SPOTLIGHT: Thomas Lyon-Shaw

14th of November, 2024

Meet Thomas Lyon-Shaw, a dedicated and resourceful member of the Building with Bubble community. After teaching himself app development on a different platform and hitting some major roadblocks, Thomas went on a quest for something better—and found Bubble. His journey with Bubble started with Building with Bubble’s TicketMaster clone, which he credits as the turning point in his self-education.

Thomas has since gone on to develop apps for clients, including his first project, Mr. Hotspot eSIMs, a web app for a new eSIM provider, and recently launched his own business, Click To Book, specializing in real-time booking apps. Read Thomas’s story below.

What’s your history of discovering Bubble.io and Building with Bubble?

Having invested quite a considerable amount of time teaching myself how to build with an alternative platform (that we’ll call platform ‘A’ here), and indeed developing a full-blown event booking app with real-time availability and a business owner dashboard, I was somewhat deflated and frustrated by the platform’s performance, reliability, and absent of fundamental functionality such as injecting my own HTML code (for managing cookies and GDPR compliance, for example).

So, picking myself up with determination, I went in search of an alternative app development platform and Bubble came into my life.

In order to not fall victim to my previous mistake with platform ‘A’, I underwent extensive research on Bubble, its history, its developers, its reviews, its functionality, its pitfalls, you name it, I wanted to know it.

The results of my research were pleasing and I was satisfied that Bubble could be the one for me, so off I went on a further educational journey on how to actually develop with Bubble.

I initially struggled, largely due to the fact that I was so used to the dragging and dropping of elements within platform ‘A’, but with perseverance, I adjusted and now actually find Bubble’s approach to structuring apps much, much better and more reliable when you consider cross-device/browser responsiveness.

Having spent some time ‘playing’to get accustomed to Bubble I was in need of inspiration and to be put to the test. This is when I came across Building with Bubble, where initially I took on the challenge of building a TicketMaster clone via their YouTube video, but the lesson wasn’t covered in full on YouTube, and I was completely hooked and needed more!

I instantly navigated to their website and purchased the full lesson and indeed went on to develop the TicketMaster clone in full. This was absolutely the pinnacle of my self-education process of developing with Bubble.

I found Lachlan to be exceptional in his delivery and I was able to follow the lesson with ease, discovering everything that Bubble has to offer along the way. I now also use Notion relentlessly in my day-to-day life for project planning, task management, etc which Lachlan introduced me to in the lesson.

Building with Bubble will, of course, remain a go-to resource of mine for continual learning.

Tell us about the most exciting project that you’ve built or are currently building on Bubble!

So, having initially educated myself and successfully developed the TicketMaster clone, it was time to shift to my own projects.

My first project was for a new eSIM provider called Mr. Hotspot eSIMs, (https://esims.mrhotspot.rentals) who excitably for me, are an official Airalo partner. Their core business is Mr. Hotspot Dongles (https://www.mrhotspot.rentals), renting out Wi-Fi dongles to tourists in a specific holiday resort in Turkey, but with eSIMs becoming more and more prevalent they saw an opportunity to scale their business and as such, Mr. Hotspot eSIMs was born.

It’s a volume-based business model, so the app needed to be built with that in mind. Mind you, that should really always be at the forefront of your mind when developing any app. The planning stage was time spent (using Notion!) architecting the database structure and possible user experience. I created screen mock-ups for the client pre-development (Using Canva) and opted for a fully responsive web application rather than native for Android and iOS.

The purchasing user experience needed to be simple, seamless, and quick. Product listing, integrated payment gateway, user account management, and purchase management for the customers to manage their eSIMs for activation, activation code embedded in QR code, transactional email integration for onboarding welcome emails and order confirmation emails. On
the back-end for the business owners is a product and sales dashboard to manage customer purchases, eSIM inventory, and sales analytics.

They are piloting their new venture in Turkey for now, but intend to scale up worldwide in the near future, and I couldn’t be happier to be part of that exciting journey.

Now, for some people reading this (I am undoubtedly with an audience of some exceptionally talented developers here), this might all sound a bit underwhelming, but for my first project I’m very proud of the achievement and the project will remain one close to my heart.

Project deployed at – https://esims.mrhotspot.rentals

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while building your apps using Bubble? What helped you?

There’s nothing that really sticks out in my mind that’s been an absolute brick wall hitter for me, I had already made the most of (and continue to do so) the invaluable learning resources out there before I got off the ground. Building with Bubble was fundamental.

I think it can be very overwhelming in general developing apps, or my head certainly spins at least, when I consider database structure built for efficiency, data security, privacy rules, compliance with cookies and GDPR and that’s all before you’ve really delved into the development of the actual user experience.

Having now launched my own business, Click To Book (https://www.clicktobook.co.uk) I have moved into the realm of developing booking apps with real-time availability down to the hour, across various events and services. I guess it’s always in the back of my mind that you don’t really want to get that wrong!! But as developers, I think we’re all guilty sometimes of doubting ourselves and our approaches to developing, but I think it’s good to challenge yourself in this way.

Anything else you would like to say for fellow Bubblers?

Don’t jump in with both feet first. Research, research, research, plan, plan, and plan. Use the resources available to you such as Building with Bubble, the Bubble forum, and YouTube. Challenge your methods, but don’t let them hinder growth. Please, please use best practices for data security and have that in the forefront of your mind when developing. I read some absolute
shockers out there!

Finally, have fun and take pride in what you’re contributing to the digital landscape.

We are grateful to share Thomas’s Bubble story and if you enjoyed it as much as we did – stay tuned for another Spotlight post next month!

Would you like to share your story, too? Drop us an email at hello@buildingwithbubble.com