Comment by tmpz22
3 days ago
This is solid, I'll show my appreciation by giving constructive criticism. This is after giving it the "120 second glance" that I imagine is how most people scan projects quickly without a proper deep dive:
* First impression: this is a website builder that looks and feels like many other website builders, with some advantages like low onboarding friction, and AI integration. As a solo project reaching par is a triumph. But I think if you continue to diverge your marketing page from a default SaaS startup style you can separate yourself more from the pack AND build a reputation as a better design tool instead of another design tool. Of course the product is more important than the landing page, but perception is perception. You do for example show personality in some of the loading pages which I personally enjoy.
* I got about 4 hours of sleep last night. I was thrilled when I could click into your app and immediately play around without having to register or experience other forms of friction. But complex design interfaces are overwhelming to me. How do I learn your tool quickly? Why should I invest the time to learn your tool versus other great tools? These are questions I'm left with after a quick scan. There are a lot of developer tools vying for my time. And I imagine their all working on AI integrations if they don't have it already.
* As a SWE I don't like Tailwind. I don't like the syntax soup, I don't like having to memorize less conventional syntax because my brain already has enough trivia in it, and I prefer small indie projects that are maintained by extremely small teams with limited resources. As a result I do not reach for Tailwind (despite having paid the $300 or whatever for their membership!). What about developers who don't want to use Tailwind?
* As a potential business customer, can I depend on you? Where will this product be in multiple years? What's the process to transition from a competing tool? What's the process for transitioning to a different tool? Enterprise customers, where the real money is, care about consistency and managing liability sometimes (often?) more then the potential value of a new tool. Consider looking into various compliance licensing, industry audits, and enterprise features, that will be needed to attract investors who want returns based on enterprise sales, not consumer sales.
I wrote this up because I like your project and hope you succeed. Hopefully it helps!
> What about developers who don't want to use Tailwind?
What's that Steve Jobs quote? "You know, you can please some of the people some of the time"
I have a hunch there's a good reason almost all of these site builders go with Tailwind rather than classic CSS, but as mostly-backend developer I couldn't tell you what that was :)
Context for the quote: https://youtu.be/oeqPrUmVz-o
Tailwind is amazing for LLMs. You can't beat it:
- concise
- inline with the rest of the code
I am willing to bet it's going to become a standard because of its existing popularity + the insane tailwinds that codegen give it.
as a (currently) non-SWE I don't like tailwind either.
If this was based on Bulma or similar I would jump right into it.
I did a ctrl-f looking for 'export' - found nothing.
If webflow had explained earlier in their existence that export is easy and those don't count towards your limits I would of been using them - but it was too confusing pricing wise and it seemed to lock you into their ecosystem, so I avoided it.
tailwind - I've tried to like it, I can see why some people will like it, but to me it's bloat in many ways, give me bulma, skeleton, similar.
This project does look interesting though for many reasons.