Finally good open-source forms?
Forms are this funny pillar of web infrastructure: We need them all the time and yet there is no good open-source solution for them.
There are lots of great tools out there, Tally.so by @MarieMartens and
@filipminev probably being the best overall offer and experience these days 👀
But what do you do, when you cannot no-code your solution?
Most devs end up starting to build a custom solution ("it's not that complicated, I'll quickly code it") only to find themselves spending more and more time with form design, validation and piping the outputs where they belong.
Or we <iframe> a no-code tool into our app which is limited in customizability and impossible to deeply integrate into an on-premise data warehouse.
(Not to mention compliance with GDPR, HIPPA, etc.)
Overall, not very satisfactory.
What we want is a simple yet powerful React Lib with tons of integrations into all the useful tools we API into our app.
What we also want is to rapidly build forms and granually pipe the data where we need it (e.g. the email & name into the Newsletter tool and the rest into the user db).
And we want non-techies to spin up and maintain their forms within our tech stack.
So we kinda need a No-Code editor as well.
This is what @Johannes_D and I came together to build - we called it "Snoop" because with forms we always wanna know a little too much, don't we? :D
With SnoopForms you can rapidly build forms.
With SnoopDataPlatform you can granually pipe the data where you need it.
We've built a Landing Page and would love your feedback on it!
Thanks a lot!
Johannes & Matthias
Agree with what has already been mentioned, I would also like to add that the meme’s while fun are precious real estate that would be better used by adding a “Intro Video” or a GIF showing the tool in action.
Basically something that quickly captures attention and then if you are going to claim open source and not have link to the GitHub repo you are going to lose trust as it is incoherent with the rest of your message.
Also, I want to check out the code :)
Additionally, drop the follow up questions when someone is giving you an email. Reach out separately if you want as part of a campaign and try and engage them.
Tech looks good though, so really excited to try it out. :)
@manny2077 thanks a lot for your feedback 😊🤗 Super helpful! We will implement your feedback and let you know when we have the improved version 💪
Thanks a lot for taking the time to provide feedback! :)
The questions after the email sign up are meant to prequalify testers and eliminate false positives.
The assumption is: If people are not willing to answer 4 questions they dont have a strong enough need for the solution we offer.
Hi Johannes, understand that you want to get the "right people" who have a burning need for the solution.
My marketing friends might argue that it is important to boost the number of people who are aware of snoopforms and part of the marketing funnel so that when they need your solution in the future they have emails and announcements in their mailbox rather having to google search again.
I love the concept behind your product. But the presentation could be better, here's how:
Decide who your target user is. Right now you seem to be explaining what forms are in the first section after the hero. If your key demo is a developer I would just start with the how its better section closer to the top
Keep the copy short. People don't read on the web. The first two sections should be more scannable, with less scroll required. Make the sentences shorter and highlight key words by bolding them.
Why focus on typeform? There are lots of other form platforms like google forms etc.. I think most typeform users are using it because of the design. So if you really want to compete with them start by showing the UI.
Keep a consistent voice. Some parts address the user e.g. at the start where you say: 'input where you need it' but the copy later becomes more detached and descriptive. I'd say stick to a conversational approach throughout. Dont say what you do, just focus on the users problem and show how you solve it.
Let me know if you'd like a call to go through this in more detail.
Hey hey!
We have updated the page and removed a few sections we felt are "premature" in the sense that they suggest there is a product, while we are still building it.
Furthermore, we cut out the meme part as it wasnt offering much value for devs and people didnt like our GIFs :D
We would love to get your opinion on the changes as they are quite profound!
Good start into the week 🤸
Super helpful! We'll rework the copy and get back :)
Hello! This is very good and came to me at the perfect time. I have to build some forms and I'm not a coder. Anyways, I read that is open source and then in the Github account I see no public repository. Am I missing anything? https://github.com/snoopforms
Thanks!
Hi @Fabri
the landing page is more like a teaser ;-) we just started building the solution and are aiming for a public launch in early July (selected test users in June).
But that way you can still tell us what you need and we can steer the development and the selection of the features of the first version in that direction 😊. What's the reason for you that you would like to use our open source solution instead of existing solutions like Typeform or Tally.so?
Because Tally is a product and the data stays on their server. I do know that you can integrate with other solutions to send the data to other places but the product is thought that way.
I see your product more as a gallery, that we can integrate and own. All the data goes directly to our server. We own the data. We use it as we need.
Am I right?
@Fabri you are totally right, that's one of the big reasons why we started snoopForms 😊 In about a month we will be able to give you a solution that will allow you to keep your data 💪
Great, thank you! So:
1 - What about the look of the forms? Will auto adopt the look and feel of the page where is inserted or should be configurated manually?
2 - You said Type form in your page, would have their design? I mean, one question per page and you have to enter to jump to the next question.
3 - Just a heads up, your beta list form doesn't work. I tried two times to register to be informed about your launching and it doesn't work, I just don't see the email I'm writing on my mobile.
Thanks!
@Fabri oh, we updated the landingpage and form earlier maybe you somehow got between two versions. is it working now? if not, could you please share a screenshot of the issue?
for the look of the form it depends whether you will build the form with the react lib or the no-code builder.
react lib: you have a library of question types and can build your form with multiple pages the way you like it. it doesn’t come with predefined styling and you or your existing theme needs to takes care of that. it’s the simplicity and customizability of building a html form but with data handling, analytics and complex question types built in.
no-code builder: you build a form via drag and drop (like in notion) and have predefined styles. you can customize simple things like colors or embed text & images.
when you are finished you can use it as a stand-alone page or embed it as an iframe or popup on your existing page.
the concept of the forms is currently that you have a form, pages and elements. you can put multiple elements (questions or content blocks) on one page or only one. that gives you a lot of freedom building the form the way you like it. with only one question on a page it can be like the typeform concept where you automatically go to the next question. you can see an example of this on our landing page waitlist registration where we use this concept 😊
if you have any more questions, I am happy to help 😊
From a desktop, it works. I can (and did) subscribed.
From mobile, still doesn't work. Open the site on your mobile, go to the form on the bottom, not in the center of the page, that works. In the bottom one try to type, you won't be able to do it.
Also, when I was subscribing to it using the first form, the question "how important are forms for your business?" appear. The problem is there is no "10" to choose. It goes from 0 to 9.
@Fabri ah, thanks. I was able to reproduce and fix the error 💪
sorry for the trouble you had to go through. Very happy you signed up for the waitlist 😊🤗
I see that your site uses the Stripe payment system. ("Use our Stripe integration to collect payments within forms.") I just read quite a few complaints regarding Stripe that claim that their users are experiencing difficulty in receiving their payments from their Stripe accounts. Do you have any feedback as to whether Stripe is a good payment company to deal with?
Stripe works well for us. I never had any problems and always received my payments 😊
I didn't know Stripe had any problems. Currently, use them for https://obeatow.com and other past software products.
Plus Stripe owns Indie Hackers and wonder how IH takes it 🤣
Super curious to hear feedback! :) 🚀
It looks professional, then I see the gifs 😕Other than that I like it!
@QueuedThoughts thanks a lot for your feedback 😊 The gifs seem to polarize strongly. Our goal was to be different and give the page a more playful character. It's great to hear your opinion on that and we will rethink if gifs are the right instrument for us to do that 🤔
So much better! Love it, great works, guys!
We updated the page, curious to hear how you like it now :)
The GIF on your front page is a serious turn off for me. I closed the tab and i'm probably not going back.
@lucw thanks for the feedback. We removed the gifs and also implemented the rest of the feedback from your fellow indiehackers 😊
Very good, your homepage makes sense now. The gif was really, really out of place. I may actually have a good use case for your product.
Thanks for sharing :)