Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, a potential client approached me with an exciting opportunity: build a two-sided marketplace platform with a substantial budget. The technical challenge was interesting, and it would have been one of my biggest projects to date.
I said no.
Not because I couldn't build it, but because they had the wrong approach entirely. They wanted to "test if their idea works" by building a complex platform over three months. Here's the thing nobody talks about: your MVP shouldn't take three months to build—it should take three days.
After 7 years of building websites and helping startups launch products, I've learned that most founders are solving the wrong problem. They're obsessing over which development framework to use when they should be obsessing over whether anyone actually wants what they're building.
The rapid application development (RAD) space is crowded with "solutions" that promise to make development faster. But faster development of the wrong thing is still wrong. Here's what you'll learn from my experience:
Why most RAD tools are solving the wrong problem entirely
The counterintuitive approach that saved my clients months of development
How to validate ideas in days, not months
When to actually start building (spoiler: it's later than you think)
My framework for choosing the right tool at the right time
This isn't another comparison of Bubble vs other platforms. This is about fundamentally rethinking what "rapid" should mean in product development.
Industry Reality
What the RAD tool vendors won't tell you
Walk into any startup accelerator, and you'll hear the same advice about rapid application development tools. The pitch is seductive: "Build faster, ship sooner, validate quicker." Every vendor promises to be the silver bullet that transforms your idea into a functional product in weeks instead of months.
The conventional wisdom looks something like this:
Choose a low-code/no-code platform (Bubble, Webflow, Airtable)
Build your MVP as quickly as possible
Launch to get user feedback
Iterate based on usage data
Scale when you find product-market fit
This advice exists because it sounds logical. Speed is good, right? Get to market fast, fail fast, learn fast. The RAD tool industry has built billion-dollar businesses around this premise.
But here's the uncomfortable truth: Most founders using rapid development tools are rapidly building the wrong thing. They're optimizing for development speed when they should be optimizing for learning speed.
I've watched countless startups burn through their runway building "rapid" prototypes that nobody wants. They get seduced by the ability to drag-and-drop their way to a functional app, thinking that functionality equals value. It doesn't.
The real problem isn't that development takes too long. The real problem is that most founders start developing before they understand what they should be building. RAD tools make this problem worse by making it easier to build the wrong thing faster.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The marketplace client I mentioned wasn't unique. They had heard about no-code tools like Bubble and AI-powered development platforms. They'd been told these tools could help them "test their idea" quickly and cheaply.
They weren't wrong about the tools—technically, you can build a complex platform with these solutions. But their core statement revealed the fundamental flaw: "We want to see if our idea is worth pursuing."
They had no existing audience, no validated customer base, no proof of demand. Just an idea and enthusiasm. Sound familiar?
This pattern repeats constantly in my consulting work. Founders come to me excited about rapid development tools, asking which platform they should use to build their MVP. Wrong question entirely.
I've seen this play out across different industries:
A fintech startup that spent 3 months building a "rapid" prototype on Bubble, only to discover their target market didn't trust new financial apps
An e-commerce tool that used Webflow + Airtable to build their platform quickly, then realized their customers needed integrations they couldn't provide
A SaaS founder who built their entire app on no-code tools, then hit scaling limits right when they started getting traction
Each case followed the same pattern: they optimized for building speed instead of learning speed. They confused having a working prototype with having a validated business.
The marketplace client was heading down the same path. They wanted to spend 3 months and significant budget building something that might not work, when they could test their core assumptions in 3 days for almost no cost.
That's when I realized: the constraint isn't building anymore—it's knowing what to build and for whom.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of helping that marketplace client build their platform, I recommended something that initially shocked them: build nothing. At least, not the platform they were envisioning.
Here's the framework I've developed after years of seeing founders waste time on "rapid" development:
Phase 1: Manual MVP (Days, not weeks)
Your first "MVP" shouldn't be a product at all. It should be your marketing and sales process. Create a simple landing page explaining your value proposition, then manually fulfill the service you're promising to automate.
For the marketplace client, this meant:
Day 1: Created a Notion page explaining how their marketplace would work
Week 1: Started manual outreach to both sides of their marketplace
Week 2-4: Manually matched supply and demand via email and WhatsApp
Phase 2: Tool Selection Based on Validated Needs
Only after proving manual demand should you start thinking about which rapid development tools make sense. But now you're choosing based on validated requirements, not assumptions.
My tool selection hierarchy:
Automation before building: Can Zapier + existing tools solve this? Often yes.
No-code for proven workflows: Bubble, Webflow, Airtable for processes you've validated manually
Low-code for scale: When no-code hits limits and you have paying customers
Custom development: When you have revenue and specific technical requirements
Phase 3: The Build-Measure-Learn Loop (Done Right)
Now when you use rapid development tools, you're not building features—you're testing hypotheses. Each feature gets built only after manual validation.
For another client building a SaaS tool, this looked like:
Manually onboarded first 10 customers using spreadsheets and email
Identified the 3 most time-consuming manual tasks
Built automation for task #1 using Bubble
Measured impact on customer satisfaction and my time savings
Only then moved to automate task #2
The result? They built 70% less features but achieved better product-market fit faster. Their "rapid" development was actually slower feature-wise, but faster business-wise.
Manual Validation
Start with human processes before automation. Test demand manually using simple tools like Notion, email, and spreadsheets. This validates the business model before you validate the technical implementation.
Tool Timing
Choose development tools based on validated needs, not assumptions. Start with the simplest automation possible and upgrade only when you hit real limitations with paying customers.
Build-Measure-Learn
Each feature should solve a proven pain point from manual operations. Build the minimum automation needed to remove your biggest bottleneck, then measure impact before building more.
Feature Discipline
Resist the urge to build everything your development tool allows. Just because you can drag-and-drop a feature doesn't mean you should. Focus on the 20% of features that solve 80% of customer problems.
The marketplace client's reaction was telling. Initially, they pushed back: "But we want to test if our idea works!"
I explained that their manual approach was testing the idea—just testing the right part of it. They weren't testing whether they could build a marketplace platform (that's a technical question). They were testing whether people wanted what the marketplace would provide (that's a business question).
After 4 weeks of manual operations:
They successfully matched 12 transactions manually
Identified their real value proposition (it wasn't what they initially thought)
Discovered the main friction points in their process
Built a waiting list of 50+ users on both sides
Only then did we start building automation. We used Airtable + Zapier to automate the matching process they'd validated manually. Total development time: 2 weeks instead of 3 months. Total cost: $200/month in tools instead of a massive development budget.
Six months later, they had their first $10K month—something that wouldn't have happened if they'd spent those first 3 months building a platform nobody wanted.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experience taught me that "rapid" application development isn't about using the fastest development tools. It's about rapid learning and rapid validation.
Here are the key lessons that now shape how I approach any new product:
Manual validation beats rapid prototyping: Your first MVP should be a process, not a product. Prove the business model before you prove the technical model.
Tool choice follows demand validation: Choose your development stack based on validated requirements, not marketing promises or ease of use.
Build the minimum viable automation: Don't automate everything—automate your biggest bottleneck and measure impact before building more.
Speed of learning > speed of building: The goal isn't to ship features fast; it's to learn what features matter fast.
Constraints breed creativity: Limitations force you to focus on what's essential. Unlimited building capability often leads to unfocused products.
Revenue validates tools: The best time to upgrade your development tools is when they're holding back paying customers, not when they feel limiting.
Most importantly: in the age of AI and no-code, the constraint isn't building—it's knowing what to build and for whom. The companies that win aren't the ones with the fastest development cycles; they're the ones with the fastest learning cycles.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing this approach:
Start with a landing page + manual onboarding process
Use spreadsheets and email before building dashboards
Focus on sustainable acquisition channels over flashy features
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores considering rapid development:
Test product-market fit with simple Shopify setup first
Validate demand before building custom features
Use proven conversion optimization tactics over novel functionality