Realistic timeframe to learn + launch a Bubble app (with GPT integration)

There are no magic hacks — Maya set out to build a solution to a problem she and her community experienced.

But first she had to learn Bubble, talk through the features and eventually bring Interview Jam to life with a Product Hunt launch in the spring.

This is her story:

Where’d you find the pain point?

I was in the position where I had to look for a full-time job — one of the biggest struggles I found was having many different applications and so many different interviews.
How do I prepare effectively for each one?

There has to be a better process for this. During that time I was actively interviewing other people and I saw that a lot of people had been missing out on opportunities because of the lack of preparation.

So I wanted to build Interview Jam to kind of solve this problem of preparing efficiently with AI — that was my original inspiration for Interview Jam.

When did you start learning Bubble?

I started learning Bubble around August 2022. It took me like a while to actually learn it — I was just playing around with the platform.

I was trying to gain the skills from August to a couple months after that — so around November I started building the MVP.

Why Bubble?

I was learning about no code tools — so I was looking at Webflow, I was looking at like some other platforms.

The reason I landed on Bubble was it had the all-in-one solution with the database — everything there for me to build.

It was definitely more difficult and a lot of people asked me why did you start with Bubble because it's one of the most complex platforms to learn?

I think it was also the most comprehensive and I kind of knew that if I'd spent the time learning it, I could kind of build anything I wanted or at least, almost anything.

So that's why I chose Bubble.

What were the challenges?

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I started using Bubble was I didn't really have an idea of the front end, you know, the visual side of it and there's the backend workflows.

I know optimizing the workflows are more important now, but that's something I didn't even think about when I was starting.

I think it was just getting the layout and the design and learning how to use the elements in the most efficient way.

It was definitely a really big learning curve. It was super hard for me to even do the smallest things like container layouts. But I think the biggest challenge was just keeping going with it.

Especially when you're starting a product or building a product that's so early there are so many things you have to iterate and change. I think once you build something and you kind of figure something out and you have to change it literally the next day — it's staying motivated to do that.

But I think it's a great platform — the database design is another challenge because you want to make sure that like you have to think through what kind of data you need to collect from the users and how to most efficiently store that data.

Repeating groups were like my worst roadblock — how to display that data from the database. So they’re little hurdles but like once you get past it — I'm confident to build a lot of things now so it's definitely worth learning.

How long did it take to finish and launch v1 of InterviewJam?

So I started building the MVP around November 2022 — it was a lot of trial and error, a lot of iterating, a lot of just kind of figuring things out. When you're building something for the first time, it’s so easy to kind of over engineer and want to make it perfect.

So I decided, I've built something good — I'm just gonna launch it.

So around February I decided to start launching — so that was like all the Product Hunt launch prep and getting active — so I would say it's nearly a year since I started building it.

How does chatGPT work within InterviewJam?

I started building Interview Jam with the openAI original GPT-3 before AI kind of blew up — just completely went crazy with everyone.

So the role it plays actually is when you are applying for a job, you want to save the job — you have that functionality. And it analyzes the job description and gets you the keywords and you can write your custom cover letters and stuff.

But I think the main thing is a lot of people who are looking for a job, especially international students — it's hard for them to tell their story and the behavioral section of the interview is super difficult for everybody.

So how do you tell your story in the most effective way? You just need to put in your like key points and stuff and it crafts you a nice little story or script you can use during your interview.

That feature is going to evolve into something more as well because right now it's just basically a prompt. But I think AI is moving so fast — you have to evolve really fast.

I feel like with AI — you kind of have to think what is it going to look like in 10 years and think about how to build something that's going be big in 10 years.

That's the mindset I'm kind of taking with this and I don't know if Interview Jam is that product but I definitely know it's going to be like totally insane in 10 years so we'll see.

What are common blockers to consistency for you as a founder?

I try to do too many things at once — really focusing on one thing at a time helps. Once I start something, I try to do it for like seven days straight — I build up that kind of practice into my routine.

The biggest thing for me is like having a goal and working towards that goal.

There's just so many things, especially as a solo founder, you need to take care of yourself. I started off as a solo founder so it's just prioritizing really ruthlessly.

It's hard to get started — but once you get started it's just about adding the other routines into your life and making it a habit.

What drives you as a founder?

You know, a product is scalable — you're not scalable but a product is — so the impact you can have on other people's lives by building a product is my ultimate motivation to keep going.

Because you know you can scale it and you know you can really make a difference.

This story is taken from the full interview I did with Maya earlier this year. Hope her story inspires other new-to-no-code builders.