and check if the goals from the requirements document are met.
5. Deployment. Release the software to the client.
6. Maintenance. Fix any problems found once the software has been released to the customers.
   

Benefits

• Better manageability. Because each step is documented and deliverables outlined upfront, it’s easier to manage the project.
• Fixed price and deadline. The cost and delivery date can be determined with a high degree of accuracy.
• Clear instructions. Developers and designers involved in the project know exactly what to do and when to do it. With detailed documentation available, the project can be completed by different teams.

Drawbacks

• Once the development begins, it’s difficult to adapt the project to any changes in requirements or new market insights. Whenever significant changes are needed, the project has to go through the requirement and design phases.
• Requirements don’t always reflect real user needs.
• Because users receive the software only once it’s finished, it’s difficult to gather any actionable feedback beforehand and adjust the product to better align with user needs. This increases the risk of project failure caused by a potential lack of market need or low satisfaction.
• Projects relying on technologies that have frequent release-cycles need to be updated often to reflect the changes. As a result, the estimations in documentation will be less accurate.

Use Cases for Waterfall

Taking into consideration the principles of Waterfall and its resulting pros and cons, this methodology is best for building projects with clear specifications and client requirements. We can think of using Waterfall with projects that are simple, predictable, and well-defined.

For example, the Waterfall approach can be used when adjusting an application to meet specific regulations (e.g., when developing medical systems), or when integrating software with existing infrastructure—e.g., banking systems. In both cases, clear and detailed documentation and specifications are critical to successful project completion.

Here are specific project features that determine if the Waterfall approach is a good fit:

• Product definition is stable.
• Technology is understood.
• There are no ambiguous requirements.
• Ample resources with required expertise are available freely.
• The project is short.

The Need for Different Software Development Methods

The Waterfall methodology has been around for decades, initially serving as an essential and structured approach to software development. In the 1990s, however, the Internet technology began evolving rapidly — the Waterfall approach proved inefficient in the increasingly dynamic and complex environment.

There was a pressing need for software development methods that could address the inefficiencies of Waterfall’s linear approach to building software. As a result of that need and through years of refinement, a combined approach for the entire product development life cycle was created.

The combined approach includes methods and processes that come from different backgrounds to together form a mindset for the adaptive building of products, as opposed to following a rigid project plan.

• Industrial design -> Design Thinking
• Manufacturing -> Lean Startup
• Software development -> Agile
  

Below is a brief description of each and a summary of how they complement one another in the software development paradigm.

Your product’s lifetime value (LTV) depends on the choices made during development and after application release. Continuously improving your product’s LTV means sustainably delivering quality and discovering new customer needs that help grow the user base.

T&M contracts work well for your product’s lifetime value because they give you the flexibility to change project requirements as per your ongoing discovery activities. In other words, when the development starts, the scope isn’t fixed — you can swiftly adapt to trends and emerging customer preferences.

The Benefits of Being Agile in Product Development

Rapid response to changing consumer behaviors

Trends come and go. What was once a lucrative idea for an application, can become irrelevant in a matter of months. The most recent example is how Covid-19 has influenced many areas of living and consumer behavior, e.g., the increase in the use of digital tools.

In T&M contracts, you approach the scope for your product’s features agilely. For example, if halfway into the development you want to include a feature that engages your target audience, it’s easier to implement it.

Daily communication

In T&M, the vendor’s team is almost like your internal staff. You communicate daily, and the team shares status updates.

Daily communication helps talk over any issues or ideas that might crop up. When there’s an opportunity to look for alternative solutions that can cut the development time or otherwise add value to the product, swift communication is key to fast implementation.

Real-time developer suggestions

This one ties in with communication. As the team works on the product, they know it inside out. They can suggest simpler ways to achieve a given goal. Also, when a better solution or a library appears on the market during development, the team gains additional means to decrease development time.

Transparency into development

In agile products with a flexible scope, you’re a part of the project. That said, you can check the progress of your app via project management platforms or move a step forward and ask for a CI/CD approach to see how your app evolves daily.

Whenever you spot an issue, just communicate it to your team so that they can deal with it comprehensively. When the software agency deals with issues poorly or delivers low-quality solutions, you can end the contract before losing any more money.

Financial stability of your partner

T&M contracts ensure cash flow and keep the software agency healthy. It’s the foundation for business continuity that promotes long-lasting partnerships. 

Quality guaranteed with senior developers

When you work in a T&M contract, there's no economically driven reason to exchange the team for less experienced and therefore cut the provider's service cost. You can verify the quality of the code during two-week demo releases, where you check how the product works. Whenever you feel the product underperforms, you can react and, for example, strengthen the team.

Less stress for the development team

With good and frequent communication where the development team acts as a partner who can suggest solutions and features based on their experience, the team becomes more invested in the project. Developers feel they’re doing the right things and doing things right.

Positive relationship dynamics encourage the team to suggest solutions that cut implementation time or improve the product. The team is focused on quality development instead of a fast release to get the buffer.

Ongoing Discovery for a Continuous Product Improvement

A product’s LTV increases the more it continuously delivers high-value functionalities. To ensure your team implements these high-value functionalities, they need to stay in touch with customers during every stage of development.

By employing a variety of methods designed to get to know the end customer better, teams can focus on continuous product improvement and value delivery. These research activities should be part of the development process and decision-making.

Customer interviews bring out valuable insights directly from customers. Rapid prototypes and experiments help introduce these insights and see how they affect a product’s value.

In Waterfall projects, there's little space for experiments when the product is in development. The scope is fixed.

Why Waterfall projects inhibit continuous product improvement

In fixed-price projects, once you do customer preference research before development, this activity rarely gets repeated in the later stages of development.

To be able to continuously deliver value and improve your product to increase its LTV, you need to involve the customer in the decision-making — in an ongoing capacity.

Digital projects are rarely finished with the first release. Take Instagram or Strava for example. Both applications have evolved tremendously over the years, with numerous new features and user interface modifications.

There’s always something that can be improved to deliver new value for the customers. These improvements can be ongoing, without the need for scope reevaluation — think of these improvements occurring every week or even every day.

With proper analytics set up, you see how those tweaks in the product perform.

Being close to the customer lets you discover how they perceive the product — in effect, you can make efficient decision-making where customer input drives the product.