Lessons from building a fintech startup with no-code

Hi all,

Thought I'd share a few insights on the rationale behind launching a startup using Bubble and the transition to a coded stack:

Idea: Google Analytics for Personal Finance - not only account aggregation but in depth portfolio analysis, forecasting and tax planning across asset classes & countries.

Site: https://www.strabo.app

Starting with 2 non-technical founders, we faced the decision to either spend time searching for a CTO or learn Bubble - what we quickly realised was that a combination of the two was most suitable. While simple data handling is fairly straightforward on Bubble, it would quickly reach limitations for a platform where each user had a number of APIs feeding their account.

We spent a couple of weeks upskilling on Bubble and actually used the help of a no-code agency for some of the back end, in order to get a workable prototype to launch to 150 people. This took probably 6-8 weeks end to end.

Advantages:

💻 We could get something out there and in people's hands super fast to start collecting feedback for a full launch.

⏰ It also bought us the time to be able to conduct a proper search for a CTO to shepherd the transition over to a coded platform for a full launch. This decision then didn't have to be rushed as we had progress ongoing in the background

💰 It was much easier to raise a pre-seed round with a demonstrable product with people using it and demand, than even advanced mockups

👫 We got access to a super engaging no-code community! There aren't many fintech startups building with no-code, likely due to the same data ceiling we had, so we garnered a reasonable amount of interest and could swap stories with other founders

Disadvantages:

🧩 Very little reusable material for V2 of the platform - given that we had new designs done, it was pretty much different in every way and had to be started from scratch

🪲 Bugs are to be expected, but they seemed to pop up more often than expected, and we found difficulty having enough consistency in charts and data display to be able to feel confident charging $$ for the no-code version of the platform.

Overall, it's a super fast way to get even a relatively complicated product to market, but can reach limitations, especially as many of the platforms are still in their infancy. Certain aspects of the company remain no-code, including our Website (built with Webiny), and our signup flow (built with Zapier), and I would imagine this will remain the case for the forseeable future. The combination of no-code and code is a powerful one, and I'd be more than happy to discuss how we used a no-code MVP to raise our round.

Finally, you can read a little bit more about the process from our feature on Makerpad - https://www.makerpad.co/posts/how-two-entrepreneurs-built-a-thriving-fintech-business-on-bubble

Let me know if I've missed anything out!