In the fast-paced world of startups, the ability to bring innovative products to market quickly can make all the difference. NuShift, a member of the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, is transforming the manufacturing and maintenance sectors through a paradigm shift in how companies store, retrieve, and leverage data. Their technology uses machine learning and natural language processing to help maintenance and engineering teams quickly find the information they need from vast stores of internal documentation. With a relentless pursuit of efficiency and forward-thinking approach, NuShift is part of the growing adoption of low- and no-code development that is redefining go-to-market speed.
Launched in 2021, NuShift’s co-founders—who will remain anonymous as the company is still in stealth mode—were determined to develop their AI solution quickly. They turned to Bubble, a no-code platform that allows anyone to create web applications without writing any code. Bubble was a perfect fit for NuShift, allowing them to quickly build a prototype of their AI solution and then iterate on it based on feedback from customers.
As a result, NuShift was able to develop their AI solution in just a few months. They were also able to save a significant amount of money on development costs.
A no-code approach yields efficient testing and fast feedback
NuShift recognized the potential of no-code and capitalized on it to expedite the development of their AI solution—called ELMR-T (Engineering Liaison in Maintenance & Reliability Technologies)—forging a path for other startups to follow.
“I had done a lot of competitive analysis in the past, so when it was time to build, I started looking at low-code platforms,” one of the co-founders said. “With Bubble, the business side of things made so much more sense because you could scale, and you could bootstrap.”
Bubble’s visual development environment allowed NuShift to quickly create interactive prototypes of their AI solution. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, NuShift’s development team was able to build and iterate upon the core features of ELMR-T in a fraction of the time it would have taken with traditional development methods. This rapid prototyping approach enabled NuShift to gather valuable user feedback early on and incorporate it into the evolving design, ensuring a user-centric product.
NuShift efficiently prepared the beta version of ELMR-T for user testing, requiring minimal time and investment. Startups that work with the right low- or no-code partner can see similar results, as NuShift estimates that cost was approximately 5-10% of what it would have been with traditional code development. On top of that, they managed to reach that milestone and go to market within a 4-week timeframe, as opposed to the usual 4-6 months.
A clear path to securing funding and further expansion
The co-founders of NuShift credit their use of low-code as being crucial to their swift success, and they’re currently eyeing expansion to other industries. As they continue to focus on moving from pilot testing to filling their sales pipeline, they say the low development costs and rapid time-to-market that Bubble provided made it all possible.
“We know what we have and what is needed in the market,” one of the co-founders said. “We don’t feel like we need to give up a lot of equity to secure funding because we have a strong go-to-market strategy,” said the other co-founder. “Within the next year, we feel strongly like we’ll be close to a multimillion-dollar company.”
Members of Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub can receive $3000 in credits for the Bubble platform to build fast and responsive web applications that scale.
