Founder here. Because of our first product (a "design to code" platform) [1], we've been talking to customers (mainly web agencies and small business owners) about what would be the easiest way to build and launch websites without writing code.
Why should you have to design first in a specific design tool? Why go from "design to code" in the first place? Many startups have questioned this and built great tools to help solve the problem (e.g. Webflow, Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, etc etc).
This seems like a solved problem, right?
Well, it turns out people want something simpler... like the tool they use everyday for virtually everything [2]. This was the moment we decided to focus 100% on a new tool: a Google Docs to build and launch websites.
To be honest the product is still in an early stage. There are basic features that aren't implemented (like version history, multi-page websites or collaboration). But I thought it could help someone publish their website faster. There's always that domain we bought for that project we never used... You could try it here [3].
Your demo giflike/video was compelling enough that it made me want to immediately try it out. Neat, intuitive looking UI.
Btw, since you're aiming at non-technical folks, you might want to make it clear that the page we land in after signing up, with the "Welcome, we're thrilled to have you" text, is editable and is actually our first publishable page. Some small call to action like "click anywhere to edit this page" would help.
I'm not familiar enough with this landscape, so: how does this compare to the widely-advertised ones like Squarespace, etc.? What's the differentiator here?
The Welcome page is actually editable and publishable! I'll definitely make that clear.
The main difference for other platforms is the UI and UX. We want to make creating and publishing a website as easy as writing a blog post. Incumbent platforms could be quite daunting for the non technical or non design people - i.e. I don't have to know what is a DIV or BODY to create a website. Makes sense?
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[ 19.1 ms ] story [ 1047 ms ] threadWhy should you have to design first in a specific design tool? Why go from "design to code" in the first place? Many startups have questioned this and built great tools to help solve the problem (e.g. Webflow, Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, etc etc).
This seems like a solved problem, right?
Well, it turns out people want something simpler... like the tool they use everyday for virtually everything [2]. This was the moment we decided to focus 100% on a new tool: a Google Docs to build and launch websites.
To be honest the product is still in an early stage. There are basic features that aren't implemented (like version history, multi-page websites or collaboration). But I thought it could help someone publish their website faster. There's always that domain we bought for that project we never used... You could try it here [3].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20624140
[2] We interviewed 63 customers. By the way, I was amazed and completely surprised about this conclusion.
[3] Zecoda Demo: https://zecoda.com/
Btw, since you're aiming at non-technical folks, you might want to make it clear that the page we land in after signing up, with the "Welcome, we're thrilled to have you" text, is editable and is actually our first publishable page. Some small call to action like "click anywhere to edit this page" would help.
I'm not familiar enough with this landscape, so: how does this compare to the widely-advertised ones like Squarespace, etc.? What's the differentiator here?
The main difference for other platforms is the UI and UX. We want to make creating and publishing a website as easy as writing a blog post. Incumbent platforms could be quite daunting for the non technical or non design people - i.e. I don't have to know what is a DIV or BODY to create a website. Makes sense?