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React Devs Needed! Roast our page. I'll roast yours!

Cruu.io was founded by developers for developers and we let our 'inner geek speak' with our landing page.

But ... now we're worried we went overboard.

Are you a React developer? Please ROAST our landing page (Cruu.io) and then drop your landing page and I'll roast yours!

Questions:

  1. Is it clear what problem we are solving?
  2. Is it clear what our solution is?
  1. 5
    1. Too many call to actions
    2. Not enough tutorial code on front-page (think of Hello world)
    3. No testimonials, demo-app, live-demo
    1. 1

      Thank you! @orliesaurus Do you have a landing page? I can try and reciprocate your very kind help and look at your landing page too? THANK YOU!

      1. 2

        No but you can follow me on twitter if you like my content

        1. 1

          @orliesaurus Doh! I don't have twitter and our company doesn't have twitter (yet)! But I followed you on IH and will try to follow you on twitter as soon as we get our account up! Thank you again for your feedback!

          1. 2

            it's all good :) i was just sayin to say something HA

  2. 3

    Hi @CruuCrew I like the gif on the page, but have some questions. Does Cruu have premade components that I can use to make other components or do I have to make all the components that are usable in the tool to make my bigger component? What happens if I elect to use a UI library like React Semantic UI for components, would I be able to easily click and drag those components to make my bigger components?

    It looks like in the brief gif demo it is working in localhost is this a local dev tool I would use on my local machine or would I use this through the browser from your server?

    Another thought like @orliesaurus mentions, can you have a simple "demo.cruu.io" that one can use a simplified version to make a simple component & understand the tool more? Or maybe a very simple section on the landing page that allows you to interact with it to update the MealCard component you have on the landing page - like the text/color etc?

    I'm new to React in the last 10 months or so. I have a new webpage for devs to create CV portfolio pages called Vina.Dev, it uses the React Semantic UI framework. You can see my page here: https://vina.dev/rene. Any feedback on the site is appreciated!

    1. 2

      Hi @rene!

      1. To try and provide the best feedback I can on your landing page, I tried to skip your description of what your website does and instead just jump to it so I can report back what I think it does without “pre-prepared” bias? Also, in the Indie Hackers tradition I am trying to provide feedback that is useful by trying to be as frank as possible?

      After visiting your landing page my guess is your website is "Clubhouse for Software Engineers." It's a social network where software engineers can meet other engineers to socialize, collaborate, and connect. But the beauty of your website is it strips down what info is shared to just what is interesting and relevant for the purposes of growing one's career as a developer. Did I get it right?

      My feedback from a business perspective is this… My guess is you’ll face a ‘chicken or the egg’ social network problem. If it offers proven value for my developer career I will want to join but the only way it will provide value is if lots of developers use it? How will you ‘prime the pump’ to get the initial users to post their CVs? Also how will you get people to come back relatively frequently? Will there be a newsfeed or will you email people relevant collaboration opps like LinkedIn does with job opps?

      I personally can’t think of a social network for developers that satisfies my needs so it is a very interesting opportunity you are attacking!

      1. Thank you for the AWESOME feedback on our landing page. In answer to your great questions:

      A) Right now we do not have pre-made components (a la Bootstrap) but we are working on creating a full and satisfying set of pre-made components. We thought about offering a feature where you can click and drag Bootstrap type components or Semantic UI components, etc. into Cruu as an integration but we are opting away from that right now as we thought users just want awesome pre-made components but don't care as much where the components come from (i.e., Bootstrap vs. Cruu's own component library). You've been so generous with your time please feel no obligation to reply … but may I ask your thoughts on this topic?

      B) Cruu is not a local dev tool. The drag and drop design app part of Cruu and the code generation part of Cruu are cloud-based.

      C) A demo playground is a GREAT idea! We are working on that now. Thank you!

      @rene thank you very, very much for the really thoughtful, awesome feedback. I am grateful for the time and brain power you expended trying to help us. Thank you!

      1. 2

        Awesome feedback @CruuCrew! You are right on the description, I'd like to have a simplified place that is welcoming to devs & offers opportunity (what opportunity means is driven by the current goals of the dev - connect, find job, build new stuff, learn) & tools to help with a dev's career development. I found my first coding job through another dev, so I think there is value in cultivating more relationships between devs. Still much to learn as this will evolve as we build & learn from early users about their problems.

        You are most definitely right about the "chicken & egg" scenario, I believe content is always king in that regard along with trusted influencers. I think implementing a way to share your work/code/project progress (safely) in a stream may be an interesting way to get people involved & communicating with other devs but idk really haha. I have lots of ideas, but I'm really trying to understand the problems of devs (beyond my own) & understand marketing to developers. I'm also considering the issues faced internationally by devs too since I live in Vietnam currently.

        For your question on pre-made components - I do like that idea of having your own pre-made components, as maybe it allows you to have full control over your design language for those components in the Cruu.io tool. I wonder if you could entice developers with your own open-source set of components to be alongside other UI frameworks like Semantic & Ant Design. Idk the best approach there but I'm open to other UI frameworks/components if they can be implemented easily with my existing frameworks too if I'm using something else like Semantic.

        Thank you for your feedback on my site & hope you have a great weekend!

        1. 2

          @rene thank you for the GREAT feedback on our components issue! It was REALLY helpful! +1'd it :). Thank you!

  3. 3

    I am no React developer but I am a developer.

    I find it very difficult to understand what this product is about. One has to be very technical in React (or web dev) so that it rings a bell. Except the hero message there is no more detailed explanation what is the actual value you are trying "to sell".

    Maybe you want to explain the top 3 features and why would it be beneficial for me if I use this tool.

    You also have 2 testimonials that I guess came in a form of a review, but it looks very obscure. You can either put the names of people or what they do (like "Senior Web Developer" or "Jake, senior web developer").

    Another very honest feedback, the quote from the CEO is totally unnecessary. Looks like Nelson Mandela's message told to the Antarctica penguins.

    1. 1

      @itsbalal One of the things I LOVE about Indie Hackers is people really care and are trying to help and the way we Indie Hackers do that is by providing frank feedback because that's the only way we learn what we need to iterate on to get to product/market fit.

      THANK YOU FOR THE AWESOME HONEST FEEDBACK! You hit the nail right on the head about what we are worried about. We need to work on explaining our value pitch more clearly and will work on that. THANK YOU! You are awesome!

      1. 1

        Awesome, so happy this came to grown-up ears, I am a bit insecure when I give feedback to products. Just to mention this, your product looks awesome! And I wish you all the best in your journey!

  4. 2

    My take away: you convert designs into re-usable React components.

    My questions:

    • Where are the designs coming from? E.g. Sketch?
    • How do you make sure that when designs are updated, code is updated and vice versa? (Will it cause syncing issues with the designer?)
    • Where will the components live?
    1. 1

      @logicalicy Thank you for taking the time to provide us this REALLY useful feedback. Your questions hit the nail right on the head regarding what we were worried about with our landing page. Thank you! In answer to your questions:

      1. The designs come from Cruu's own drag and drop design app. Cruu includes its own Figma-like design app but our design app is optimized for React development.

      2. We sync code in a way that is somewhat similar to how Xcode uses its drag and drop interface builder to sync code for iOS apps.

      3. The components live in a (what we consider to be elegant) separate folder and are connected in (what we consider to be) an intuitive, neat fashion.

      THANK YOU AGAIN!

  5. 2

    Are you using styled components? Asking because initial load flashes the text with original font

    1. 1

      Hi @raulsanchez1024! Yes we are! But the reason it flashes is because we load the google fonts using client side js. This is something we need to improve on our Next.js setup (MVP lol). Otherwise the page is pre-rendered. Thanks for the feedback!

        1. 1
          1. Your profile says you like smoking ribs. This is a core competency here at Cruu!

          2. Nice post +1. I like it! Thank you!

  6. 2

    Just my two cents, I really like the 5 star reviews but I feel like they aren't adding enough to convince me this is a solid product for 2 reasons:

    1. They blend into the background color (I think this would a great time to use an accent color to really make those 5 stars pop)
    2. There isn't enough testimonials (I think you could have that whole row filled with reviews and it would really bring more impact)

    I hope this helps!

    1. 1

      @akumar0630 Thank you! This is very useful feedback. I do agree about the accent color and your comments in general about the reviews. Thank you!

  7. 2

    The quote with the signature at the bottom from the founder? Someone likes themselves a bit too much 😂

    It's mostly clear what you're doing. You can create your React UI using a graphical interface to avoid you writing code.

    1. 1

      @elie222 Thank you! I feel acquaintances just tell you what you want to hear but true friends tell you what you NEED to hear and are honest with their feedback. I really appreciate your great, honest feedback here. Thank you for taking time out of your day! We will work on the signature quote. Thank you!

  8. 2

    To all, I had a demo with one of the team members from Cruu and it's a brilliant product to design react components.

    I would highly recommend Cruu.

    1. 1

      @upenv THANK YOU for the support! Marko and I were really very grateful to you for the awesome insight you provided. Right now we are struggling to get real world user insight as to what people like and don't like about Cruu. Our interaction with you on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of being helpful was 992,329! Thank you!

      1. 1

        Glad to hear that. Thankyou.

  9. 2

    Hi mate, I'm a react developer. I couldn't really grasp what problem Cruu is solving. I think some more detailed examples would go a long way. Then if that piqued my interest I would want to read well-fleshed-out documentation. I personally wouldn't hand over my email address before seeing either of those.

    1. 1

      @deadlysyntax. First off, kudos to you sir on an awesome username!

      You hit the nail LITERALLY right on the head as to what we were worried about. THANK YOU for providing frank feedback. Frank feedback is often more difficult and taxing to provide than nice platitudes. I am grateful to you for expending brain power and effort to try and help us.

      Very interesting also about the documentation and the email address sharing hurdle. This makes a lot of sense and I think we need to incorporate this into our website. Thank you!

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