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Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

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Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#31

Post by swyx »

congrats on launching!

i confess i struggled to get the value proposition at first. i tend to look for as simple as possible positioning. people can get behind "no code", people can get behind Jamstack/"empowering developers", but pitching the messy middle is very tricky in my mind.

i think where i was swayed is less in the custom components part, but more the integrations with airtable/other APIs. you might have a decent shot of doing that better than wordpress and webflow can (although both are formidable already). as a marketer with some dev time i might find that very useful.

with the custom components piece, i'd lean into more of a marketplace approach so that people can reuse components made by others/pick them off the shelf, and people who maintain components might even be able to make money from the weweb users who are using them!

as for embedding React in Vue - what are the constraints to simply mounting the React component on a DOM node rendered by Vue? are you solving for SSR or something? its not clear from your description what exactly you are struggling with.

Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#32

Post by raphael-gold »

swyx wrote: post #31

congrats on launching! i confess i struggled to get the value proposition at first. i tend to look for as simple as possible positioning. people can get behind "no code", people can get behind Jamstack/"empowering developers", but pitching the messy middle is very tricky in my mind. i think where i was swayed is less in the custom components part, but more the integrations with airtable/other APIs. you might have a d…

Yes, back-end integrations seem to be one of the main reasons why users decide to adopt us. Being able to add their own components is also one of the big reasons. Also, being able to customize the front-end without limits also reassures developers who were mainly interested in using back-end integrations.

I really like your point of vue on the marketplace approach and tend to agree. Most users will want off the shelf elements that they can customize easily (especially marketers). We will start working on the marketplace this Spring.

As for react in vue, our problem really lies into the pre-rendering -> the main problem is that we have react in a vue.js environment which can create performance problems and conflicts between the two frameworks.

Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#33

Post by raphael-gold »

mekkkkkk wrote: post #26
raphael-gold wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a good point, we are currently discussing this with our early adopters to find the right balance. We might increase this per-visit limits. What would be a fair limit for the business plan according to you?

If you could use heuristics to discard automation such as search engine indexing and open graph lookups, then the limit is probably fine. I'm not sure I'm a fan of the pricing model in general though. If I were you, I'd look into smart caching, traditional (high and scaling) bandwidth limits, and instead applying tier limits on updates/edits/data pulls. More user friendly, more generous for smaller projects and sligh…

Yes that makes sense. Though, it would be hard to apply edits limits because the number of edits can vary greatly, independently from the purchasing power of a customer (for example a startup would change it's home page every other day while a large corporate would barely touch it once a quarter). The bandwidth or page views limits seem to be raising the same issue and the logic for us is simply to avoid server costs that would be too high for a single site that would pay a basic monthly subscription.

Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#35

Post by FanaHOVA »

pembrook wrote: post #21

I think you’ve definitely identified the problem correctly. I’ve complained about this problem before on HN, since it’s the only place where people are wise enough to not get swept up in the latest hype train. If you want to do any regular content marketing/blogging, custom landing pages for SEO, a/b test copy, or even just update the design of your site...Jamstack paired with an enterprisey headless CMS is just an a…

There's a lot of tooling being built. uniform.dev and outsmartly.com for personalization, GraphCMS for content federation across data stores, etc. It's still pretty early days for the ecosystem.

Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#36

Post by raphael-gold »

FanaHOVA wrote: post #35
pembrook wrote: post #21

I think you’ve definitely identified the problem correctly. I’ve complained about this problem before on HN, since it’s the only place where people are wise enough to not get swept up in the latest hype train. If you want to do any regular content marketing/blogging, custom landing pages for SEO, a/b test copy, or even just update the design of your site...Jamstack paired with an enterprisey headless CMS is just an a…

There's a lot of tooling being built. uniform.dev and outsmartly.com for personalization, GraphCMS for content federation across data stores, etc. It's still pretty early days for the ecosystem.

Absolutely, the Jamstack ecosystem is just beginning.

Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#37

Post by raphael-gold »

jack_riminton wrote: post #20
raphael-gold wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow this flow would be really cool! Both observations are linked in a way: the WordPress ecosystem is really impressive and we'd love to create something similar in the Jamstack universe. To do that we are planning to open a "marketplace" where users could find components, themes & plugins. So, if we enable one-click integrations of components in a user's library, I think you are right that it'd be better not to h…

Sounds exciting! is there a place to sign up for contributors?

Yes! Following your comment I just created a new page for that (:D), you can sign up here: https://www.weweb.io/partner-program/

Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#38

Post by raphael-gold »

winkelvoss wrote: post #34

This is 100% where the website building ecosystem is going. As a coder who knows just enough to be dangerous, I'm so excited about it. I know http://stackbit.com/ has been doing this for a while. What makes WeWeb guys different/better?

great question! From my perspective, stackbit is made for large corporates willing to add a no-code layer above an existing Jamstack site. This provides additional customization option to marketers compared to a headless CMS only.

Our approach is different because you would build your site from scratch using weweb, which gives you much more customization possibilities on the front-end than a stackbit, but it would not be possible to add weweb "on-top" of an existing react or vue website.

Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#39

Post by jack_riminton »

raphael-gold wrote: post #37
jack_riminton wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds exciting! is there a place to sign up for contributors?

Yes! Following your comment I just created a new page for that (:D), you can sign up here: https://www.weweb.io/partner-program/

I just tried it but got a “something went wrong” error

Re: Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools

#40

Post by notahacker »

raphael-gold wrote: post #18
tobr wrote: post #15

I feel like you wrote a better pitch for it here than on the website. It’s certainly a pain I’ve ran into many times: building on tech that devs prefer leads to a situation where only devs can make certain changes, something they often don’t enjoy doing, while other team members wish they could just do it quickly themselves. Frustration all around. It sounds like a thing that should be marketed to jamstack developers…

that's interesting, we actually have a real difficulty here because our buyers are either marketers or developers. As the problem we are trying to solve is shared between them, both are looking out for solution and we are having a hard time positioning our marketing website's communication because of this. Also, thanks for sharing your impression on the video! When you say "if their site is not set up in just the rig…

Have you explored the simplest option: separate "Weweb for devs" and "We web for marketers" landing pages, videos and homepage subsections/columns/tags?

On the video: first impression is that it's heavily Weweb-built template driven like another Squarespace (especially if I stop watching in the first couple of mins before the bit about design systems) whereas I assume from the description in this thread that the design elements marketers can add and what layouts/colours etc they can choose can be fully configured by devs (and the target audience is teams that want to do this) Ultimately I assume you plan on replacing the tutorial on the home page with a video that's snappier, more benefit-focused and more selective about UI examples anyway?

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