People are constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with no-code tools – from small projects that take just a couple of hours to extensive SaaS services that make people more productive.

‍

Here’s the story of how Anita and her team built a business that uses Bubble to help people showcase their portfolios.

Hi, my name is Anita Kirkovska. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Biyo, and I am responsible for product growth and positioning.

I am originally from Skopje, Macedonia. Coming from the Balkans taught me to be resilient, and oddly enough, it gave me the "underdog" advantage. Early in my career I got to organize the world's biggest hackathon, the NASA Space Apps Challenge all around the world, including Silicon Valley.

Five hackathons later, I got the Fulbright scholarship award to study Computer Science in the US, at the University of Central Florida. I have been a growth lead and founding member of several other startups, two of which were acquired.

I wore many hats working in these startups: customer research, design, SEO, B2B sales and marketing, landing page optimization, and of course, no-code utilization for processes and scalability.

Shortly after my graduation I got involved with no-code, and that’s when I started my first side-project - Ampstor, a no-code website maker. Shortly after, I also joined a YC-funded startup as a founding growth member and together we built and grew a no-code solution for data analytics.

Today both these startups are acquired, and I am onto new adventures with Biyo.

No-code changed my life.

Creating Biyo on Bubble

We first created Biyo to solve our own problems: Showcasing our portfolio to new clients. Marina (my cofounder) and I started working with no-code tools like Bubble and Webflow as freelancers, and we found it very hard to showcase everything that we’ve been doing – and we were doing a lot!

We never found the time to update our resumes or portfolios, because we were busy making magic for our customers. But to secure new ones, we needed the best way possible to showcase our portfolio and past projects.

That’s how Biyo was born. Biyo is a no-code solution that allows you to create a video-first dynamic portfolio that lets you introduce yourself, and showcase your projects in the best way possible.

You can integrate popular apps such as Product Hunt, Youtube, and Dribble or you can just paste links from your products. There is also a lot of customization so you can change your theme, add branding colors, highlight products, collect subscribers or add a welcome video.

Biyo is built 100% with Bubble – and we’re constantly surprised by the things we can do with no-code.

We built Biyo because WE needed it!

Marina and I wanted a better way to showcase our previous work, not just our client gigs but also our content, videos, and communities. Basically, our whole digital footprint. When clients decide they want to work with you - they want to hear the whole story, not just your technical skills. We want Biyo to help makers to do just that - communicate who they are and what they do, and to help them monetize more.

Every maker can now create their portfolio using Biyo.

Biyo is 100% built on Bubble, and has many API connectors with external tools like Product Hunt, Open Sea, Dribble, Youtube, etc.

We chose to work with Bubble, because we were both experienced Bubble developers, but more importantly, we understand that we can test our hypothesis much faster. And when you’re building a startup it is crucial that you have the ability to move fast, test ideas and to find product market fit. No-code enables this for us.

Navigating the technicalities of Bubble

Regarding our no-code work, we want to push the limits of Bubble. And since we’re building a no-code tool with a no-code tool, there are many challenges! For example, right now we’re building a video element that will let makers record an “introduction video” that will be highlighted on their portfolios.

To do that, we had many technical obstacles, but we managed to overcome them. Regarding our validation/marketing, we’re constantly talking with makers from all over the world. We’re learning day by day on the things that they want or don’t want to do.

Many of our hypotheses were rejected, but we also found some nice gems that we’re including in our app.

We’re constantly running into obstacles or challenges, both no-code and validation related. But that’s what building a startup is all about – testing a lot of things, and learning from it.

We really put ourselves out there and we try to learn as much as we can.

Our advice for other makers

For other makers who plan to build a side-hustle or their own startup with no-code: Please don’t get discouraged. Have trust in the process.

The only bad thing about no-code is that we get used to building our products very fast, and we expect that traction and adoption will come with the same speed! 😆

Try to test a minimum viable product from your solution. Do not be deceived into thinking that you need to build everything all at once just because no-code is really fast.

Most likely, many of the features in your app will be viewed as unnecessary by your users, and you'll learn from them what's really important.