Marketplace for Prefab Homes (No-code)
👋 Indie Hackers!
Feeling good about this project! Built entirely in Webflow. 90% of the site was built in a day in Webflow…that other 10% we won’t talk about 😉
Dwellito is a prefab marketplace to find and finance a backyard home. The platform featur
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This is a really slick looking website, great job using Webflow to it's full potential.
My only comment would be the size of the images you're using, your website weighs in at 25MB due to all the large, high quality images you're using.
It'd be worth running your images through a tool like https://tinypng.com/ to reduce their size without reducing quality. It's also worth reducing the dimension of any images before you upload them so they're only as big as they're ever displayed.
I hope this makes sense, let me know if you need any more guidance.
Absolutely, I've been putting that off but it's next on the list. Thanks for bringing it up.
Also, check out https://squoosh.app for image resizing. It's pretty neat.
To add on to this discussion, photos should almost always be JPG (or WebP), not PNG. You will save a ton of bandwidth and speed by simply by converting the photos to JPG.
Beautiful site overall!
Hi Caleb, Dwellito looks gorgeous! I'm in the process of building a marketplace using Webflow. Would you be willing to share what the other 10% of your project entails? Was it third party extension like Airtable, Memberstack.io, Foxy.io, or something else? You don't have to reveal the name but I really appreciate your guidance. Thanks!
Just wanted to echo the congratulations. I'm very impressed by the website, you've done a beautiful job mate! Best of luck with the business :)
Really appreciate it Ara!
Site looks great, very impressive. It was clear what you were trying to get across and easy to search. I wish I could sort by sqft, and then press it again to sort higher to lower. I love the design
Me too, I'm hoping Webflow is working on that type of sorting and multi-filters. There are a few ways around it but it's a bit too hacky IMO.
The landing looks great, how did you do that on Webflow? Very nice.
I even started considering a prefab, probably the main caveat is getting a good piece of land with communications right?
I wanted to learn Webflow for awhile and decided to try it out with this project. There's a lot of little tricks and tips that I shared about the process: https://www.makerpad.co/stories/caleb-barclay-building-a-marketplace-for-backyard-homes
Maybe the biggest challenges is financing a prefab. New construction, whether prefab or not, is expensive (interest rates are high). IMO, if you are strapped for cash, buy a home that has a big backyard for the prefab. Yes, you'll have someone living on your property but it can be a money maker. You can leverage your main house's value to finance the backyard, interest-free. It's a neat alternative called co-investing.
There is a problem with the nav bar on the my 13inch Macbook.
Learn, about and contact nav items are cut off so you only see half the words.
I'd also go with another font like open sans, personally.
Can you DM the Nav Bar problem? I have a 13" macbook pro...
Damn, cool idea! Very timely.
Thanks Pete! It is a good time indeed!
Hey Caleb. I saw this on product hunt and was exploring it earlier. I really like it! It actually made me consider getting one, no joke. I really love how uniform the experience is for each home. Even though you're a marketplace for various companies, it feels like it's all part of one which in my opinion adds to the level of trust.
For the estimates feature, do you forward the details along to the company making the home? Or do you play any part in creating the estimates?
Thanks Manuel! You should buy one and help my MRR go up ;) In all seriousness, I'm actually buying one for my backyard to use as a rental. No commission there.
For the estimates, we spend a bit more time with customers, answering questions, suggesting better deals, etc. We're trying to streamline the estimates (next big push) so that a customer can easily compare each home, side-by-side, specific to their location. But at a certain point when consulting is required (site analysis), we send it over to the company.