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New tool for Notion fans. Create beautiful websites with Notion. (Need feedback)

Hey everyone! I'm Alexey Shashkov from Moscow – a Notion enthusiast and a newbie in startups. I'm working on a web tool that allows users to build beautiful websites entirely in Notion and publish them to the web on a custom domain. Without coding. Handling these websites is easy like writing a note in Notion. But first things first.


Idea

I'm constantly looking for ideas for new products. But how do I know if an idea is valid? To validate, I create simple landing pages, write press-releases, generate traffic, and look at the response.

Previously, I used the Tilda page builder (like Wix). At first sight, a simple and fast tool. Take a template, edit text - and you're done. But in practice, the ready-to-use template never came up to me. Each time I removed half of the default sections and added new ones. The result was a variegated set of blocks with inharmonious designs, and I spent a lot of time trying to bring them to a consistent style.

I began actively looking for a replacement for Tilda and came across products that turn Notion pages into websites on a custom domain.
Their only lack is that they don't allow to customize the styles of the final websites:

  • center titles and buttons;
  • change colors, styles, and shape;
  • overlay backgrounds, etc.
    And without this, the landing page looks rustic and seems "under-designed".

All I was missing in the tools I found was the ability to customize the design a little. And I decided to create such an opportunity myself. This is how the idea fromNotion appeared - a web tool when you create a website of any complexity with Notion.

Manage such a website is no more difficult than writing a note in Notion. All content is stored in your Notion pages, and the website is a storefront. If you change the content of the page, the storefront also changes.

Most importantly, you can choose a style and apply it to the entire page. You don't have to manually adjust the settings for each button or title.

MVP

As an audience of fromNotion, I see everyone who wants to quickly check hypotheses and launch products but does not want to waste resources on developing a website. These are startups, indie makers, solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, bloggers.

The first version of the product contains:

  • Connecting custom domains
  • Subdomains like subdomain.yourdomain.com
  • Beautiful URLs for pages like yourdomain.com/about, yourdomain.com/contacts, etc.
  • SSL so that the site opens at HTTPS:// and browsers do not swear at it
  • Changing fonts
  • Changing text color
  • Meta page tags for SEO (title, description)
  • Uploading your favicon
  • Uploading an image for a preview (when you throw a link to a site in a social network - this picture will be loaded)
  • Custom code - to connect 3rd-party services like web analytics, live chats, payments, etc.
  • Websites templates

What next?

Now we are working on MVP and want to expand the possibilities for editing elements. Will be done:

  • More powerful text styling (size, position)
  • Styling buttons (color, size, position, shape, rounding)
  • Ability to change page background
  • Customizable navigation bars for the site header
  • Customizable footers (logo, links, text)
  • Style templates. You choose a style, apply - and the default site turns into a stylized one.
  • SEO settings (301 redirects, sitemap.xml, robots.txt)

Questions for readers:
Do you use Notion for personal and/or work projects?
Are you ready to change your current website builder to fromNotion, subject to similar functionality and price?

If you are a fan of Notion and you are interested in an idea - check out our landing page. We are actively collecting feedback, wishes, and comments - feel free to write here or on Twitter @shashcoffe.

And if not, I will be glad to hear your feedback about the idea itself, its analogs, and competitors.

Are you ready to change your current website builder to fromNotion, subject to similar functionality
  1. Yes
  2. No
  3. Maybe. But first I need to try the product.
Vote
  1. 2

    Big fan of Notion and current Notion Ambassador crew. I read everything you said above, but if you wanna give one specific value proposition about your product, what would it be?

    What’s your plan to standout among players like Super, Potion and Fruition?

    1. 1

      Hey Felix. Thank you for your comment and helpful question.

      If I wanna give one specific value proposition about my product, it would be custom styles of Notion's elements. For example, Notion callout can be a beautiful blue button with shadow and rounding and aligned to the center. Easy-to-use CSS-styles presets, without coding.

      My plan to standout among players is to give users the opportunity to create the beautiful websites they need. Not just Notion pages on custom domains. Beautiful websites with beautiful buttons, headers, etc.

      Thank you again for your responsiveness. I really appreciate it. 🙌🙂🙏

  2. 2

    Here are the things I would add

    • add examples of templates / gallery
    • add testimonials
    • add pricing page
    • add footer and links (!!!)

    Here are the things I would remove/change

    • Features, if you're just going to list ALL the features, just make a table
    • Call to Action: I expected a sign-up page, instead there was a form feels like it's not been created yet? (maybe I assume wrong?)
    • Add a video walkthrough of you using the app maybe to increase stickiness / decrease bouncerate
    1. 1

      Hey, Bro.

      Thanks a lot for your powerful feedback and advice. I really appreciate it. 🙏🙂

      An MVP isn't ready yet and I've put a form. You are right.

      Thank you so much for your attention.

  3. 2

    I like the idea. I don’t need it as I have everything I need right now (built a basic page using carrd) but I’m a big fan of Notion and am happy to follow your project as you progress.

    1. 1

      Thank you so much, John! 🙌🙂

  4. 1

    I am currently using super.so for my website jimzarkadas.com and the main thing I was looking for in the landing page, is how it compares to the competitors. So a page/section where you explain "Why choose fromNotion over super.so" would be useful for me :-)

    Ghost does this in a humble and nice way https://ghost.org/alternatives/

    1. 1

      Hey Jim! Thanks a lot for your feedback and advice.

      fromNotion allows applying styles to elements of your website and it'll be a beautiful website, not just a Notion page. That's the main difference from other analogs.

      I'll add a section with the explanation. Thx! 🙌🙂🙏

      1. 2

        Ah got it, happy to help!

  5. 1

    It would be great to get your feedback about the idea and landing page. Feel free to write here. 🙌🙂

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