When RT Bayles, CEO of Floor Authority, couldn’t find the right enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for the growing flooring company, he didn’t settle for a patchwork of inadequate tools — he built his own comprehensive solution on Bubble. Today, that custom app powers Floor Authority’s entire operation, from lead tracking to accounting, enabling the 15-year-old company to hit $24 million in annual revenue with its sights set on reaching $100 million.
“I think Bubble is the future of software,” says RT. “Every business owner should be doing this because it’s affordable, cost-effective, and customizable to their business. Generic software doesn’t make sense after using Bubble.”
“I think Bubble is the future of software... Generic software doesn’t make sense after using Bubble.”
From outdated systems to a custom solution
Floor Authority is a residential flooring company in South Carolina that primarily serves new-construction homes and works with major national builders like PY Homes, DR Horton, and Lennar. After years of frustration with outdated, inflexible ERP systems that weren’t designed for the unique needs of the flooring industry, RT began searching for alternatives.
“We used one system for a long time that was just very dated looking and feeling, and it didn’t seem like they were updating very quickly,” RT explains. “We switched to a different web-based ERP, and it just didn’t work well for us at all.”
During his search for better solutions, RT discovered Bubble and began to wonder if he could build the tools his company needed himself. Although he had some technical inclination, he had no experience in software development. So he took a Bubble bootcamp and got to work.
Partnering on a comprehensive platform tailored for the industry
By January 2022, Floor Authority was running their entire business on the custom-built Bubble app, and RT wanted to shift his main focus back to business operations. He decided to partner with Gold-tier Bubble agency Not Quite Unicorns to take the application to the next level.
“If I had continued doing it, 100% of my time would have been focused on Bubble,” RT says. Working with Not Quite Unicorns has allowed him to continue expanding and improving the platform while focusing on growing his business. “I can put in a task request to the team and they’ll have it done in, a lot of times, 24 hours,” RT says.
Today, thanks to RT’s industry expertise and Not Quite Unicorns’ technical skills, Floor Authority has built an application that serves the business end to end:
- CRM and sales pipeline management: The system provides customized sales pipelines for different verticals, like retail, new-construction custom homes, commercial, and wholesale.
- Quoting system: Floor Authority’s team can create detailed quotes by accessing an extensive product catalog of over 20,000 items.
- Inventory management: The platform delivers complete tracking and purchase order capabilities to manage Floor Authority’s extensive product inventory.
- Accounting module: Users can access full accounting functions, including profit and loss statements and balance sheets, all within the same application.
- Customer database: The system maintains comprehensive customer information centralized in one accessible location.
One of the major advantages of using Bubble was the ability to build a system tailored specifically to the flooring industry’s unique requirements — like handling box quantities and different measurement units (square yards, linear feet, etc.).
“Carpet is sold by the roll or by the square yard or different metrics, and it comes 12 feet wide. So when you’re selling one square foot or one linear foot, it’s 12 square feet. Trying to figure out selling quantities was definitely one of the bigger challenges when looking at out-of-box software,” RT explains.
Supporting $24M in revenue and beyond
With Bubble, the platform has successfully scaled to support the company’s impressive growth to $24 million in annual revenue. “We’ve got our sight set on $100 million,” RT says.
He estimates that this system improves his staff’s productivity by at least 25%, which has allowed them to grow the business by more than 100% without hiring a significant number of additional employees.
RT has even considered offering the system as a SaaS product for other flooring businesses: “I have thought about it. That’s something that maybe down the road we’ll work on. I still think we need to perfect it and continue to work on it internally.” Currently, they’re working on building better communication and task management features to further streamline operations.
Whatever the future holds, RT remains convinced that Bubble and no-code development represent the future of business software.
“The benefit of Bubble is I can build these systems out so unique to my company and the way we do things, where traditional software is built for the masses,” he says. “Being able to build a tool where my team can do everything in one app and do it the way we want it done — I don’t have a number to put on this, but it’s honestly priceless.”
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