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8 Successful No-Code Startups That Proved It Works

  • Writer: Team Ellenox
    Team Ellenox
  • Oct 23
  • 4 min read

For years, the idea of building a real tech company without writing a single line of code sounded naïve. Startups, the thinking went, were for software engineers and venture-backed founders with technical depth.

That assumption has collapsed. A new wave of companies, many now profitable or venture-funded, are proving that the next generation of startups can begin life on platforms like Bubble, Glide, Webflow, and Airtable.

These no-code tools have matured into legitimate product environments capable of powering marketplaces, SaaS products, and even AI platforms. What once seemed like shortcuts has become genuine infrastructure.

Comet

In 2017, Charles Thomas wanted to make it easier for companies to hire freelance data experts. Without a technical co-founder or a development team, he opened a Bubble account. Within a few months, Comet went live as a functioning two-sided marketplace that matched companies with vetted freelancers.

The early product, built entirely on Bubble, handled everything from profile creation to payment flows. The platform attracted its first paying customers, validated its business model, and helped Thomas raise venture funding.

Comet eventually rebuilt its backend with code as volume grew, but the company’s story marked a turning point. It proved that serious companies could begin with no code. Website: https://www.comet.co/en/ 

Ohana

In France, Ohana launched as a subletting marketplace for short-term housing. Its founders built the full platform on Bubble, including listing tools, verification workflows, and booking logic, without engineers. Within a year, Ohana reached profitability and reported multimillion-dollar revenue.

The company showed that the flexibility of no-code could support complex workflows involving user trust, payments, and legal compliance. For its founders, speed to market mattered more than traditional architecture, and the bet paid off.

BuyTicket

In Brazil, BuyTicket used Bubble to launch a consumer ticket resale app. The founders integrated local payment providers and authentication services through Bubble’s API connectors, allowing them to handle thousands of users before hiring developers.

The platform became one of the first large-scale consumer-facing marketplaces to rely entirely on no-code infrastructure in its early phase. BuyTicket’s success helped cement the idea that Bubble could operate far beyond prototyping.

SuiteOp

SuiteOp, a vertical SaaS product for hotel operators, treated no-code not as a temporary solution but as a growth engine. The team built the first version in Bubble, integrated it with property management systems, and reached $700,000 in annual recurring revenue before raising $3 million in seed funding.

The company’s progress attracted investors who were less interested in the underlying tech stack and more impressed by the metrics. SuiteOp proved that vertical SaaS could be validated, scaled, and monetized inside a visual builder.

RentFund

RentFund, a rental payments platform, used Glide to create a mobile app for landlords and tenants. The entire MVP ran on Google Sheets and connected to payment processors through integrations. Investors could interact with the live demo on their phones, not just click through slides. The result was early funding and a roadmap for scale.

RentFund’s case showed how spreadsheet-based logic, paired with modern APIs, could support a credible fintech MVP. Glide’s approach lets the team test functionality and UX before spending on engineering.

My AskAI

The success of My AskAI, an AI-driven customer support tool, illustrates how no-code can integrate directly with modern AI infrastructure.

Built on Bubble, the platform lets users upload documents, connect a knowledge base, and instantly deploy a chatbot trained on their content. The team used OpenAI’s API for the underlying language model but kept the front-end and onboarding logic inside Bubble. Within months, the startup had more than 40,000 users and over $25,000 in monthly recurring revenue.

My AskAI’s architecture demonstrates the growing hybrid model: no code handles orchestration and interface, while external APIs take care of heavy computation.

Flexiple

Flexiple, a global network for freelance designers and engineers, began entirely on Bubble. The company reached several million dollars in annual revenue before building out a custom engineering stack. The founders credit their no-code beginnings for speed and cost efficiency in the early stages.

Flexiple’s growth mirrored Comet’s trajectory and reinforced the argument that the combination of no code and strong operations can outpace traditional software development at the idea stage.

Formula Bot

Formula Bot began as a weekend experiment by founder David Bressler. The web app translates plain-English requests into Excel formulas using AI. Built completely in Bubble, it went viral within weeks.

Tens of thousands of users signed up, validating the product before any custom infrastructure was needed. Bubble handled the user experience, while external APIs powered the AI logic. The simplicity of its execution underscored a powerful truth: speed has become a competitive advantage.

A New Normal for Founders

What ties these stories together is not the technology but the tempo. Founders are using no-code to compress what once took a year of engineering into a few months of design and experimentation.

Early-stage investors have taken notice. Y Combinator has funded multiple companies that launched on no-code. Angel investors increasingly view no-code prototypes as credible signals of traction. The barrier to entry has never been lower, and the time to market has never been shorter.

For non-technical founders, this shift is transformational. They can now ship a working product, test it with users, and iterate in real time before writing a line of code or spending heavily on development.


Ready to Turn Your No-Code Build Into a Scalable Business?


At Ellenox, we help founders move beyond the prototype. If you built your product in Bubble, Glide, or Webflow, we work with you to turn early traction into sustainable growth.

From pricing strategy to monetization and investor readiness, Ellenox guides startups through building systems that scale with their market and ambition. You built fast. Now build smart.



 
 
 

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