[2:31 pm: At the Tempest Science Lab.]

There are 816 Bubble.io templates as of today. If I spend an average of 3 seconds checking the first 37%, or 302 templates, that's 15 minutes. Then it could be just a few more minutes to find one that's better than those I've seen so far. That might be worth finding a good template.

The question of whether I actually need a template still nags at me, though, so I'm investigating a bit further.

According to Coaching No Code Apps, I should use a template if:

• I'm looking to build a "really simple prototype with limited functionality". This is not the same as a minimum viable product (MVP). I hadn't considered this intermediate step. It's just one step above verbally describing my app to potential customers. Or maybe one step above a Figma mockup. Not my situation, though.
• I want to add just one piece of functionality to my app, such as a dashboard or login page. Not really my situation. I don't even have an app, so there's nothing to "add" to.
• I want to learn from it and "look under the hood", keeping in mind that there can be multiple ways to implement a feature. This is an attractive use case. It helped me with Webflow: It took me over 10 hours to create a decent looking 2-page website from scratch, but only 2 hours to set up a similar site by tweaking a template. It also gave me a view of how one can build sites with contrasting priorities. One template was dazzling in its use of visually compelling animations, but slow to load and hard to maintain. Another template employed simple elements and colors, but was fast-loading and easy to update. I could peek at the underlying configuration to get insight into what gave rise to these features.
• I plan to have a developer build on top of the template after the initial stages, keeping in mind that some developers may prefer to start from scratch. Not interested in this. I'd like to do any custom development myself if it's necessary.

So far, the only reason I'd use a template is to learn from it and see how others build certain features.

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