Deric McCurry, CEO & Co-Founder of NextbookIt, are focused on putting the power back in the hands of college students with their P2P book selling marketplace. Gated by a .edu email requirement, students are free to buy and sell books with other students across the country. Even without a formal training in programming, Bubble gave McCurry the ability to create his functional app.
Tell us about your app and what it does.
NextbookIt is the college student marketplace made for college students by college students. It’s easy-to-use and makes it simple for students on any campus to buy and sell books exclusively with other students across the country. What separates us from other marketplaces is our focus on college students and the textbook buying and selling process. NextbookIt provides an experience you won't find on Amazon or in the Facebook Marketplace.
How does your app work?
NextbookIt users must be college students with an active .edu email account to sign up. Users can engage in a peer-to-peer marketplace where they can buy books from and sell books to students on their campus or at any college campus across the US. With user verification, payment processing, and shipping integrated into the platform, it is sure to make for an easy-to-user experience for anyone!
Tell us a little about your background and how you discovered no-code tools like Bubble.
I started this company with the idea and some marketing experience with a friend who is a programmer. After encountering a lot of technical problems with our initial hand-coded platform, and my friend leaving the company, I was looking into better long-term solutions to help me reset quickly and scale. I ran across Bubble and NextbookIt was reborn.
Why did you build your app on Bubble?
Even though I am not a formally trained programmer, I was hesitant about the limitations of no-code platforms having experience with WordPress. Bubble turned out to be more than I ever could have imagined and continues to surprise me with it’s in depth functionality – anything I have wanted to build, implement, or integrate I have been able to. I have been so impressed with Bubble and the ability to build for mobile friendly solutions as well. I will definitely be using this for future projects as well.
What have been your milestones or successes so far?
NextbookIt started in January 2019 and the initial prototype received seed funding from a small team of private investment partners in May 2019. The initial beta was released in October 2019. The transition to Bubble began in late-April 2020. The NextbookIt website and app rereleased as a beta in August 2020 and launched in November 2020. So far it has acquired almost 100 users in just a couple of days!
What are your future plans for your app?
NextbookIt hopes to be a go-to resource for college students. We want to know what is helpful and useful for students and move as quickly as possible to meet those needs. As its core, NextbookIt is meant to be a resource that is useful for college students, and that means not limiting it to just books. Buying and selling books is just the beginning and I’m excited to see how we can grow and what our team can accomplish.
Learn more about NextbookIt: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
About Bubble
Bubble is a leader in the no-code movement. Bubble offers a powerful point-and-click web editor and cloud hosting platform that allows users to build fully customizable web applications and workflows, ranging from simple prototypes to complex marketplaces, SaaS products, and more. Over 500,000 users are currently building and launching businesses on Bubble - many have gone on to participate in top accelerator programs, such as Y Combinator, and even raise $365M in venture funding. Bubble is more than just a product. We are a strong community of builders and entrepreneurs that are united by the belief that everyone should be able to create technology.
Do you want your app featured by Bubble? Reach out to us and tell us about your app. In addition to this series, we sometimes select our best apps to showcase on our website.
