I Built a Better Tool for Interactive Product Demos

Hey Indie Hackers 👋

Let's look at how to keep people on your site longer, stop them from leaving too quickly, and turn more of them into paying customers.

Some tools let you try their tools for free without signing up. That really helps get people to use them. For example, many image-conversion sites let you convert ten files for free before they start charging. But if your product is a complex SaaS, making everything up takes a lot of work. You need to keep the trial version matched to the real product, and some key features just can't be shown that way. For AI tools, too, serving free users can get so expensive that an indiehacker can't afford it.

That's why I looked into interactive product demos—kind of like the tutorial you see in a new game. Imagine an AI article writer where you can try a simple step-by-step demo right on the landing page:

1. Type in a title
2. Tweak the direction or add more info
3. Edit the outline
4. Hit “Generate” to make the article
5. Publish to WordPress with one click

There are already tools like this, costing from $50 to $500 per month. I tested some of them and noticed they all act like standalone apps. If you open the demo in two browser tabs, each tab sees something different, like early PowerPoint slides that don't match across computers.

Then I thought of Figma. From day one, Figma let everyone see the same thing. Any change you make shows up for everyone in real time. At first, some designers didn't like being watched, but soon that live sync became one of Figma's best features.

I decided to build Snapdemo with the same idea. It works like Google Docs: every change you make shows up instantly for everyone else. You'll never get out of step with your team or with your own demos.

That's how Snapdemo came to be. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

If you are interested, here is the link: snapdemo.io