No-Code as Leverage — Interview with Emmanuel Straschnov, CEO & Co-Founder of Bubble

WEBVTT
00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:05.019
I think there is this idea sometimes that to
00:00:05.019 --> 00:00:06.519
be a tech entrepreneur you need to be a tech
00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:09.000
person and you need to have been knowledgeable
00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:11.179
about tech. I'm actually not sure that's true.
00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:14.080
I think, you know, what makes a marketplace for
00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:16.059
a specific vertical work very well is usually
00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:18.059
because you have a deep understanding on that
00:00:18.059 --> 00:00:20.199
marketplace, you know how it's happening offline,
00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:22.940
and you see an opportunity to make it more efficient
00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:25.120
digitally. And so where I've seen the most success
00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:27.079
is, yeah, people with a deep domain expertise,
00:00:27.500 --> 00:00:29.609
people that do want... at the same time even
00:00:29.609 --> 00:00:31.449
though the non -technical initially to get deep
00:00:31.449 --> 00:00:33.990
in the product and really build it and think
00:00:33.990 --> 00:00:36.070
about you know having a lot of empathy for their
00:00:36.070 --> 00:00:38.630
users it often comes back to the domain expertise
00:00:38.630 --> 00:00:45.520
and knowing who you're building for. Hello and
00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:47.799
welcome to the Exponential Scale podcast, the
00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:50.060
show where we talk about how tiny teams with
00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:52.500
big ambitions are doing more with less, scaling
00:00:52.500 --> 00:00:54.979
smarter, not harder, and building big businesses
00:00:54.979 --> 00:00:57.020
with teams that can fit around a dinner table.
00:00:57.479 --> 00:00:59.719
I'm your host Ron Schmelzer, and on today's episode,
00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:01.859
we're talking with Emmanuel Strushnov, who is
00:01:01.859 --> 00:01:05.700
the CEO and co -founder of Bubble .io. Hi, Emmanuel.
00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:08.159
Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank
00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:10.090
you for having me. It's great to be here. Yeah,
00:01:10.209 --> 00:01:12.209
I'm really excited. I've been following the bubble
00:01:12.209 --> 00:01:14.829
story for a while, and I was a bubble user for
00:01:14.829 --> 00:01:18.629
quite some time. I built a CRM application on
00:01:18.629 --> 00:01:22.989
bubble in 2015, I think. Very early on, actually.
00:01:23.370 --> 00:01:25.969
Yes. Back when I think when loops were working,
00:01:26.310 --> 00:01:28.670
but something else fundamental wasn't. But it
00:01:28.670 --> 00:01:32.069
was good. It was good to make something work.
00:01:32.150 --> 00:01:34.069
Even though I'm a coder, there's times when you
00:01:34.069 --> 00:01:37.670
just don't want to code. So bubble was very helpful
00:01:37.670 --> 00:01:39.819
in that. And actually, maybe that's a good way
00:01:39.819 --> 00:01:41.959
to get started here. So, you know, Bubble, for
00:01:41.959 --> 00:01:43.599
those of you that are not familiar, they're like
00:01:43.599 --> 00:01:46.819
the OG of low -code and no -code app development.
00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.200
And what does that even mean if you're sort of
00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:51.400
hearing that for the first time, which I'm surprised
00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:53.599
if you are, but that's okay. Many people do hear
00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:55.799
these terms for the first time. You know, for
00:01:55.799 --> 00:01:58.760
most of human history, if you had an idea for
00:01:58.760 --> 00:02:01.540
a software product, you had basically three options.
00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:05.120
One, learn to code. Two, hire somebody who knew
00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:07.700
how to code. Or three, Well, kind of give up
00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:10.020
because that really was it. The cost of entry
00:02:10.020 --> 00:02:13.759
to building software was engineering teams, six
00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:16.060
-figure runways, and at least two years before
00:02:16.060 --> 00:02:19.620
you had anything worth showing anyone. But then
00:02:19.620 --> 00:02:22.259
things really started changing. A couple of guys
00:02:22.259 --> 00:02:24.259
in New York decided that the whole system was
00:02:24.259 --> 00:02:27.000
broken and that required people not learning
00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:29.300
some arcane language just to bring their ideas
00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:32.759
to life. But that they spent seven years with
00:02:32.759 --> 00:02:35.180
the beginning with no outside capital really
00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:37.400
brought provide writing a solution, an antidote.
00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:41.340
So today, one person with a laptop and a bubble
00:02:41.340 --> 00:02:44.159
account can build a SaaS product, launch it,
00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:47.580
charge real customers, and scale it to millions
00:02:47.580 --> 00:02:49.180
in revenue. And we'll hear a little bit about
00:02:49.180 --> 00:02:52.180
that in this episode without writing a single
00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:54.340
line of code. And that's not a hypothetical.
00:02:54.419 --> 00:02:57.060
It's happening right now. thousands of times
00:02:57.060 --> 00:03:00.719
over and on the platform, my guest built. So
00:03:00.719 --> 00:03:03.340
we're now in this era now, if you've been following
00:03:03.340 --> 00:03:06.500
along in the story of AI, which continues to
00:03:06.500 --> 00:03:09.060
rapidly emerge where people talk about single
00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:11.520
prompt vibe coding, and that might sound like
00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:13.479
a bit of we've been here, done that, but it's
00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:16.439
really not that easy. So this is the leverage
00:03:16.439 --> 00:03:18.659
first angle I want, and I want to get the perspective
00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:21.740
of our guest who's been in this space for longer
00:03:21.740 --> 00:03:24.139
than, well, pretty much any vibe coder in this
00:03:24.139 --> 00:03:27.139
space. So I want you to Hold in your head this
00:03:27.139 --> 00:03:29.900
conversation. What bubble unlocked isn't just
00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:33.139
easier software. It's the elimination of an entire
00:03:33.139 --> 00:03:35.659
category of headcount from the founding equation.
00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:38.960
You don't need a CTO, no dev team, no 18 month
00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:41.460
runway before you ship. That's what we call scale
00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:44.300
maxing at the infrastructure level. That's exactly
00:03:44.300 --> 00:03:48.139
what our guests has been building for 14 years.
00:03:48.939 --> 00:03:50.960
So, we want to welcome you. So, Emmanuel, thank
00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:52.800
you so much for sharing your insights with our
00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:55.289
audience. Yeah. Again, thank you very much. That
00:03:55.289 --> 00:03:57.729
was a great summary, actually, I think, of what
00:03:57.729 --> 00:04:00.150
we've been doing for a decade now. Well, that's
00:04:00.150 --> 00:04:02.349
fantastic. And we'll provide some stats as well.
00:04:02.370 --> 00:04:03.849
But maybe let's start with your introduction.
00:04:03.949 --> 00:04:09.330
Tell us what was the spark that basically suggested,
00:04:09.330 --> 00:04:11.729
I need to focus on this area of low -code no
00:04:11.729 --> 00:04:12.909
-kit. And then we'll talk a little bit about
00:04:12.909 --> 00:04:14.710
some of your success that you've had to date.
00:04:15.530 --> 00:04:18.170
Yeah. So as you said, 14 years. We started in
00:04:18.170 --> 00:04:21.240
2012. We didn't start the company thinking, when
00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:23.279
I say with Josh and I, and it was just the two
00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:25.660
of us for actually quite some time because we
00:04:25.660 --> 00:04:27.600
bootstrapped and auto -financed the business
00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:29.199
for quite some, for a few years before raising
00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:31.839
money. So when we started back in 2012, the goal
00:04:31.839 --> 00:04:33.639
was not, hey, let's start a no -code platform
00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:35.720
and no -code tool. But we really started from
00:04:35.720 --> 00:04:38.519
like a business and I could almost say like a
00:04:38.519 --> 00:04:41.279
social problem that we were seeing, like, and
00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:42.639
our social mission is something that is still
00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:44.540
very important for us as a business, as a company.
00:04:44.959 --> 00:04:47.920
And the problem was that there were back in 2012,
00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:50.399
In New York in particular, where we started,
00:04:50.459 --> 00:04:51.899
it was everywhere in the world, but in New York
00:04:51.899 --> 00:04:54.180
in particular, something about, you know, oh,
00:04:54.180 --> 00:04:56.399
I need a CTO to build my startup. That was the
00:04:56.399 --> 00:04:58.600
beginning of the startup era. You know, Facebook
00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:01.199
was about to go public. That was really kind
00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:03.600
of the beginning of people feeling like there
00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:06.560
was an opportunity to take some problems and
00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:09.660
move them to the digital space and get more efficiency
00:05:09.660 --> 00:05:12.600
that way. And so obvious examples Airbnb, you
00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:15.420
know, being able to. Having someone in your house
00:05:15.420 --> 00:05:17.500
and paying a fee was something that existed before,
00:05:17.699 --> 00:05:19.680
but Airbnb made it the bed and breakfast, right?
00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:22.660
But Airbnb moved that online and therefore was
00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:25.379
able to create a new category. And the problem
00:05:25.379 --> 00:05:28.100
that we were seeing that was both business and
00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:29.639
social is that it was very expensive to build
00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:31.519
a product, in particular in New York, where you
00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:34.480
had a lot of dominant experts, but that didn't
00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:36.480
have the technical skills. And the reason I'm
00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:38.500
saying it was a social problem is that we felt
00:05:38.500 --> 00:05:41.660
like the tech space was being basically close
00:05:41.660 --> 00:05:43.620
to people that hadn't been fortunate enough to
00:05:43.620 --> 00:05:45.860
be exposed to good as young kids and you basically
00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:48.980
had two ways to be exposed to as young kids one
00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:50.959
was you know your parents give you a book because
00:05:50.959 --> 00:05:53.199
back then it was more books about programming
00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:55.699
or one of your parents was a programmer and therefore
00:05:55.699 --> 00:05:57.839
they taught you as a kid or your best friend
00:05:57.839 --> 00:05:59.759
from high school because randomly on the first
00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:02.220
day of school you sat next to someone was a technical
00:06:02.220 --> 00:06:04.199
person and therefore when you had an idea ten
00:06:04.199 --> 00:06:05.819
years later you could go to that friend to be
00:06:05.819 --> 00:06:08.040
your CTO or your technical co -founder and we
00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:11.379
felt was just very unfair And so the initial
00:06:11.379 --> 00:06:13.819
idea spark for the business was like, look, we
00:06:13.819 --> 00:06:16.519
have this crowd of people that are smart. They're
00:06:16.519 --> 00:06:18.839
driven. They're hardworking. They want to start
00:06:18.839 --> 00:06:21.800
a business. They're as motivated as it gets.
00:06:22.259 --> 00:06:24.100
And they struggle because they just haven't been
00:06:24.100 --> 00:06:25.819
exposed to code. But they're really much, they
00:06:25.819 --> 00:06:27.279
have the product vision. They know what they
00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:29.259
want to create here. They just don't know how
00:06:29.259 --> 00:06:31.040
to put, how to write the different if, then,
00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:32.879
else and the commas and everything in the code.
00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:35.040
And we're like, there has to be a way for these
00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:37.100
people to build the product themselves. And so
00:06:37.100 --> 00:06:39.810
that's eventually became what as you said, like
00:06:39.810 --> 00:06:42.329
the OG of no code. But so effectively what it
00:06:42.329 --> 00:06:45.170
is, it's a graphic interface where people can
00:06:45.170 --> 00:06:48.350
build complicated products. It's important to
00:06:48.350 --> 00:06:50.209
keep that in mind because back in 2012, you could
00:06:50.209 --> 00:06:51.930
build websites, but we're not talking about websites.
00:06:52.069 --> 00:06:54.470
It's really web applications. So in the same
00:06:54.470 --> 00:06:57.029
sense that Airbnb .com or Facebook .com are web
00:06:57.029 --> 00:06:59.629
applications, not just websites. And you can
00:06:59.629 --> 00:07:03.129
do that after some learning. takes a few hours
00:07:03.129 --> 00:07:05.009
to learn. It has nothing to do with learning
00:07:05.009 --> 00:07:06.990
how to code. And then we host everything on our
00:07:06.990 --> 00:07:09.310
platform because the vision is if you can build
00:07:09.310 --> 00:07:11.050
your product without code, you shouldn't have
00:07:11.050 --> 00:07:12.850
to deal with DevOps and servers and everything.
00:07:13.009 --> 00:07:15.269
And so everything is battery included. Yeah,
00:07:15.269 --> 00:07:17.589
that's really fantastic. Well, you may be hearing
00:07:17.589 --> 00:07:19.589
that Emmanuel has an accent because he studied
00:07:19.589 --> 00:07:22.629
in Paris as well as Harvard. And I'm French,
00:07:22.829 --> 00:07:25.730
actually. And he's French. There you go. didn't
00:07:25.730 --> 00:07:27.910
just move there for the school, and Harvard Business
00:07:27.910 --> 00:07:29.550
School, and you heard a little bit about its
00:07:29.550 --> 00:07:32.209
founder, right? It started in 2012 at Josh House,
00:07:32.769 --> 00:07:34.329
and what followed, just to give you an idea kind
00:07:34.329 --> 00:07:36.490
of how this has progressed, kind of where are
00:07:36.490 --> 00:07:40.110
we now, after taking with seven years of bootstrapping,
00:07:40.329 --> 00:07:42.629
they did raise around 100 million Series A in
00:07:42.629 --> 00:07:47.110
2021, but now they have over five million registered
00:07:47.110 --> 00:07:50.910
users, and companies that have started on bubble
00:07:50.910 --> 00:07:55.439
have generated over $1 billion in revenue. Just
00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:58.259
last year. Oh, that's even better. So a billion
00:07:58.259 --> 00:08:00.620
dollars just in the last year in 2025. That's
00:08:00.620 --> 00:08:03.720
right. That's fantastic. That's actually the
00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:07.600
metric I'm the proudest of because our goal is
00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:09.800
really to unlock opportunities and unlock economic
00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:11.980
value for some people that didn't have access
00:08:11.980 --> 00:08:15.259
to company creation and application creation
00:08:15.259 --> 00:08:17.439
in the past. And so this billion dollars of revenue
00:08:17.439 --> 00:08:21.699
is a very good metric to highlight this. Yeah,
00:08:21.699 --> 00:08:25.610
and that'd be great to even figure out, Of those
00:08:25.610 --> 00:08:26.910
those people who are joining the billion that
00:08:26.910 --> 00:08:28.910
what what patterns are you saying? Like who are
00:08:28.910 --> 00:08:32.049
the ones who are having the most success? Maybe
00:08:32.049 --> 00:08:34.710
what kinds of applications are you seeing really,
00:08:34.710 --> 00:08:38.149
you know gaining the most traction? Maybe provide
00:08:38.149 --> 00:08:40.730
some insights if you can into to the that market.
00:08:40.750 --> 00:08:43.519
Yeah Yeah, I mean, it's hard to tell because
00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:45.320
we have millions of applications running. But
00:08:45.320 --> 00:08:47.980
in general, what I've seen people working the
00:08:47.980 --> 00:08:50.500
best is back to the origin of origin story I
00:08:50.500 --> 00:08:52.940
was sharing a minute ago is really people with
00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:55.320
a deep domain expertise, not necessarily coming
00:08:55.320 --> 00:08:57.620
from the tech space. Actually, I think there
00:08:57.620 --> 00:08:59.340
is this idea sometime that to be a tech entrepreneur,
00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:01.159
you need to be a tech person and you need to
00:09:01.159 --> 00:09:04.009
have been. Knowledgeable about tech i'm actually
00:09:04.009 --> 00:09:06.629
not sure that's true i think you know what makes
00:09:06.629 --> 00:09:09.370
marketplace for specific vertical work very well
00:09:09.370 --> 00:09:11.129
is usually because you have a deep understanding
00:09:11.129 --> 00:09:13.309
on that marketplace you know how it's happening
00:09:13.309 --> 00:09:16.029
offline and you see an opportunity to make it
00:09:16.029 --> 00:09:18.169
more efficient digitally and so where i've seen
00:09:18.169 --> 00:09:20.210
the most success is yeah people with a deep domain
00:09:20.210 --> 00:09:23.090
expertise people that do want. At the same time
00:09:23.090 --> 00:09:24.870
even though the non -technical initially to get
00:09:24.870 --> 00:09:27.610
deep in the product and really build it and think
00:09:27.610 --> 00:09:29.700
about you know. having a lot of empathy for their
00:09:29.700 --> 00:09:32.240
users, it often comes back to the domain expertise
00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:35.100
and knowing who you're building for. And then
00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:36.700
one of the things that is pretty special about
00:09:36.700 --> 00:09:38.539
Double is that it's extremely global. I think
00:09:38.539 --> 00:09:41.940
we have paying users in virtually every country
00:09:41.940 --> 00:09:44.399
of the world. And we've seen tremendous growth
00:09:44.399 --> 00:09:46.039
in some countries that you would not expect,
00:09:46.100 --> 00:09:47.940
like Brazil, for instance, is a country where
00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:52.240
we see a ton of traction. Japan, Indonesia, France,
00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:54.779
and UK. I mean, of course, the US is our biggest
00:09:54.779 --> 00:09:58.039
country, but It's not like 80 % of our revenue,
00:09:58.240 --> 00:09:59.960
because we have people a little bit everywhere.
00:10:00.299 --> 00:10:03.179
And so it's been great to see how economically
00:10:03.179 --> 00:10:07.080
different regions have different growth and different
00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:08.960
types of businesses being built on them. Yeah,
00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:11.100
that's really interesting. Yeah, as you mentioned
00:10:11.100 --> 00:10:13.440
over Hunt, a million, five million registered
00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:16.200
users. So there's lots of apps on the platform.
00:10:17.179 --> 00:10:20.220
Do you have any examples of some which were maybe
00:10:20.220 --> 00:10:22.220
even some surprising ones? Or like, oh, this
00:10:22.220 --> 00:10:25.259
app is really much more successful than you might
00:10:25.259 --> 00:10:28.360
have expected, or maybe the kinds of apps like
00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:31.860
these e -commerce apps, or these more marketplace
00:10:31.860 --> 00:10:34.120
networking style, yeah. It's more marketplace
00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:36.519
and SaaS than e -commerce because usually Bubble
00:10:36.519 --> 00:10:39.100
is very powerful and you can do e -commerce stuff
00:10:39.100 --> 00:10:42.259
with platforms that are less powerful, like Shopify
00:10:42.259 --> 00:10:44.720
is usually enough, for instance. An example,
00:10:44.799 --> 00:10:46.259
one of the apps that is really the fastest in
00:10:46.259 --> 00:10:48.080
Brazil, I was talking about Brazil a minute ago,
00:10:48.379 --> 00:10:51.419
is some kind of a stub hub. the competitor, but
00:10:51.419 --> 00:10:53.519
for Brazil, you know, we can buy tickets to events
00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:55.360
and ensure everything's the tickets are real,
00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:57.779
like manage the payment and everything. I've
00:10:57.779 --> 00:10:59.860
been going very quickly. Another example in Brazil
00:10:59.860 --> 00:11:02.399
is someone, it's more B2B, but someone that traded
00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:06.580
CRM slash backend for real estate agencies. And
00:11:06.580 --> 00:11:08.379
so growing extremely quickly, that's one of our
00:11:08.379 --> 00:11:10.899
larger customer. We have one in Southeast Asia
00:11:10.899 --> 00:11:14.419
that has been, they call it Uber Eats basically
00:11:14.419 --> 00:11:16.919
in Malaysia. and that has worked extremely well
00:11:16.919 --> 00:11:19.740
and where we are we can see how their server
00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:21.940
usage goes right because that's we host everything
00:11:21.940 --> 00:11:25.240
and they've had like very impressive growth actually
00:11:25.240 --> 00:11:27.519
over the last the last couple of years with an
00:11:27.519 --> 00:11:30.000
extremely small team like it's basically two
00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:32.080
guys building the entire technology of course
00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:33.580
they have a lot of people for the food delivery
00:11:33.580 --> 00:11:35.539
like it's a marketplace right for the actual
00:11:35.539 --> 00:11:39.279
deliveries but for the for the software building
00:11:39.279 --> 00:11:42.759
part it's much smaller than that so it's applications
00:11:42.759 --> 00:11:44.940
tend to be more like customer -facing. That's
00:11:44.940 --> 00:11:47.799
where we shine usually, even though some people
00:11:47.799 --> 00:11:51.100
build internal tools. In practice, the examples
00:11:51.100 --> 00:11:52.740
that we talk more about and that we see more
00:11:52.740 --> 00:11:54.779
are the ones that have traction and grow quickly,
00:11:54.899 --> 00:11:56.919
and then to be customer -facing, like startups
00:11:56.919 --> 00:12:00.279
and not internal tools. Yeah. For a long time,
00:12:00.419 --> 00:12:02.259
sort of that low -code, no -code movement was
00:12:02.259 --> 00:12:04.500
really aimed at the internal developers. I remember
00:12:04.500 --> 00:12:08.279
the days of, was it FileMaker Pro? Yeah, I mean,
00:12:08.299 --> 00:12:12.679
FileMaker Pro in many ways is ancestor to what
00:12:12.679 --> 00:12:15.139
we do, but it was for internal tooling, which
00:12:15.139 --> 00:12:20.100
we think is not the right... I mean, it is an
00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:21.740
interesting use case, but it's not the most exciting
00:12:21.740 --> 00:12:24.240
use case. Yeah. I don't even know if it's still...
00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:27.059
Is FileMaker Pro still around? It might be. I'm
00:12:27.059 --> 00:12:29.059
not sure. It's been acquired by Apple, right?
00:12:29.379 --> 00:12:31.289
But I don't know if it's Apple. keeps you running
00:12:31.289 --> 00:12:33.769
it. Yeah, it would be interesting to see how
00:12:33.769 --> 00:12:36.049
they would emerge in these days. But yeah, so
00:12:36.049 --> 00:12:37.429
much of that's missing because when you're running
00:12:37.429 --> 00:12:39.250
internally, you don't have to worry about large
00:12:39.250 --> 00:12:42.629
scale. You don't have to worry about large scale.
00:12:42.789 --> 00:12:44.950
And you also don't need to worry about UX. Because
00:12:44.950 --> 00:12:47.990
for internal tooling, given that you pay as a
00:12:47.990 --> 00:12:49.929
business owner, you pay your employees to work,
00:12:50.429 --> 00:12:52.809
you can actually give them not great software
00:12:52.809 --> 00:12:55.049
because they're being paid to use it. If you're
00:12:55.049 --> 00:12:57.159
building a startup, people are supposed to pay
00:12:57.159 --> 00:12:59.259
you to use your software. It's a very different
00:12:59.259 --> 00:13:00.620
dynamic, and therefore you need a much better
00:13:00.620 --> 00:13:02.639
UX. That's why I think what we do with BubbleBee
00:13:02.639 --> 00:13:04.659
customer facing is actually harder. But if you
00:13:04.659 --> 00:13:06.759
do that well, then you've created something great.
00:13:07.559 --> 00:13:10.000
Yeah. So let's talk about your earlier years,
00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:12.379
those first seven years as you were growing.
00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:15.080
Maybe you can provide some insight. How did you
00:13:15.080 --> 00:13:18.600
figure out who your initial target audience was,
00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:23.370
your ideal customer profile, and were you? focusing
00:13:23.370 --> 00:13:27.110
on certain kinds of specific applications or
00:13:27.110 --> 00:13:29.409
I'm kind of curious as to that growth path over
00:13:29.409 --> 00:13:33.169
those first seven years. Yeah, so I mean I describe
00:13:33.169 --> 00:13:36.490
how we came to the idea and whether we were smart
00:13:36.490 --> 00:13:38.750
or not smart. I mean obviously after 10 years
00:13:38.750 --> 00:13:40.610
or 15 years we worked out okay but that was pretty
00:13:40.610 --> 00:13:44.049
risky. We never did actually like a very thorough
00:13:44.049 --> 00:13:47.649
market ICP like ideal customer profile validation.
00:13:48.220 --> 00:13:50.720
We said, you know, we have these people that
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:52.100
want to start companies, they're looking for
00:13:52.100 --> 00:13:54.080
CTOs and they cannot find them. They're smart
00:13:54.080 --> 00:13:56.159
and driven. We're building for them. Well, that's
00:13:56.159 --> 00:13:57.700
the people we're building for. We never tried
00:13:57.700 --> 00:13:59.740
to figure out exactly how many people like that
00:13:59.740 --> 00:14:01.700
were in the world. Where we had to refine our
00:14:01.700 --> 00:14:05.440
ICP a little bit was how tech savvy did we want
00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:07.980
them to be? And we wanted to go with people that
00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:09.919
even though they never had written code in their
00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:13.470
life, we wanted them to be somewhat having some
00:14:13.470 --> 00:14:15.529
general understanding of what an API is, for
00:14:15.529 --> 00:14:17.370
instance. If they need to use payment, they're
00:14:17.370 --> 00:14:19.129
going to have to use Stripe. And we want them
00:14:19.129 --> 00:14:23.450
to understand how APIs play in this whole tech
00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:25.990
world. So that's how we've been refining our
00:14:25.990 --> 00:14:29.289
ICP a little bit. But we are definitely yet small.
00:14:29.450 --> 00:14:31.970
And today, it's still the same thing. Small business
00:14:31.970 --> 00:14:34.789
owners, people building a product for an existing
00:14:34.789 --> 00:14:37.269
business or a new venture. Over the years, it
00:14:37.269 --> 00:14:39.169
has expanded with a little bit more designers
00:14:39.169 --> 00:14:43.000
or more engineers. But we started pretty Really
00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:45.279
not for engineers. I think one of the things
00:14:45.279 --> 00:14:48.559
so often, you know, I being asked, being asked,
00:14:48.679 --> 00:14:50.799
you know, what was one decision you made in the
00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:52.279
early years of the business that actually turned
00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:54.559
out to be right and without which you would have
00:14:54.559 --> 00:14:57.159
probably not made it as a business. I think the
00:14:57.159 --> 00:14:59.059
fact that we decided to focus on non -technical
00:14:59.059 --> 00:15:01.440
people was very important because if you have
00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:02.899
engineers on your platform, they tend to push
00:15:02.899 --> 00:15:05.340
for more like coding like features and we didn't
00:15:05.340 --> 00:15:08.580
want to do that. And then when it comes to specific
00:15:08.580 --> 00:15:12.500
verticals or like use cases, No really because
00:15:12.500 --> 00:15:15.679
by definition you know we were dealing with entrepreneurs
00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:17.679
so it's over the place where they want to do.
00:15:18.179 --> 00:15:20.419
I would argue that it's all more or less the
00:15:20.419 --> 00:15:22.600
same thing in a sense of the marketplace whether
00:15:22.600 --> 00:15:25.919
it's a marketplace to sell cars to rent apartments.
00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:29.639
Is kind of the same back end and same flows is
00:15:29.639 --> 00:15:31.639
just on one case you upload pictures of cars
00:15:31.639 --> 00:15:33.360
on the other when you put pictures of apartments
00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:35.509
but. Fundamentally, at the technical level, it's
00:15:35.509 --> 00:15:37.929
pretty much the same thing. So the vertical we
00:15:37.929 --> 00:15:39.750
would go for was this type of web applications,
00:15:40.070 --> 00:15:43.129
marketplaces, social networks, or SaaS products.
00:15:43.750 --> 00:15:46.610
It does some automation for you and you pay on
00:15:46.610 --> 00:15:49.370
a recurring basis. But we never really went specifically
00:15:49.370 --> 00:15:51.169
for one industry because it wouldn't work with
00:15:51.169 --> 00:15:53.169
the person we were going for. That's interesting.
00:15:53.710 --> 00:15:54.950
Well, that sounds good. Well, actually, in many
00:15:54.950 --> 00:15:57.490
ways, that ICP was focused on the entrepreneur.
00:15:57.690 --> 00:16:00.769
which you might think is a broad community. But
00:16:00.769 --> 00:16:03.210
I was in that startup scene, myself ran something
00:16:03.210 --> 00:16:05.570
called Tech Breakfast, which was a morning demo
00:16:05.570 --> 00:16:08.230
event series in New York, actually. Well, you
00:16:08.230 --> 00:16:10.830
probably have had some bubble startup from that.
00:16:10.850 --> 00:16:13.789
Yeah, I am sure. That might even have been how
00:16:13.789 --> 00:16:15.769
I found out about it because Tech Breakfast started
00:16:15.769 --> 00:16:19.409
in 2011 and ran through, well, until the pandemic
00:16:19.409 --> 00:16:22.389
and then it was very difficult to do any in -person
00:16:22.389 --> 00:16:24.509
event. But that's actually a good transition
00:16:24.509 --> 00:16:26.909
point because at around that time, just a little
00:16:26.909 --> 00:16:30.090
bit. later, you raised a fairly significant round.
00:16:30.210 --> 00:16:32.509
So maybe you can provide some insight into that.
00:16:32.509 --> 00:16:35.070
Because for a while, you were bootstrapped. I
00:16:35.070 --> 00:16:37.809
think revenue was cranking really well for you.
00:16:37.830 --> 00:16:40.129
You had a small team. I don't know what the size
00:16:40.129 --> 00:16:42.090
of the team was in the early phases. Now you're
00:16:42.090 --> 00:16:45.070
about 130. So maybe talk a little bit about that
00:16:45.070 --> 00:16:48.830
decision and how has that changed your strategy,
00:16:48.909 --> 00:16:52.549
your growth strategy, anything that you're doing
00:16:52.549 --> 00:16:56.029
in terms of the markets, which are starting to
00:16:56.029 --> 00:16:59.659
heat up for sure. Yeah so yeah so just to give
00:16:59.659 --> 00:17:02.519
a few facts first yeah we had a small team till
00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:06.220
uh something like late 2019 18 when we raised
00:17:06.220 --> 00:17:08.259
our first round i think we had like 12 people
00:17:08.259 --> 00:17:10.359
at that point then we was our first round that
00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:12.640
was not 100 million that was more like six something
00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:16.099
million and then we got to maybe 50 people and
00:17:16.099 --> 00:17:18.039
the second round when we were 100 million in
00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:21.180
2021 was the team was 50 people And so it was
00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:22.839
a big change for us because we went for like
00:17:22.839 --> 00:17:24.680
just being the two of us for five years. Then
00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:27.420
we build a team on an organic, almost like a
00:17:27.420 --> 00:17:29.339
small business, you know, every quarter you had
00:17:29.339 --> 00:17:33.099
one or two people to get to 12. And then the
00:17:33.099 --> 00:17:35.039
first round and the second round, of course,
00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:36.900
then you can start having much more money and
00:17:36.900 --> 00:17:40.920
much more resources to hire more people. The
00:17:40.920 --> 00:17:44.079
thinking process was for the first few years,
00:17:44.740 --> 00:17:48.319
we were pretty clear in our mind that it was
00:17:48.319 --> 00:17:50.849
not right for us to raise money because the product
00:17:50.849 --> 00:17:53.750
was not ready to scale quickly. The challenge
00:17:53.750 --> 00:17:56.190
that we have was, and it's something pretty specific
00:17:56.190 --> 00:17:58.029
to what we do, and for a lot of the ventures
00:17:58.029 --> 00:18:00.349
that may not be the case, but for us, we needed
00:18:00.349 --> 00:18:02.309
people to be able to learn the products themselves,
00:18:02.569 --> 00:18:04.170
build a product, and launch when they needed
00:18:04.170 --> 00:18:07.710
to launch, and be able to offer a wide spectrum
00:18:07.710 --> 00:18:09.750
of functionality, and because people wanted to
00:18:09.750 --> 00:18:11.809
build kind of exactly the product they had in
00:18:11.809 --> 00:18:14.130
mind. And just doing that takes a long time.
00:18:14.250 --> 00:18:15.789
It takes like a few years, I think. It doesn't
00:18:15.789 --> 00:18:18.950
take six to nine months. And I think raising
00:18:18.950 --> 00:18:20.670
money is dangerous because if you raise money
00:18:20.670 --> 00:18:22.930
you put yourself on the clock and within 18 months
00:18:22.930 --> 00:18:25.230
or two years usually you have to raise another
00:18:25.230 --> 00:18:27.369
round and then the next round usually have to
00:18:27.369 --> 00:18:30.210
show some metrics. And so we didn't feel we didn't
00:18:30.210 --> 00:18:32.609
have confidence that had we raised money in 2013
00:18:32.609 --> 00:18:34.730
we would have been able to have the product good
00:18:34.730 --> 00:18:36.829
enough by 2015 to have this expensive growth.
00:18:37.349 --> 00:18:40.430
What happened in 2019 and then 2021 even more
00:18:40.430 --> 00:18:42.150
is that at that point the product was ready for
00:18:42.150 --> 00:18:44.730
that and we felt that now it was a time to we
00:18:44.730 --> 00:18:48.039
could actually get users much faster, have them
00:18:48.039 --> 00:18:49.920
independently use a product and start seeing
00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:52.000
the growth that was necessary to raise a subsequent
00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:55.660
round, which did work out between 2019 and 2021,
00:18:55.740 --> 00:18:57.920
right? Because that's led to this large series
00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:02.339
A. What did it change? I mean, it's definitely
00:19:02.339 --> 00:19:04.059
a very different way to run a business because
00:19:04.059 --> 00:19:05.900
you end up spending more money than you make.
00:19:06.059 --> 00:19:07.440
While before that, we would spend less money
00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:09.880
than we make, right? So we had to be profitable
00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:12.500
or breaking even. So that's the main difference.
00:19:13.870 --> 00:19:15.670
Culturally, that leads to some interesting things.
00:19:16.630 --> 00:19:18.569
You naturally will move into a little bit of
00:19:18.569 --> 00:19:21.289
more aggressive culture as a business because
00:19:21.289 --> 00:19:23.809
you start having, we also have big goals. Like
00:19:23.809 --> 00:19:25.490
our goal was always to be one of the big tech
00:19:25.490 --> 00:19:27.549
companies in the world. But the truth is when
00:19:27.549 --> 00:19:29.529
you bootstrap, you're going to add one or two
00:19:29.529 --> 00:19:31.190
people per quarter. When you raise a lot of money,
00:19:31.210 --> 00:19:32.710
you're going to have 10, 20 people a quarter
00:19:32.710 --> 00:19:34.849
sometime. Like we had some very aggressive hiring
00:19:34.849 --> 00:19:37.589
quarters and some smaller ones, slow ones. And
00:19:37.589 --> 00:19:41.470
so it changes the culture. The truth is not everyone
00:19:41.470 --> 00:19:44.839
liked it. And so you have to change a little
00:19:44.839 --> 00:19:47.079
bit, some people sometimes because you need the
00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:48.500
culture. I don't know if we talk about culture
00:19:48.500 --> 00:19:50.539
in this conversation, but I really think that's
00:19:50.539 --> 00:19:52.299
what can make or break a business, the startup
00:19:52.299 --> 00:19:56.500
in particular, and fundraising and raising large
00:19:56.500 --> 00:19:58.519
rounds of money will definitely impact the culture
00:19:58.519 --> 00:20:01.119
that you'll have and that you'll need to win.
00:20:01.559 --> 00:20:03.660
And not everyone was on board after the first
00:20:03.660 --> 00:20:06.240
round. Yeah, that's actually a good conversation
00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:08.339
point because there is this sort of tension,
00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:10.980
especially now, especially given the focus of
00:20:10.980 --> 00:20:13.839
this podcast where people are intentionally trying
00:20:13.839 --> 00:20:17.039
to stay small. So when you hear things like,
00:20:17.180 --> 00:20:19.720
oh, you raise money and that changes the dynamics
00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:22.559
of profitability versus growth, we actually interviewed
00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:25.319
somebody else about that recently where he was
00:20:25.319 --> 00:20:27.400
talking like, well, you know, you have to usually
00:20:27.400 --> 00:20:30.119
make a trade off between profitability and growth.
00:20:30.119 --> 00:20:32.339
If you choose profitability, then, you know,
00:20:32.339 --> 00:20:34.180
you have to choose this more more sustainable
00:20:34.180 --> 00:20:36.140
and slower growth, but then you may end up losing
00:20:36.140 --> 00:20:38.240
your market because somebody else may be investing
00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:42.059
and being more aggressive. So it's an interesting
00:20:42.059 --> 00:20:44.039
point for our listeners who are thinking, wait
00:20:44.039 --> 00:20:50.909
a second, can't I scale as a small shop to. possibly
00:20:50.909 --> 00:20:53.349
even challenge some of the big incumbents and
00:20:53.349 --> 00:20:55.309
be a billion dollar company. That's the promise.
00:20:55.730 --> 00:20:58.190
And therefore, why would I need to raise? And
00:20:58.190 --> 00:21:00.849
if I do raise, then I wouldn't be changing my
00:21:00.849 --> 00:21:03.150
team size. So I would be using the money for
00:21:03.150 --> 00:21:05.430
something else. So there's a lot of sort of thoughts
00:21:05.430 --> 00:21:08.230
around this when it comes to team size and money.
00:21:08.789 --> 00:21:13.190
Yep, definitely. Yep. So what are your thoughts
00:21:13.190 --> 00:21:14.349
there? I mean, what would you say to something
00:21:14.349 --> 00:21:16.589
like, is it possible? You know, is this a...
00:21:16.589 --> 00:21:18.309
To get to a billion dollar with a very small
00:21:18.309 --> 00:21:21.079
team? Yeah, I mean, tools are changing right
00:21:21.079 --> 00:21:24.400
now. And I think artificial intelligence and
00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:27.380
this new thing of having AI not just respond
00:21:27.380 --> 00:21:29.180
to your questions, but being able to do proactively
00:21:29.180 --> 00:21:32.009
some things, like through agents. is definitely
00:21:32.009 --> 00:21:34.430
going to help people scale businesses with less
00:21:34.430 --> 00:21:37.190
people. And we already are seeing this. One of
00:21:37.190 --> 00:21:38.950
the metrics that SaaS companies will track is
00:21:38.950 --> 00:21:41.250
AR per employee. And that has gone up quite a
00:21:41.250 --> 00:21:43.890
lot of the time. So I think it's kind of the
00:21:43.890 --> 00:21:46.930
nature of technology as a larger concept, not
00:21:46.930 --> 00:21:49.349
just AI. But AI is just one new thing in tech
00:21:49.349 --> 00:21:51.470
right now. But if you look over the last hundreds
00:21:51.470 --> 00:21:53.690
of years, you can basically do more and more
00:21:53.690 --> 00:21:57.049
things with less human resources, like less people.
00:21:59.690 --> 00:22:02.390
At some point the risk becomes, and for business
00:22:02.390 --> 00:22:04.049
like us, that was a real thing when you just
00:22:04.049 --> 00:22:05.650
chose the two of us because it was just the two
00:22:05.650 --> 00:22:07.150
of us for a few years, like a couple of five
00:22:07.150 --> 00:22:09.430
years. You don't want to have too many key people
00:22:09.430 --> 00:22:11.029
because you need, I think what's very important
00:22:11.029 --> 00:22:13.130
for an organization is to survive if someone
00:22:13.130 --> 00:22:15.430
leaves, right? And if you just have two founders
00:22:15.430 --> 00:22:18.269
and they're in the whole thing, one founder disappears,
00:22:18.710 --> 00:22:21.210
gets hit by a bus, what happens, right? And so
00:22:21.210 --> 00:22:23.849
that's why I think building redundancy in a business
00:22:23.849 --> 00:22:26.529
is actually quite important. And that's where
00:22:26.529 --> 00:22:28.150
you need to scale a little bit the number of
00:22:28.150 --> 00:22:31.119
people. Definitely less so than you would have
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:32.759
five years ago that we didn't have 10 years ago.
00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:35.079
And by the way, bubble was part of this. Like,
00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:37.119
you know, before, if you build a startup without
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:39.539
bubble back in 2015, you would need 10 people
00:22:39.539 --> 00:22:41.799
on engineering team to do something, 10 % engineering
00:22:41.799 --> 00:22:43.779
team to do something. With bubble, you probably
00:22:43.779 --> 00:22:45.259
could start with one or two bubblers, right?
00:22:45.319 --> 00:22:47.960
So it's already, and that trend is accelerating
00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:51.819
right now. We probably will see, I don't know
00:22:51.819 --> 00:22:53.640
if one person company doing a billion dollars
00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:55.380
is a realistic thing, because I think again,
00:22:55.440 --> 00:22:58.609
the problem is do we want? a business that is
00:22:58.609 --> 00:23:01.309
that scale with one key person that if they get
00:23:01.309 --> 00:23:04.589
hit by a bus, what happens? But definitely, revenue
00:23:04.589 --> 00:23:06.650
permanently is going to keep going up. Yeah.
00:23:07.150 --> 00:23:10.309
That means that if you do raise money, what would
00:23:10.309 --> 00:23:12.609
that funding be used for? There's a lot of ways
00:23:12.609 --> 00:23:15.769
of growing that certainly need headcount, but
00:23:15.769 --> 00:23:18.630
that run market acquisition. We did bring up
00:23:18.630 --> 00:23:19.950
AI. I was going to talk about that a little bit
00:23:19.950 --> 00:23:22.759
later, but this might be a good point now. From
00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:25.099
your perspective, from your philosophy, given
00:23:25.099 --> 00:23:28.039
that you're in this space where you're helping
00:23:28.039 --> 00:23:30.839
organizations who don't have companies, small
00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:32.940
companies that don't have CTOs, that don't have
00:23:32.940 --> 00:23:35.380
technical people, realize their technical vision,
00:23:35.700 --> 00:23:39.079
are you finding AI to be something that is augmentative,
00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:43.019
helping you? accelerating your growth path or
00:23:43.019 --> 00:23:46.240
are you finding it to be eroding or eating in
00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:50.039
or cannibalizing the market from some perspectives,
00:23:50.119 --> 00:23:52.299
folks who are like, I'm just gonna throw a bunch
00:23:52.299 --> 00:23:55.240
of stuff into a tool, into a vibe coding tool
00:23:55.240 --> 00:23:59.099
or one of these AI coding things and I will get
00:23:59.099 --> 00:24:01.740
something out the other end and I wouldn't even
00:24:01.740 --> 00:24:04.160
need to use any sort of low code or no code tool.
00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:06.319
So I'm sure you're feeling it on both sides.
00:24:07.059 --> 00:24:10.069
Yeah, I mean, definitely both sides. I'll start
00:24:10.069 --> 00:24:13.250
by saying that the AI promise, which is, I mean,
00:24:13.349 --> 00:24:16.690
AI is many forms, but the latest wave with large
00:24:16.690 --> 00:24:19.750
language models, this idea that you can use natural
00:24:19.750 --> 00:24:21.970
language with a computer, and the computer can
00:24:21.970 --> 00:24:24.470
understand whatever that means behind the scene,
00:24:24.730 --> 00:24:26.589
right? What you need and what you want, even
00:24:26.589 --> 00:24:28.450
though you didn't speak in a particular structured
00:24:28.450 --> 00:24:31.029
way, is a fantastic piece of technology, first
00:24:31.029 --> 00:24:32.890
of all, and something extremely aligned with
00:24:32.890 --> 00:24:34.970
what we do with Babel, and I think no code in
00:24:34.970 --> 00:24:38.369
general. thing with mobile no code and bubble
00:24:38.369 --> 00:24:40.589
in particular was to expose something that you
00:24:40.589 --> 00:24:42.950
could use with your mouse and clicking that could
00:24:42.950 --> 00:24:44.869
read in natural language you know when you have
00:24:44.869 --> 00:24:46.670
a workflow it reads you know when the button
00:24:46.670 --> 00:24:49.890
the user clicks on this button first you do something
00:24:49.890 --> 00:24:52.029
then you send an email then right you could read
00:24:52.029 --> 00:24:54.910
it that way so we're already getting closer to
00:24:54.910 --> 00:24:58.220
what people can do with with LLM today and to
00:24:58.220 --> 00:25:00.240
be blunt, to be honest, I wish this technology
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:02.240
were ready back in 2012 because that would have
00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:04.640
made a lot of things easier for us. It was not
00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:06.980
and we started in 2012. So now the question is
00:25:06.980 --> 00:25:09.039
integrating that in our product is very exciting
00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:12.880
because we now have some tool that can make our
00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:14.259
product significantly better. And that's what
00:25:14.259 --> 00:25:17.559
the team is actively working on. Is it also competition?
00:25:17.759 --> 00:25:21.180
Yes. The way it's a competition is, you know,
00:25:21.180 --> 00:25:23.279
for the first maybe seven or eight years of the
00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:25.400
business, people would often ask me, sometimes
00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:28.369
reporters, sometimes investors, Who is your competition?
00:25:28.609 --> 00:25:30.509
It's usually a question people ask because they
00:25:30.509 --> 00:25:32.470
want to understand how you fit in the overall
00:25:32.470 --> 00:25:35.250
landscape. And I would tell people, frankly,
00:25:35.430 --> 00:25:37.069
no one is really trying to do what we do. The
00:25:37.069 --> 00:25:40.009
real competition we see is code. If someone leaves
00:25:40.009 --> 00:25:42.789
Bubble, or if someone doesn't want to use Bubble,
00:25:42.849 --> 00:25:45.210
they need to hire a software development company,
00:25:45.210 --> 00:25:48.329
a firm, or find a CTO or a technical co -founder
00:25:48.329 --> 00:25:50.170
to build their product. So essentially, that
00:25:50.170 --> 00:25:54.410
was code. where the vibe coding images of vibe
00:25:54.410 --> 00:25:57.430
coding tools has an AI more generally has had
00:25:57.430 --> 00:25:59.569
an impact on us is that has made code cheaper
00:25:59.569 --> 00:26:02.390
to produce. And so code is in some ways, I would
00:26:02.390 --> 00:26:04.509
say code is tracking back as a competitor for
00:26:04.509 --> 00:26:07.809
us. So now we have two views of the world. I
00:26:07.809 --> 00:26:09.390
mean, there is vibe coding tools and us. And
00:26:09.390 --> 00:26:12.009
I think we are kind of the only one with this
00:26:12.009 --> 00:26:16.009
contrarian view. Similarly to us in 2012, we're
00:26:16.009 --> 00:26:19.750
the only one with a view that code and still
00:26:20.359 --> 00:26:23.500
feel very strongly that code is not the right
00:26:23.500 --> 00:26:26.079
way to describe most applications. If you're
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:28.220
building something like Airbnb, you think about
00:26:28.220 --> 00:26:30.140
apartments, you think about booking, you think
00:26:30.140 --> 00:26:32.480
about reviews, you think about charging a credit
00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:35.420
card. You do not think in terms of, you know,
00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:38.980
commerce, if, then, else, while, for loops, this
00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:40.920
kind of like obscure concepts that are really
00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:42.599
fun for people. And I'm one of them that write
00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:45.559
code, but really shouldn't be what people think
00:26:45.559 --> 00:26:48.960
about when they build applications. And so we're
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:51.369
now in a place where We are kind of the only
00:26:51.369 --> 00:26:53.970
one thinking that, and so we think that the right
00:26:53.970 --> 00:26:55.490
way to build application is something, it's a
00:26:55.490 --> 00:26:57.329
high level of abstraction that happens to be
00:26:57.329 --> 00:26:59.890
visual and that's bubble. Supercharged with AI
00:26:59.890 --> 00:27:02.509
because AI allows us to make our product so much
00:27:02.509 --> 00:27:05.390
more enjoyable to use because there are some
00:27:05.390 --> 00:27:06.569
tedious things you don't want to do, you can
00:27:06.569 --> 00:27:08.490
just do that for me and we do that for you automatically.
00:27:09.349 --> 00:27:11.750
The other guys, the vibe -tuning tools. think
00:27:11.750 --> 00:27:14.190
that code is the best thing in the world. It's
00:27:14.190 --> 00:27:16.210
usually engineers building for engineers, by
00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:17.349
the way. So I think there is a little bit of
00:27:17.349 --> 00:27:20.930
a bias there. And AI can basically, similarly
00:27:20.930 --> 00:27:23.950
to what it does for us, produce code faster when
00:27:23.950 --> 00:27:28.250
it's annoying to write some algorithms or test
00:27:28.250 --> 00:27:31.450
or debug or stuff like that. So this is what
00:27:31.450 --> 00:27:35.670
the market looks like today. We'll see what happens
00:27:35.670 --> 00:27:39.319
in the future. I feel pretty strongly that I
00:27:39.319 --> 00:27:41.779
can't imagine us having this conversation in
00:27:41.779 --> 00:27:45.299
50 years. I hope we'll still be around and still
00:27:45.299 --> 00:27:46.920
think that if -then -else is the right way to
00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:48.619
build an application. So I think our view is
00:27:48.619 --> 00:27:51.420
the right one to build applications supercharged
00:27:51.420 --> 00:27:53.359
with AI. But we find out, because of the flip
00:27:53.359 --> 00:27:56.299
side, by opening tools and iterating other products
00:27:56.299 --> 00:27:58.220
very quickly, because AI is making a lot of progress.
00:27:58.970 --> 00:28:01.890
I think so. Having used all these tools, because
00:28:01.890 --> 00:28:04.049
I'm one of those, I love to program, I love to
00:28:04.049 --> 00:28:06.549
use all the tools. I think it's hard for me to
00:28:06.549 --> 00:28:09.150
think like a non -developer, like a non -technical
00:28:09.150 --> 00:28:11.650
person. But from what I've seen the commentary,
00:28:12.769 --> 00:28:15.529
it's a lot of black box thinking, which is that
00:28:15.529 --> 00:28:19.170
they've put some text prompt in, something great
00:28:19.170 --> 00:28:22.009
comes out, but what's in the middle? is a bit
00:28:22.009 --> 00:28:24.890
of a mystery for a lot of the VibeCoders. I think
00:28:24.890 --> 00:28:27.109
one of the things I really did enjoy and have
00:28:27.109 --> 00:28:30.690
enjoyed with Bubble is that, well, your application
00:28:30.690 --> 00:28:33.150
is visual. You can see it. You can make the changes
00:28:33.150 --> 00:28:36.710
to it. It's not like some lines of TypeScript
00:28:36.710 --> 00:28:40.410
or Python that you would have to try to have
00:28:40.410 --> 00:28:43.190
the system use another set of words to have it
00:28:43.190 --> 00:28:45.849
reconfigure, right? Right, because you just said
00:28:45.849 --> 00:28:48.450
what's the output of the VibeCoding tool is great.
00:28:48.640 --> 00:28:51.140
I'm not sure that's always true, actually. It
00:28:51.140 --> 00:28:53.740
rarely does exactly what you want. And so sometimes
00:28:53.740 --> 00:28:56.019
you're going to have to tweak it. And then the
00:28:56.019 --> 00:28:58.839
tweaking part, it's difficult if it's code. There
00:28:58.839 --> 00:29:00.900
is another fundamental thing, personally, that
00:29:00.900 --> 00:29:03.400
the reason why I think right now the industry
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:06.640
tends to... write off graphic user interfaces
00:29:06.640 --> 00:29:08.599
because it feels like it's the old world you
00:29:08.599 --> 00:29:11.259
know it's like you know it's a windows macintosh
00:29:11.259 --> 00:29:13.319
bubble in some ways because we have these gooey
00:29:13.319 --> 00:29:15.519
we have these gooey that people can use and there
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:16.980
is a little bit of this fascination right now
00:29:16.980 --> 00:29:18.779
for all you can just type something in the computer
00:29:18.779 --> 00:29:21.420
speak to the computer and do something. I feel
00:29:21.420 --> 00:29:23.980
quite strongly that we come back to that there's
00:29:23.980 --> 00:29:25.700
a little bit of a media thing right now because
00:29:25.700 --> 00:29:28.200
i don't think a prompt and just typing something
00:29:28.200 --> 00:29:30.279
in english is always the best way to do things.
00:29:30.619 --> 00:29:32.900
Frankly, if a button is not in the right place
00:29:32.900 --> 00:29:35.359
on a page and the color is not right, isn't it
00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:37.440
easier to use your mouse or your finger if it's
00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:40.400
a tablet? Drag it, change the color. and be done
00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:42.380
with it instead of going and literally telling
00:29:42.380 --> 00:29:44.680
me, AI, you see this button on the left of this
00:29:44.680 --> 00:29:46.440
other button? I would like to move it. And by
00:29:46.440 --> 00:29:48.420
the way, it turns the color. Like, come on. And
00:29:48.420 --> 00:29:51.859
I've told you this three times already. So I
00:29:51.859 --> 00:29:53.940
think there is something that people tend to,
00:29:54.019 --> 00:29:55.980
and it's a little bit of a media frenzy thing,
00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:58.599
because there is this magical feel with the chat
00:29:58.599 --> 00:30:01.500
GPT, clouds, and other models that people have
00:30:01.500 --> 00:30:03.720
and react to. And it's really fair that we think
00:30:03.720 --> 00:30:05.740
that it's just now about chat bots and talking.
00:30:06.220 --> 00:30:08.160
I don't think that's true. I think, you know,
00:30:08.400 --> 00:30:11.700
Again, graph features interfaces are very valuable.
00:30:12.140 --> 00:30:15.299
And the best is to combine both. Yeah. We've
00:30:15.299 --> 00:30:17.339
interviewed on the exponential scale podcast
00:30:17.339 --> 00:30:20.920
the CEO of Zapier, Wade Foster, and the CEO of
00:30:20.920 --> 00:30:23.539
Make, of Fabian Veidt. And it's kind of funny
00:30:23.539 --> 00:30:25.220
because it's a lot of the same conversation.
00:30:25.539 --> 00:30:27.740
Yeah, they're like. There are some things that
00:30:27.740 --> 00:30:30.119
are probabilistic where you type in, you get
00:30:30.119 --> 00:30:31.960
your creative design, and there's some things
00:30:31.960 --> 00:30:33.799
that are just deterministic that you wanted to
00:30:33.799 --> 00:30:36.460
happen the same way each and every time. The
00:30:36.460 --> 00:30:38.779
best way to handle deterministic problem is with
00:30:38.779 --> 00:30:40.900
a deterministic tool. It's like if a flow happens
00:30:40.900 --> 00:30:43.680
A, then B, then C. You want to change C to B
00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:47.049
just. change C to B. So it's very consistent.
00:30:47.190 --> 00:30:49.650
And I do think that, folks, we will come back
00:30:49.650 --> 00:30:52.029
to it. But we have a lot of non -technical people
00:30:52.029 --> 00:30:53.750
in the world who are building technical things
00:30:53.750 --> 00:30:56.109
and have to come to that realization, I think,
00:30:56.769 --> 00:30:59.900
sometimes. Well, moving on a little bit because
00:30:59.900 --> 00:31:02.279
this is great. Great conversation on AI and for
00:31:02.279 --> 00:31:04.119
all of you who wanted to dig deeper, I really
00:31:04.119 --> 00:31:05.700
encourage you to take a look at the Bubble tool
00:31:05.700 --> 00:31:08.000
and see what people are building. Because that's
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:10.220
where we're coming down to here, which is that
00:31:10.220 --> 00:31:13.039
what our listeners want to know is, how can I
00:31:13.039 --> 00:31:15.880
build something that scales? How can I make something
00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:18.380
work? Bubble is one of those tools that can really
00:31:18.380 --> 00:31:20.619
help me platforms, that can really help me get
00:31:20.619 --> 00:31:23.099
there. So talk about, I think one of the challenges
00:31:23.099 --> 00:31:25.200
now that most organizations have, let's put the
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:27.599
building part aside, which is getting easier.
00:31:27.660 --> 00:31:30.720
easier every day. Well, because building is getting
00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:32.819
easier and easier every day, getting attention
00:31:32.819 --> 00:31:36.200
is getting much harder because you can create
00:31:36.200 --> 00:31:39.339
things and you can publish them. So how are you
00:31:39.339 --> 00:31:41.940
seeing some of the folks breaking through and
00:31:41.940 --> 00:31:44.960
saying, I built something, pay attention, use
00:31:44.960 --> 00:31:48.539
it, get the customers and of course the customers.
00:31:48.829 --> 00:31:51.769
have so little loyalty these days because it's
00:31:51.769 --> 00:31:54.269
so easy to switch from one thing to the next.
00:31:54.630 --> 00:31:56.789
What are you seeing some of the patterns of folks
00:31:56.789 --> 00:32:00.130
who are successfully able to get attention and
00:32:00.130 --> 00:32:03.910
keep their customers? Look, I'm not an expert
00:32:03.910 --> 00:32:05.630
at growth. And I think a lot of people could
00:32:05.630 --> 00:32:08.809
have a more educated and informed perspectives
00:32:08.809 --> 00:32:11.109
on this. What I've seen work the best, whether
00:32:11.109 --> 00:32:13.559
it it's my space when I look at what we do and
00:32:13.559 --> 00:32:15.980
what our peers do or what our users do is like
00:32:15.980 --> 00:32:18.440
social validation. I think right now there is
00:32:18.440 --> 00:32:20.980
so much it's so easy as you're saying to get
00:32:20.980 --> 00:32:24.180
out there. Now with AI it's so easy to be very
00:32:24.180 --> 00:32:25.900
vocal on social media because you can actually
00:32:25.900 --> 00:32:27.839
automate a lot of this with text production and
00:32:27.839 --> 00:32:30.599
image production through AI that people like
00:32:30.599 --> 00:32:32.619
picking becoming a little bit you know hermetic
00:32:32.619 --> 00:32:35.359
to this like oh yeah another post right and what
00:32:35.359 --> 00:32:37.259
still what works still is that if one of your
00:32:37.259 --> 00:32:40.029
friends or someone you respect, not necessarily
00:32:40.029 --> 00:32:41.690
a friend, but someone you know of telling you,
00:32:41.829 --> 00:32:43.789
oh, I tried this tool and this is working great,
00:32:44.250 --> 00:32:46.089
then you're going to start paying much more attention.
00:32:46.349 --> 00:32:48.670
Or in our case, we call that internally like
00:32:48.670 --> 00:32:51.210
ready called customer marketing, a success story
00:32:51.210 --> 00:32:53.630
when a business in South, South East Asia has
00:32:53.630 --> 00:32:56.269
reached that certain scale. And we ask our users
00:32:56.269 --> 00:32:57.990
if we can share, you know, some numbers about
00:32:57.990 --> 00:32:59.910
their business before we talk about them. But
00:32:59.910 --> 00:33:01.609
then putting those numbers out there and say,
00:33:01.690 --> 00:33:03.390
hey, this is what the non -technical person has
00:33:03.390 --> 00:33:05.190
built. So this is something that is actually
00:33:05.190 --> 00:33:07.910
working usually much, much, much better. And
00:33:07.910 --> 00:33:10.819
so And I've seen the same with our users. So
00:33:10.819 --> 00:33:14.180
people are able to actually mobilize their user
00:33:14.180 --> 00:33:16.799
base and get them to talk about their product
00:33:16.799 --> 00:33:19.240
in a genuine way. I mean, what doesn't work is
00:33:19.240 --> 00:33:23.140
just say, hey, you get an affiliate revenue and
00:33:23.140 --> 00:33:24.799
share a link with your friends and you get some
00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:26.700
money. People have done that so much now that
00:33:26.700 --> 00:33:29.759
it's not genuine. When it's journey is when people
00:33:29.759 --> 00:33:33.579
are truly excited about a product and are excited
00:33:33.579 --> 00:33:35.200
enough about a product, they just want to tell
00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:37.289
people about it. That's when you start having
00:33:37.289 --> 00:33:39.509
like real virality. That's something that turned
00:33:39.509 --> 00:33:41.509
out very good for us. One thing I'm very proud
00:33:41.509 --> 00:33:43.849
of what we've done with bubble is the level of
00:33:43.849 --> 00:33:46.049
emotional connection people have with the product
00:33:46.049 --> 00:33:48.170
and the rest of the community. Like people self
00:33:48.170 --> 00:33:51.630
identify as bubblers, for instance. And it's
00:33:51.630 --> 00:33:54.369
a blessing and a curse, by the way, because emotions
00:33:54.369 --> 00:33:56.470
can go both ways and sometimes it goes south
00:33:56.470 --> 00:33:59.210
and difficult and we can lead to difficult situations
00:33:59.210 --> 00:34:02.569
for us as a company to manage. But overall, it's
00:34:02.569 --> 00:34:05.319
a net win because this emotional bound that people
00:34:05.319 --> 00:34:07.960
have with the product is what makes them excited
00:34:07.960 --> 00:34:09.739
enough to talk about it and then get a lot of
00:34:09.739 --> 00:34:12.000
people on the platform. Yeah, I agree. We just
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:13.860
interviewed Genevieve Bianchini. He was the CEO
00:34:13.860 --> 00:34:17.960
of Mighty Networks. It's interesting how community
00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:21.019
is making this big return. One, because of authenticity.
00:34:21.519 --> 00:34:23.440
People want to hear authentic voices because
00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:26.639
it's so easy now to have chat GPD speak for you
00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:29.699
and it sounds like. everybody else. So authenticity
00:34:29.699 --> 00:34:32.900
manners and of course trust. People are having
00:34:32.900 --> 00:34:35.460
a harder and harder time trusting other people
00:34:35.460 --> 00:34:37.760
and organizations and government institutions.
00:34:38.079 --> 00:34:40.039
So trust is becoming a big part of it. So it
00:34:40.039 --> 00:34:42.460
sounds like we're coming down to it. Having a
00:34:42.460 --> 00:34:45.219
passionate community can always run both ways,
00:34:45.260 --> 00:34:46.860
but it's good to have a passionate community
00:34:46.860 --> 00:34:50.159
then. Not one at all. So that's really valuable.
00:34:50.219 --> 00:34:52.219
So I'll keep an eye on that. And I think maybe
00:34:52.219 --> 00:34:55.239
it's part of our show notes. We'll link to anything
00:34:55.239 --> 00:34:57.159
you want to share with us about your community,
00:34:57.659 --> 00:35:00.360
opportunities for people to hear from other Bubblers
00:35:00.360 --> 00:35:02.239
and what they're doing. Happy to share that with
00:35:02.239 --> 00:35:06.500
our audience. So. We're onto our rapid fire here,
00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:08.699
keeping an eye on the time here for my guests
00:35:08.699 --> 00:35:10.659
and also for our listeners. So we always ask
00:35:10.659 --> 00:35:13.340
the same three questions for insights and tips
00:35:13.340 --> 00:35:15.719
on what's working for you that may work for our
00:35:15.719 --> 00:35:18.719
listeners as well. And the first one is tools.
00:35:18.860 --> 00:35:21.519
You know, what is one tool or automation? Doesn't
00:35:21.519 --> 00:35:23.599
have to be AI, just something that you are using
00:35:23.599 --> 00:35:26.599
for yourself personally or for your organization
00:35:26.599 --> 00:35:29.219
that you absolutely can't run your business without.
00:35:29.480 --> 00:35:32.539
The one that gives you or your team the 10x leverage
00:35:32.539 --> 00:35:35.679
every single week. I'm pausing because there
00:35:35.679 --> 00:35:37.199
are many tools I've been using for many years,
00:35:37.320 --> 00:35:39.599
but over the last couple of months, I've been
00:35:39.599 --> 00:35:42.179
building pretty heavily my own agent to automate
00:35:42.179 --> 00:35:44.800
a lot of things. So I think I'll use that. I'm
00:35:44.800 --> 00:35:46.800
currently in a phase where whenever I find myself
00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:49.760
doing something repetitive, I find a way to automate
00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:52.019
it through AI. So what I'm using is OpenClaw,
00:35:53.300 --> 00:35:55.079
like what people use a lot, even though I think
00:35:55.079 --> 00:35:57.119
you could probably do that directly with Cloud
00:35:57.119 --> 00:35:59.400
at this point, but doing pretty much the same
00:35:59.400 --> 00:36:02.289
thing. where it's managing a lot of, again, the
00:36:02.289 --> 00:36:04.429
tedious things. So I literally have a little
00:36:04.429 --> 00:36:06.829
notepad next to me. I'm kind of old school. And
00:36:06.829 --> 00:36:08.530
when I find myself doing something, and I'm like,
00:36:08.530 --> 00:36:11.070
wait, how am I doing this? This should be something
00:36:11.070 --> 00:36:13.150
that I can do automatically. Then I figure out
00:36:13.150 --> 00:36:16.670
a way to get my little, I get this agent a little
00:36:16.670 --> 00:36:19.429
name to get this person. I'm curious what the
00:36:19.429 --> 00:36:22.610
name is. No, no, that one, I'll keep that to
00:36:22.610 --> 00:36:28.150
myself. And that has really, not only it makes
00:36:28.150 --> 00:36:31.239
me more efficient, but I'm also now doing some
00:36:31.239 --> 00:36:33.539
things better than I was not doing before. Yeah,
00:36:33.659 --> 00:36:35.199
and that's where it gets interesting. Just to
00:36:35.199 --> 00:36:37.280
give you an example, for instance, every day
00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:39.780
I have my agent will look at my calendar for
00:36:39.780 --> 00:36:41.320
the following day and look at all my one -on
00:36:41.320 --> 00:36:44.179
-ones. And so the instruction I've given this
00:36:44.179 --> 00:36:46.820
agent is look at all my interactions with my
00:36:46.820 --> 00:36:49.059
reports over the last, since the last one -on
00:36:49.059 --> 00:36:51.340
-one and summarize the different, whether it's
00:36:51.340 --> 00:36:54.699
through email or Slack. And oral conversation,
00:36:54.780 --> 00:36:56.719
if we happen to have a transcript, which sometimes
00:36:56.719 --> 00:36:58.579
we do, we don't do all the time because sometimes
00:36:58.579 --> 00:37:00.780
it's sensitive, but often we do, and come up
00:37:00.780 --> 00:37:03.460
with the key points I should be checking on with
00:37:03.460 --> 00:37:07.280
this person. I was doing that before. I would
00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:08.800
prepare my one -on -one in the past, but not
00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:10.880
necessarily as thoroughly as I am doing now.
00:37:11.260 --> 00:37:13.380
Yeah. That's something we talk about a lot, which
00:37:13.380 --> 00:37:16.909
is repeatable processes. Moving those and offloading
00:37:16.909 --> 00:37:19.510
those for automation is a huge win It keeps you
00:37:19.510 --> 00:37:21.309
actually it also just allows you to do the same
00:37:21.309 --> 00:37:23.750
thing the same way It's that you're not always
00:37:23.750 --> 00:37:25.869
reinventing the wheel actually It's a grid segue
00:37:25.869 --> 00:37:28.250
because the next rapid -fire question is about
00:37:28.250 --> 00:37:31.610
process So the question is what is one system
00:37:31.610 --> 00:37:34.969
or process that you think that every? Lean for
00:37:34.969 --> 00:37:38.010
a leverage first team should have in place By
00:37:38.010 --> 00:37:40.369
the time they hit the 1 million dollar revenue
00:37:40.369 --> 00:37:42.849
mark that separates the grinders the ones who
00:37:42.849 --> 00:37:45.139
are just constantly work making hard to make
00:37:45.139 --> 00:37:46.579
that first million, therefore they're going to
00:37:46.579 --> 00:37:48.840
work twice as hard to make that second million,
00:37:49.340 --> 00:37:52.260
separates those grinders from the scalars. Maybe
00:37:52.260 --> 00:37:54.079
something from your experience you should say,
00:37:54.219 --> 00:37:56.340
hey, stop doing that, or maybe something that
00:37:56.340 --> 00:37:59.960
should start doing today. A process? Yeah, or
00:37:59.960 --> 00:38:02.780
like a method or some approach or just something
00:38:02.780 --> 00:38:04.719
that you learned that you're like, hey, if I
00:38:04.719 --> 00:38:06.539
want to really grow, I should probably stop doing
00:38:06.539 --> 00:38:09.320
this, or maybe if I want to grow, you should
00:38:09.320 --> 00:38:12.719
start doing this. Yeah, it's not a process. It's
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:15.760
a delegation thing. It's delegating. When I think
00:38:15.760 --> 00:38:18.119
about the bubble trajectory, as I said earlier,
00:38:18.280 --> 00:38:20.179
it was just the two of us for five years and
00:38:20.179 --> 00:38:22.739
it was a mistake. We went too long, just the
00:38:22.739 --> 00:38:24.820
two of us for five years. And the reason it was
00:38:24.820 --> 00:38:27.239
a mistake is because there are some things and
00:38:27.239 --> 00:38:29.500
we were beyond one million of revenue actually
00:38:29.500 --> 00:38:31.079
at that point when it was just the two of us.
00:38:31.460 --> 00:38:34.159
And I found myself just keeping doing the same
00:38:34.159 --> 00:38:35.820
thing because it had to be done and I should
00:38:35.820 --> 00:38:38.880
have found another way. Back then, it was people.
00:38:38.980 --> 00:38:40.699
Today, maybe it would be an agent, I don't know,
00:38:41.039 --> 00:38:42.699
to delegate things to something else so that
00:38:42.699 --> 00:38:44.579
you can free your mind. Whenever you start repeating
00:38:44.579 --> 00:38:47.880
something the same thing four times, it's a time
00:38:47.880 --> 00:38:49.719
to think about a different approach. Okay, great.
00:38:49.980 --> 00:38:51.880
Yeah, consistent with our last one. I kind of
00:38:51.880 --> 00:38:53.019
thought it was because you're heading in that
00:38:53.019 --> 00:38:55.210
same direction, which is great. And then I guess
00:38:55.210 --> 00:38:57.510
just really the final rapid fire is I know you've
00:38:57.510 --> 00:38:59.510
provided a lot of advice and tips and guidance
00:38:59.510 --> 00:39:01.869
here, but maybe what's one piece of advice you'd
00:39:01.869 --> 00:39:04.170
give to a founder who's running that small dinner
00:39:04.170 --> 00:39:06.889
table size team right now who wants to scale
00:39:06.889 --> 00:39:09.469
based on some of the things that you've seen
00:39:09.469 --> 00:39:12.969
work for your community? I'm going to give something
00:39:12.969 --> 00:39:14.710
a little bit contrarian and I'm actually stealing
00:39:14.710 --> 00:39:18.090
that from a program from YC is do things that
00:39:18.090 --> 00:39:20.090
don't scale. You know, like he wrote a blog post
00:39:20.090 --> 00:39:24.119
about this and. As much as scaling is important,
00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:26.920
don't worry about scale too early. Because I
00:39:26.920 --> 00:39:29.519
think if you worry about scaling too early, you're
00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:32.219
going to start seeing complications where there
00:39:32.219 --> 00:39:33.920
might not even be a problem in the first place.
00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:36.219
So it's a little bit the opposite of what I said.
00:39:36.260 --> 00:39:38.480
And it's about finding the right balance. At
00:39:38.480 --> 00:39:40.960
first, do things. Repeat them a few times. And
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:42.659
then when you find yourself repeating, then it's
00:39:42.659 --> 00:39:44.079
much easier to think about how to scale them.
00:39:44.360 --> 00:39:46.380
Don't worry about building a machine before you
00:39:46.380 --> 00:39:49.429
actually have even a product. Well, that's great.
00:39:49.489 --> 00:39:51.469
That's actually a really good place to end here.
00:39:51.590 --> 00:39:53.329
It gave me a good note here for our mantra for
00:39:53.329 --> 00:39:54.650
the week, which is always a gift. So I want to
00:39:54.650 --> 00:39:56.309
thank you, Manuel. Thank you so much for joining
00:39:56.309 --> 00:39:58.610
us here in this podcast. You provided fantastic
00:39:58.610 --> 00:40:00.329
feedback and really going to take another look.
00:40:00.349 --> 00:40:01.829
I'm going to start playing more with Bubble again
00:40:01.829 --> 00:40:03.909
and I encourage our listeners to do the same.
00:40:04.210 --> 00:40:06.010
So thank you again for joining us. Thank you.
00:40:06.090 --> 00:40:08.489
That was a very fun conversation. Yeah. So here's
00:40:08.489 --> 00:40:10.789
your mantra for the week. Don't optimize too
00:40:10.789 --> 00:40:13.219
early. Don't worry about things until you've
00:40:13.219 --> 00:40:15.179
built something that actually people care about.
00:40:15.260 --> 00:40:18.360
So stop waiting. The tools do exist. The leverage
00:40:18.360 --> 00:40:20.719
is there. You've heard there are companies that
00:40:20.719 --> 00:40:23.219
are a billion dollars generated on the platform
00:40:23.219 --> 00:40:26.000
just in 2025 alone. That's pretty phenomenal.
00:40:26.059 --> 00:40:28.699
So your job is just to start. So if you love
00:40:28.699 --> 00:40:30.599
this interview with Emmanuel Strashnouf, I really
00:40:30.599 --> 00:40:33.019
want you to hit the subscribe button, leave a
00:40:33.019 --> 00:40:34.619
review, share with that founder friend who's
00:40:34.619 --> 00:40:36.579
been saying, I just need to find a technical
00:40:36.579 --> 00:40:39.380
co -founder for the last three years. So I really
00:40:39.380 --> 00:40:41.300
want them to listen to this podcast. So thank
00:40:41.300 --> 00:40:43.340
you very much for joining us in the exponential
00:40:43.340 --> 00:40:46.000
scale podcast. I want you to think big, stay
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:49.199
lean, and scale smarter. Microteams aren't the
00:40:49.199 --> 00:40:52.019
future, they're the now. If this episode got
00:40:52.019 --> 00:40:54.900
you fired up, hit that subscribe button, share
00:40:54.900 --> 00:40:57.559
it with your crew, and join the movement over
00:40:57.559 --> 00:41:02.400
at Scalabrate .com. That's S -C -A -L -E -B -R
00:41:02.400 --> 00:41:06.280
-A -T -E dot com. Till next time, think big,
00:41:06.780 --> 00:41:09.869
stay lean. and scale smarter because you're not
00:41:09.869 --> 00:41:13.309
a tiny team. You're a micro team with mega potential.
00:41:13.650 --> 00:41:16.409
So get exponential. And thanks for tuning in
00:41:16.409 --> 00:41:18.250
to the exponential scale podcast.