The spread of the new coronavirus in 2020 has quickly escalated into a global health pandemic. Brave entrepreneurs and action-takers knew they needed to jumpstart their response to the COVID-19 crisis – and they needed to move fast. Rather than attempt to start projects with expensive teams of developers, these self-starters decided to build their own online tools using “no-code” platforms like Bubble.
What is No Code?
No-code software tools allow people to take their ideas from MVP to fully-fledged web apps and startups in little time and at low cost. No-code platforms like Bubble use easy, drag-and-drop visual workflows to help people capture their business logic without requiring them to write code.
The Bubble team recently announced a limited-time discount pricing plan for anyone building apps to address the coronavirus crisis. Entrepreneurs across the globe stepped up to the task. From volunteer mobilization to small business support sites, these are the best projects built on Bubble that are helping communities affected by the COVID epidemic right now.
GiveLocal - Local Business Gift Cards
About the app: GiveLocal allows users to buy gift cards to their favorite local businesses that are struggling due to economic downturn and mandated shutdowns. Users can select by city and find any participating local businesses in their area. The app gives you links to buy digital gift cards to local restaurants, salons, cafes, bookstores, and more.
Long-time Bubble builder Brent Summers built his local business gift card app on Bubble on March 15, 2020. It took him only three days to launch. Within just one week, GiveLocal was acquired by USA Today and is now known as “SupportLocal.”
Why he built on Bubble: “I got started with Bubble probably in early 2014,” explained Brent. “The thing that makes Bubble so powerful is the speed of development. The number one mistake I see first time entrepreneurs make is they don’t use speed in the right way...they spend months fiddling with their app because they want to get it perfect before launching. I use Bubble’s speed to actually get that advantage when it comes to getting something out there fast.”
RELATED: Hear more from Brent and his incredible success story on our new Bubble Podcast series, The No-Code Hustle. Listen to his episode and subscribe to our series on Spotify, GooglePlay, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.
Wiggle Room - Trusted Childcare Coordination
About the app: Parents in the essential workforce are struggling to find safe, affordable childcare options during the COVID-19 crisis. Wiggle Room allows parents to build their own trusted network of providers and arrange childcare quickly and easily.
Parents can sign up and invite their friends and trusted caregivers into their list of contacts. When parents need to make a childcare request, like picking up kids from daycare, babysitting, or grocery shopping favors, they fill out a request form on the app and select the people they would like to ask. Wiggle Room sends an automatic message on the parents’ behalf and lets people send back yes/no/maybe replies, taking the awkwardness out of initiating requests.
Jaime-Jin Lewis is leading the Workers Need Childcare movement and her app Wiggle Room is made to facilitate collective childcare strategies among friends and family members. Wiggle Room was incubated in the Blue Ridge Labs at Robin Hood.
Why she built on Bubble: “As a non-technical founder, the Bubble platform feels intuitive to work with and the support community is extensive and generous,” said Jaime-Jin. “It gave me peace of mind that I can go in and make changes myself as needs arise, and not have to rely on an outside dev team.”
QueroAjudar - Portuguese Volunteer Network
About the app: QueroAjudar lets Portuguese and Brazilian users affected by the coronavirus quarantine request help from their local communities. Volunteers can sign up to complete help actions and anyone in the area can ask for help by posting a geotagged request.
Ariel Alexandre and Vanessa Caldas, with their team of Brazilian and Portuguese entrepreneurs, decided to build a volunteer network on Bubble. “In two days, I was able to set up the entire structure with integrations,” said Ariel. “On the third day, together with our volunteer team, we put it into production.”
QueroAjudar launched in Portugal on March 20 and now has thousands of volunteers taking action and widespread media coverage from Portuguese news channels. The team’s next steps are launching a local version of QueroAjudar in Brazil.
Why they built on Bubble: “When I heard about the ‘no-code’ movement, I used to imagine something that could not be fully customized,” said Ariel. “But when I started using the Bubble, I realized I could have a fully customized experience and make that for my users too. I've used Bubble for other projects of mine, and was able to build quickly by using the many plugins available in the Bubble community.”
ImmuneCorps - Health-Conscious Helpers
About the app: ImmuneCorps is a good samaritan collaboration built on the idea of doing the best we can with the low-risk helping the high-risk. ImmuneCorps is built by a team from Republic and Zeroqode, advised by AngelList founder Naval Ravikant. Volunteers can sign up using their Facebook accounts and offer services like dog walking, grocery shopping, pharmacy and housework. People can request these services based on their ZIP code. Currently, the app is live in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Basic needs like picking up prescriptions and grocery shopping can become life-threatening in a pandemic. According to the team behind ImmuneCorps, “the serology tests we need to determine if people have had the virus are rolling out, but it will be weeks (if not months) before we know how long-lasting or strong the immune response for recovery is.” Long term, ImmuneCorps hopes to form an immune “volunteer army” to aid afflicted and high-risk communities. For now, ImmuneCorps connects low-risk volunteers with at-risk people to help the latter with essential services.
Why they built on Bubble: “Bubble was the easiest and most complete solution we could find to get the platform up and running in a matter of mere days. People needed help now. The ability to build straightforward flows with a clean interface and integrate with social media will allow the platform to reach the masses in a much shorter time frame.”
1000 Ideas for Kids - Crowdsourced Fun Activities
About the app: 1000 Ideas for Kids helps parents crowdsource ideas to keep kids busy while they are stuck at home all day. Anyone can post an “idea,” and other people can vote on their favorite ideas, creating a ranking system for posts. So far, the website has garnished hundreds of submissions, so it's well on its way to having 1,000 ideas for kids.
Remote learning and daycare for young children have been a real challenge during the COVID-19 crisis. Shawn Gibson, Director of HR Operations at a Canadian IT advisory firm, built his site to help people share fun ideas for keeping their kids engaged and occupied around the house.
Why he built on Bubble: “Bubble was my only choice to build this web app. I'm not a programmer and I needed a way to get the web app built in two days with the help of a fellow bubbler Jacob Gershkovich,” explained Shawn. “Bubble's platform was perfect for this project due to its low cost, no coding required, and easy-to-use visual interface, letting me build a web app in a short amount of time. I plan to build many more web apps using Bubble's platform.”
About Bubble
Bubble is a powerful platform for building web apps and online businesses, letting users create custom online web tools with no code, using easy drag-and-drop features and integrated plugins. Bubble began in 2012 and recently grew to a $6m venture-backed company. Bubble seeks to empower all business users – from non-technical startup founders to small business owners to team managers at large companies – to build solutions simply, affordably, and quickly.
The Bubble team is based in NYC and has seen firsthand the effects of the coronavirus crisis on people’s lives and work; we want to show our solidarity and support to everyone in this unprecedented time.
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