How Emmanuel Straschnov created a new market and grew Bubble to 3M+ users

Over a decade ago, Emmanuel Straschnov saw a market gap and jumped on it, essentially creating a new category — a no-code segment within the development industry.

Today, his product, Bubble, is a household name among indie hackers and serves over 3M users.

I caught up with him to understand how he did it. Here's what he had to say. 👇

Stumbling upon the idea

I ventured into entrepreneurship later than many of my peers and without a background in technology. But I don't regret my unconventional path — it equipped me with a broad perspective and adaptability, which have been crucial in navigating the startup world.

When I eventually got started, it all happened very quickly.

It was 2012. I had just graduated from business school. The startup era was taking off. Many domain experts lacked the coding skills to build their products, so they were all searching for CTOs.

I knew the pain. I had been hanging out at the neighboring engineering school to meet possible technical cofounders.

Then, I met Josh. I was about to say yes to a full-time job, but we had our first coffee the day prior to the expiration of the job offer and he pitched the idea to me. We decided to build Bubble together right then and there!

I wouldn’t say this is the way people should do it, but in our case, it worked out great.

Skipping validation

Josh had seen an opportunity — a gap in the market. And we both believed that, as technology became more integral to our lives, the demand for no-code solutions would grow.

We didn’t validate the idea through a rigorous process. We were confident that simplifying coding would be inherently valuable, despite early skepticism from others. And we had conviction because we knew democratizing software development could unleash a wave of innovation. 

Some might say it was risky for me to turn down the job without even having a validated product, but I don’t think so. That's the benefit of being bootstrapped — we had the flexibility to explore and validate as we went without fear of disappointing investors.

The real validation came when we secured our first paying customers and saw them successfully using Bubble to build their applications. And later, when users started recommending Bubble to others and even building on behalf of the ecosystem, we knew we were onto something meaningful.

Learning to code

I'm a firm believer in having a solid, robust product before you start marketing. For a product as technical as Bubble, both founders needed to be working on the product, so I learned to code.

I knew a bit about it already. My initial coding experience came as a teenager under MS-DOS and Windows 95, and I studied some computer science in college. But Josh really became my teacher. And I supplemented that with books.

We avoided popular frameworks like React and Angular. However, we leverage open-source projects where applicable. Specifically, our backend is built on Node.js, and our database runs on Postgres.

The biggest benefit of learning to code was that it helped me build a lot of empathy for our customers who were faced with similar tradeoffs. That’s why we were building Bubble — so that people didn’t have to go through with learning to code to start their businesses.

Eventually, I transitioned out of code. These days, I focus on strategic leadership, hiring the right team, making sure everyone is aligned, and exploring new growth opportunities. It's incredibly rewarding.

Building Bubble

Bubble operates within the no-code segment of the development industry. It's a programming platform that enables anyone to build and launch applications without needing to write code.

Rather than specializing in one or two aspects of development, like designing landing pages or building databases, Bubble’s full-stack interface does it all. That means anyone from first-time entrepreneurs to enterprise-level companies can take an idea from concept to fully functional, scalable reality — faster and cheaper than you could with just code. 

Our business model is subscription-based, offering various pricing tiers to meet the diverse needs of our users. We also provide a free plan for users to explore the platform, with the option to upgrade to paid plans for additional features, capacity, and support.

Additionally, we generate revenue through our marketplace, where users can purchase templates, plugins, and services created by other Bubble users, fostering a vibrant ecosystem that enhances the platform's functionality.

We don't share specifics about revenue, but I can say that we're making between $20M and $100M revenue per year.

Doing things that don't scale

Though we took funding five years in, we bootstrapped Bubble initially. Our savings from previous jobs allowed us both to work full time while building the MVP.

Within six months, we secured our first paying customers, and after a year, our revenue covered most of our costs, allowing us to take modest salaries.

During this time, we did things that didn't scale at all. I would spend at least an hour a day on Skype, screensharing with our first customer's developer to understand what they were trying to achieve and figure out the best way to do it.

This kind of thing is a very powerful way to make sure you’re building something that works for users... as long as your first users are representative of the persona you’re building for. 

Avoid launching too soon

I believe it can be a mistake to launch publicly — i.e. on Product Hunt, TechCrunch, etc.— too early. While early user feedback is valuable, a well-timed, impactful launch can make a significant difference. Premature visibility often fails to translate into effective user conversion.

Taking the time to refine your product and strategy can lead to a more successful and sustainable growth trajectory.

But it's important to note that “launching” is really different from putting your product in front of customers. In the early days, getting high-quality feedback is critical and you have to put your product in front of people to get it. 

We got our first major exposure in October, 2015 through ProductHunt, but we started getting paying customers in 2012. My view is that until you have a stable product, fewer customers with more in-depth feedback is better than many customers with shallow feedback.

Once you consistently see genuine enthusiasm, your product effectively solves a real problem, and you have a clear strategy for marketing, support, and scaling, you’re ready to launch to a wider audience.

First-mover advantage

One of our biggest advantages was that we were early — we were among the first to market in the no-code space. We started over a decade ago.

This gave us the time we needed to to build credibility, establish a strong brand, grow an enthusiastic community, refine our product, and build a strong foundation for growth.

With that said, it was difficult creating a new category. I think every founder faces a degree of skepticism as they take their first version to customers for feedback, to some degree. But this was next level.

We had to educate the market. Many people couldn’t grasp the idea that complex applications could be built without traditional coding. Not to mention that the technical community, or traditional coders, often viewed WYSIWYG solutions with suspicion, doubting they could match what could be done with code.

So we focused on refining our product, expanding what it could do, educating the market, and slowly but surely, the community started to see the benefits of no-code development. 

Finding his first users via meetups

Another challenge of being early was that there were technological constraints that we don't have today. But our approach to early growth helped with this.

Back in 2012, New York was full of domain experts trying to launch a venture and looking for tech cofounders to help them build the product. They would go to meetups to match technical and non-technical founders.

That’s where we found our first users. They couldn’t find a tech cofounder, but they found us.

The fact this was done in person was really helpful. It created the necessary trust and, since they were in New York, we were able to meet in person often to refine the product when they hit limitations

Organic early-stage growth

We didn’t invest in marketing until 2019. For the first seven years, we prioritized product development and community building.

Our strategy was to create a product that people loved and let organic growth through word-of-mouth drive initial adoption. This approach allowed us to refine Bubble based on real user feedback and build a loyal user base without significant marketing spend. 

Our strategy focused on creating an exciting product and fostering a community through the Bubble Forum. This sounds cheesy, but building something that users feel emotionally connected to because they have friends they’ve made or their requested feature was built into the product — that is the best way to get users at first.

Later-stage growth

By the time we decided to invest in marketing, we had a mature product and a strong community, making our marketing efforts more effective.

These days, we invest in content marketing, community, product marketing, education, paid advertising, and partnerships with influencers in the tech and startup communities. We’ve also focused on enhancing our website and onboarding experience to convert visitors into active users more effectively.

Content marketing and partnerships have been the most successful by far. They drive high-quality traffic and engagement. Paid advertising has been hit and miss; while it brings in leads, the conversion rate varies, highlighting the importance of targeting and messaging.

One of my favorite marketing initiatives has been our user conference, BubbleCon. We did it for the first time last year. It was incredible to see people from all over the world who had become close on the forum meet in person for the first time. I’m excited to be doing it again in October. 

When it comes to marketing strategies, it's really just about continuous experimentation and optimization.

Building a community

Our community started as a simple forum in 2015. Fostering community in the Bubble Forum has been a cornerstone of our strategy.

I used to spend my evenings responding to each post. It allowed me to get really close with many of our users and those are relationships that I value to this day. 

After a few months, I started seeing people responding to each other, helping each other, sometimes arguing (in a nice way!) about the best solution to their challenges. This surprised me — it underscored the importance of the community and the significance of what we were building.

Today, we drive engagement by recognizing and rewarding active contributors, highlighting user success stories, and aiming to keep the forum a valuable resource for learning and support.

Turning a community into a ecosystem

That community has now evolved into an ecosystem. And it's all thanks to our marketplace, which we launched in 2016.

Not only are apps and templates being built on the platform, but agencies have been stood up that sell Bubble Development services. So members are starting businesses and bringing new people into the ecosystem via those businesses.

This has created a super valuable flywheel effect, as our community is invested in our growth. And beyond the obvious economic benefit, it also expanded the value proposition of Bubble beyond the core product. 

All that said, creating a marketplace won't be as helpful for every product. it becomes helpful when your product has a robust user base actively seeking more features, and when your platform can support third-party contributions without compromising quality. Additionally, the product needs to be versatile enough to be able to benefit from third-party enhancements.

Incentivizing word of mouth

Beyond the forum, we incentivize word-of-mouth growth through customer success stories, referral programs, and showcasing user achievements. Highlighting real-world examples of what users have built with Bubble inspires others and demonstrates the platform’s potential. 

We also invest in educational content, such as tutorials and webinars, to help users get the most out of Bubble. Satisfied users who see tangible results from their efforts are naturally inclined to share their positive experiences with others, driving organic growth.

The future of Bubble

From here, our vision for Bubble is to be the go-to platform for anyone looking to build applications, whether they are early-stage founders, corporate employees creating internal tools, or engineers developing new features. AI will play a significant role in this vision, enhancing Bubble's capabilities to make it an even faster and more intuitive tool for a broader audience.

We are also exploring partnerships and integrations that can further extend Bubble’s functionality and reach, making it an indispensable tool in the digital landscape. 

Parting advice

Just start building!

With tools like Bubble, you can quickly launch your product and acquire users with minimal investment. There’s no excuse not to try something out. 

You can watch my journey on LinkedIn and X. And check out Bubble!