Founder Keynote: Scaling What’s Possible With No-Code

BubbleCon 2023 is officially in the books‌ — and between no-code trends and new product announcements, Josh and Emmanuel’s Founder Keynote set the stage for a bright year ahead.

Bubble has grown considerably over the last ten years: With users in nearly every country across the world, and more than 3.3 million apps, Bubble’s backbone is built from our no-code ecosystem. Without your curiosity, hunger, and ambition, we wouldn’t be here today. Bubble is more than a product — it’s a community.

We’re excited to share what’s on the horizon. If you’ve got a few minutes, we encourage you to watch or listen to the replay. If skimming is more your style, scroll below for the most important highlights.

Accelerating, catalyzing, and leveraging trends in the no-code industry

Today, the no-code landscape looks dramatically different than it did when Bubble got our start ten years ago. In particular, there are three themes that stand out when we look at trends across the no-code landscape. We're proud to not only be a driver of these trends, but to lead by example for our community. 

Scale

When Bubble burst onto the scene, the no-code world was nascent and filled with uncertainty. Some thought no-code was only good for building proofs of concept. We had a vision beyond that — we wanted to build a platform that scaled with our users from their MVP all the way to their IPO. 

Synthflow AI is a great example of a company that’s leveraged Bubble for scale. In just six months, they built the initial version of their app on Bubble, grew their business to more than 7,000 users, and raised $1.8 million in a seed round — and they’re just getting started. Plus, they’re interwoven into the Bubble community, offering a Bubble plugin and relying on the forum for customer feedback. Such examples demonstrate the scalability and interconnectedness of the Bubble platform.

As companies like Synthflow AI raise their ambitions, we’re here to support your evolving needs. Growth and expansion demand enhanced security, compliance, control, and reliability. Just last month, we announced Bubble for Enterprise, strengthening our data privacy and SOC 2 Type II compliance standards and controls for startups and large businesses alike.

Artificial Intelligence

One thing is clear to us: No-code + AI is the future of software development.

AI and Bubble share the same vision of enabling all creators to leverage technology and accelerate the development process. We’re excited for new AI tools to enable Bubblers to design sleek web pages, generate Bubble page layouts, and speed up expressions, data, and workflows. The goal is to make software creation faster, more intuitive, and accessible to all, furthering our pledge to the no-code community. 

With over 20,000 AI plugins installed in the last year, we’re committed to serving as a responsible partner for AI entrepreneurs.

Democratization

Democratization lies at the core of Bubble's mission: to make technology accessible to everyone by enabling subject-matter experts to become tech creators, no matter their background or location.

And it’s working: We have ten times as many Bubble users today compared to when we first raised capital, and countries like Brazil, India, and France are some of the largest Bubble communities outside the United States. On Bubble, founders build their dream companies and solutions in less time and with fewer resources. Bubble creates new jobs for creators, communities, and educators, expanding the global economy through opportunity.

One incredible example of democratization is a French non-profit, Mon Project de Naissance. During the COVID pandemic, Jacques Durand, a non-technical person, partnered with Doctor Célia Levavasseur and Noémie Cornélis. They saw that expecting mothers were facing unprecedented childbirth challenges, like limited training before birth and rapid discharges from hospitals. They needed technology that could help, and on a non-profit’s budget. Using Bubble, they built and launched a resource-packed website that addresses new mothers’ most pressing childbirth questions and connects them with each other. Today, this tool has helped more than 30,000 people. 

Mon Project de Naissance is a prime example of the democratizing power of Bubble. Enabling someone to use technology with purpose is exactly why we devote energy to building this platform. 

Product announcements: Supercharging design, data, and logic

What makes Bubble different from other no-code platforms is the way we combine the powers of design, data, and logic. We’re immensely proud to make these creative and strategic levers accessible to Bubblers on a secure, scalable, and reliable platform.

To that end, we we’re investing in making these features more flexible, creative, and intuitive. Good design must be backed up by data. Apps aren’t static — they’re alive, and data is what powers that life. We want you to build apps that are smart and interactive — and that’s where logic comes in. Together, these three areas fuel a robust and healthy Bubble ecosystem. 

With that in mind, here are the top product announcements from BubbleCon 2023’s keynote address:

Building native mobile apps

We’re officially rolling out the #1 feature request we get from the Bubble community: the ability to build a native mobile app on Bubble. Check it out:

Native mobile apps built on Bubble will share the same databases, backend APIs, and logic Bubble has today, and will integrate with your existing web apps. We’re taking the best parts of building with Bubble, and remixing them for mobile. It’s going to feel great — swiping, layer and screen management, device functionality, and more. Plus, you’ll be able to preview your app on your phone while you build. We’ll even help you submit to the App Store(s). 

To get updates on our progress, sign up for the waitlist at bubble.io/mobile. 

AI-powered design, data, and logic

It’s officially coming: We’ve built a system for creating and designing Bubble page layouts with AI. Whether you’re starting a new app or modifying a page in an existing app, this tool will enable you to create fully designed layouts unique to your apps and aspirations, significantly speeding up the design process. 

Seriously, soon you’ll be able to build pages on Bubble in seconds:

Stay tuned for the Bubble AI debut in the first half of 2024.

Bulk data operations

Bubble is committed to making data processing at scale faster and more efficient. Not only have we made two of our core actions — “make changes to a list of things” and “schedule API workflow on a list” — two and 10 times faster, respectively, but we have more speed improvements on the horizon to “delete a list of things.”

Beyond these actions, the new introduction of bulk operations will allow users to run backend workflows on millions of things reliably and cost-effectively. This feature will revolutionize how data is manipulated on the platform, providing performance improvements and enabling builders to achieve what was previously only possible with native code.

A reimagined expression composer

Bubble's visual programming language has already empowered users to build highly customizable apps without writing a single line of code. Now, the team is working to make the logic-building process even more intuitive and powerful. 

This update enhances the flexibility and ease of use for builders by enabling easy editing, automatic parentheses to help visualize expression structure, and better keyboard controls for faster development.

The new expression composer is currently in beta, and we’ll be rolling it out universally in early 2024.

Returning data from custom events

If you’ve been building on Bubble for awhile, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of managing pages with hundreds of events. Custom events let you reuse logic so you can shrink the size of your apps — and custom events that can return data take that to the next level. Soon, you'll be able to add one or more fields to each custom event indicating the names and types of data it can return. You can use a “return data” action to select that data and then access it in the parent workflow by clicking “result of previous action.” The result is cleaner workflow tabs that make apps easier to maintain and organize.

Bubble is at the forefront of empowering builders worldwide, and we couldn’t be happier to have you along for the ride. Here’s to building together.