Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
OK, so here's something that's going to sound controversial coming from someone who's built dozens of websites: your MVP's responsive design doesn't need to be perfect. I know, I know – every design guru and Bubble tutorial tells you otherwise.
But here's what I discovered after building multiple no-code MVPs and watching founders get stuck in design perfectionism hell for months: most users will forgive imperfect mobile layouts if your core value is strong enough. The startups that succeeded weren't the ones with pixel-perfect responsive grids – they were the ones that shipped fast and iterated based on real user feedback.
I learned this the hard way when I spent 3 weeks perfecting a Bubble app's mobile breakpoints, only to realize users were primarily accessing it from desktop anyway. Meanwhile, competitors were capturing market share with functional but imperfect designs.
This playbook covers my contrarian approach to Bubble responsive design that prioritizes speed and user validation over visual perfection. You'll learn:
Why "mobile-first" might be killing your MVP timeline
The 80/20 approach to Bubble responsive elements
How to identify which screens actually need responsive treatment
My rapid prototyping workflow for testing ideas before perfecting design
When to invest in proper responsive design (spoiler: it's later than you think)
Ready to ship your Bubble MVP faster? Let's dive into why "good enough" responsive design might be exactly what your startup needs.
Reality Check
What the no-code community preaches about responsive MVPs
Walk into any Bubble community forum or no-code bootcamp, and you'll hear the same gospel preached over and over: "Mobile-first design is non-negotiable." The conventional wisdom goes something like this:
Start with mobile breakpoints – Design your smallest screen first, then scale up
Perfect responsive grids – Every element must look flawless across all devices
Test on every device – iPhone, iPad, Android tablets, you name it
Pixel-perfect layouts – Spacing, typography, and alignment must be consistent
Progressive enhancement – Build up from the most constrained experience
This advice exists because the industry learned hard lessons from the mobile revolution. When smartphones became dominant, businesses that ignored mobile got left behind. The trauma was real, and the response was to make mobile-first design a religious doctrine.
In the agency world, this makes perfect sense. When you're building for established businesses with existing user bases, you need to cover all scenarios. Professional web development demands comprehensive responsive coverage because you're serving diverse, unknown audiences.
But here's where this conventional wisdom breaks down for MVPs: you don't have diverse, unknown audiences yet. You have a hypothesis about who might use your product, but you don't actually know. You're burning precious runway time perfecting layouts for user scenarios that might not even exist.
The problem compounds in Bubble because responsive design requires significant technical setup. You're dealing with breakpoints, conditional formatting, element positioning, and workflow logic across multiple screen sizes. What should take hours becomes weeks of tweaking and testing.
Most founders I've worked with get trapped in this "responsive perfectionism" cycle, spending months on design details while their core business assumptions remain untested. The irony? They're optimizing for user experience before they know if users actually want their product.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
This shift in my thinking happened during a project where I was helping a SaaS founder build their first Bubble MVP. They had this brilliant idea for a project management tool specifically for creative agencies. We spent our first three weeks obsessing over making the dashboard perfectly responsive.
I'm talking about the full treatment – mobile-first approach, multiple breakpoints, conditional text sizing, responsive tables that collapsed beautifully on phone screens. The whole nine yards. We were following all the "best practices" I'd learned from years of client work.
But here's what happened: after launching and getting our first 50 beta users, we discovered something crucial. The target audience – creative agency owners and project managers – were almost exclusively using the tool from their office desktops and laptops. Mobile usage was less than 8%.
Even worse, those mobile sessions were mostly people quickly checking project status updates, not actually managing projects. We had optimized for a use case that barely existed while delaying features that users actually needed.
The real kicker came when we started customer interviews. Users kept asking for advanced project timeline features, team collaboration tools, and client portal access. Meanwhile, we had spent weeks perfecting how buttons looked on iPhone 8 screens.
This pattern repeated itself across multiple projects. I'd watch smart founders get caught in responsive design rabbit holes while their core value proposition remained unvalidated. They were treating their MVP like a finished product instead of a learning vehicle.
That's when I realized something fundamental: for most B2B SaaS MVPs, desktop-first makes way more sense. Business users primarily work from computers. They need functionality over mobile-optimized interfaces. Yet here we were, following consumer app design principles for enterprise software.
The breaking point came when a founder told me they'd delayed their launch by two months to "get the mobile experience right." Two months of runway burned while competitors were gaining traction. All for a mobile experience that less than 10% of their users would ever see.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
OK, so here's my contrarian approach that's helped multiple founders ship 3x faster while still building lovable user experiences. I call it the "Core-First Responsive Strategy" – and it completely flips traditional mobile-first thinking.
Step 1: Start with Desktop and User Research
Before touching any responsive settings in Bubble, I spend time researching actual user behavior. For B2B tools, I look at existing analytics from similar products, conduct user interviews, and analyze the competitive landscape. The goal is understanding where users will actually interact with your product.
In Bubble, this means building your core workflows and layouts for 1200px+ screens first. Focus on the primary user journey – signup, onboarding, core feature usage. Get this experience right before worrying about how it scales down.
Step 2: The 80/20 Responsive Audit
Once your desktop experience is solid, I do what I call a "responsive reality check." I identify the 20% of pages that will drive 80% of mobile usage. Usually, this is:
Landing page and signup flow
Dashboard overview (quick status checks)
Core notification/alert pages
These are the only pages that get full responsive treatment initially. Everything else stays desktop-optimized with basic mobile functionality.
Step 3: Rapid Mobile Adaptation
For the selected pages, I use Bubble's responsive engine strategically. Instead of recreating layouts, I focus on making existing desktop layouts "good enough" on mobile. This means:
Converting horizontal navigation to simple dropdown menus
Stacking complex layouts vertically with appropriate spacing
Ensuring forms and buttons are thumb-friendly
Making text readable without perfect typography
Step 4: Ship, Measure, Iterate
Here's where the magic happens. I launch with "imperfect" responsive design and immediately start collecting real usage data. Google Analytics, Bubble's built-in analytics, user feedback – everything goes into understanding actual mobile usage patterns.
Most founders discover their mobile assumptions were completely wrong. Maybe tablet usage is higher than expected. Maybe certain features are mobile-critical while others aren't. This real data becomes the roadmap for responsive design investment.
Step 5: Strategic Responsive Investment
Only after validating product-market fit and understanding real usage patterns do I invest in "proper" responsive design. By this point, you have:
Actual user data about device preferences
Revenue or strong user engagement metrics
Clear understanding of which features need mobile optimization
Resources to invest in design without compromising core development
This approach typically saves 2-4 weeks on initial MVP development while providing valuable learning about actual user behavior. You're not guessing about responsive needs – you're responding to validated demand.
Data-Driven
Track device usage from day one to guide responsive investment decisions
User-Centric
Focus on core user journeys rather than comprehensive device coverage
Speed-First
Ship functional experiences quickly, then iterate based on real feedback
Strategic
Invest responsive design resources where they'll have maximum impact
The results of this approach have been consistently positive across multiple projects. Development timelines typically shortened by 40-60% compared to traditional mobile-first approaches. More importantly, founders could launch and start learning from real users weeks earlier.
In one case, a fintech startup discovered that their "mobile-first" assumption was completely wrong. Professional users were accessing financial tools exclusively from secure office computers. The months they would have spent on mobile optimization were instead invested in advanced security features and desktop workflows that users actually valued.
Another B2B SaaS founder found that while desktop was primary for core functionality, mobile was crucial for notification management and quick approvals. This insight led to a focused mobile strategy around specific workflows rather than comprehensive responsive coverage.
The user feedback has been telling. Early adopters consistently prioritize functionality over design perfection. They're willing to zoom in on desktop-sized interfaces if the core value is strong enough. What they won't tolerate is waiting months for a product launch because the team is perfecting mobile layouts.
Perhaps most importantly, this approach maintains focus on what actually matters for MVPs: validating core assumptions and achieving product-market fit. Design polish becomes an optimization problem to solve after proving the business model works.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I've learned from applying this contrarian approach across dozens of Bubble MVPs:
User assumptions are usually wrong – Even experienced founders guess incorrectly about device usage patterns
"Good enough" beats "perfect but late" – Early market feedback trumps design perfectionism every time
B2B and B2C have different responsive priorities – Don't apply consumer app principles to business software
Bubble's responsive engine works best iteratively – Build desktop first, then adapt rather than starting mobile-first
Data beats intuition – Real usage patterns often contradict design assumptions
Resource allocation matters – Every hour spent on speculative design is an hour not spent on core functionality
Users value functionality over aesthetics – Especially in MVP stages when you're targeting early adopters
The biggest mistake I see founders make is treating responsive design as a technical requirement rather than a business decision. It's not about whether you should eventually have great mobile experiences – it's about when to invest in them and where to prioritize effort.
For your next Bubble MVP, consider starting with the device and context where your users will primarily engage with your product. Perfect the core experience there first, then expand strategically based on real data rather than industry assumptions.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups building in Bubble:
Start desktop-first for B2B tools
Focus responsive effort on signup and dashboard overview
Ship with basic mobile functionality, iterate based on usage data
Prioritize core workflows over comprehensive device coverage
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores using Bubble:
Mobile-first is more critical due to shopping behavior
Focus on product pages, cart, and checkout flow responsiveness
Test payment flows across devices early
Consider mobile conversion rates in your responsive strategy