We asked Northern Raised co-founders, Andrew Pottruff and Zack Langlois, about building an app that allows users to browse and purchase grass-fed, naturally-raised meats and fishes and have them delivered. Andrew has a backgrond in digital marketing and is the owner of Oake Marketing. They chose Bubble because the no-code platform offers flexibility and unique customizable needs for their application.
Tell us about your app and what it does.
Our app is a customizable monthly subscription solution for our grass-fed, naturally-raised meats and fish business. This includes a front end ordering system, Stripe payment integration, a user account dashboard wherein the user can manage their subscription status and monthly box selections, as well as an admin dashboard where we can manage orders, customers, analyze LTV, product counts, and more.
How does your app work?
Our app works by allowing users to browse our products, then prompts them with a "delivery zone checker" prior to creating an account and a shopping cart for the user. Once the user's deliverability has been confirmed, the user can add various products to their cart, which requires a minimum $150 order to checkout. Once $150+ worth of products have been added to the cart, the user proceeds to checkout. Upon successful checkout, a new order is created in our database and the user is redirected to his/her account dashboard, where he/she can manage selections for their next upcoming renewal order, change personal, billing, or delivery details, or pause or cancel their monthly plan. Once the original checkout is completed, the user's next renewal date is set and a backend workflow is scheduled to run on their next monthly processing date. This back-end workflow allows us to charge users offline via the user's Stripe payment method and creates a new order based on the existing selections in their cart (still with the $150 minimum order requirement).
Users can browse products and confirm their delivery zone.
Users can add various products to their cart, which requires a minimum $150 order to checkout.
Once $150+ worth of products have been added to the cart, the user proceeds to checkout.
Tell us a little about your background and how you discovered no-code tools like Bubble.
I've been a creative and digital marketer for the past ten years, and have worked with clients in many different industries. I have a background in design, marketing, and have built hundreds of WordPress or eCommerce websites for clients. I stumbled across Bubble on social media and did a lot of research on the rise of no-code. After comparing a few solutions, I landed on Bubble for its substantial customizability and nearly-endless opportunities.
Why did you build your app on Bubble?
I chose to build this app using Bubble due to Bubble's flexibility and the unique customizable needs for this application. I originally started working in Bubble on a relatively similar app concept for a client's meal kit business (just to play around and familiarize myself with Bubble's true potential), and this project for Northern Raised (as well as a co-founder ownership opportunity) fell onto my lap at the perfect time. As I was learning Bubble, this was a great opportunity to really put Bubble and my own creativity to the test.
What have been your milestones or successes so far?
So far we've managed to launch the business to the public using Bubble, which has been a great step forward for us. We originally started with two preconfigured "monthly plans" that allowed for add-on selections each month, but quickly learned our customers wanted to be able to completely customize their box selections -- which forced us to refactor very quickly (within about 3-4 days we had completely refactored the subscription model). Since then, we've integrated SendGrid for transactional email services to handle things like new account creation emails, order confirmation emails, administrative notifications, and more. We've also begun working on a referral program and some new ways to offer promotions by creating "free" items at checkout and unique bundle offers. We've also begun integrating Klaviyo for Email Marketing and are working on further integrating the two together to properly track customer behaviour, interests, and further enhance our understanding of the customer journey.
What are your next steps or future plans for your app?
We are eventually looking to streamline our fulfillment process inside Bubble as well, so that we can automatically place our orders with our farmers and suppliers just after our monthly cut-off date, based on the individual product data and our order counts. We'd also like to eventually add a delivery/shipment tracking integration to the application as well so that we can easily communicate deliveries with our customers and automatically optimize our couriers/routes.
Learn more about Northern Raised: Instagram | Facebook
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.
