Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#21

Post by tdfw » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 2:27 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #17

It looks nice at first glance. Eventually someone, somewhere, is going to get this right and it will be extremely popular. Maybe it's you, who knows. I bet there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on full on huge projects that are essentially a simple CRUD application. Do you support writing event based code in some way?

Event based code, or even webservice callouts would be a killer feature. It was the first thing I started looking for on the page. With just a few more features this could easily capture a portion of the SMB market who's interested in something as flexible as Salesforce, but can't swallow the $85+ monthly cost per user.

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#22

Post by tyingq » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 2:33 PM UTC

tdfw wrote: post #21

mistermann wrote: post #17

It looks nice at first glance. Eventually someone, somewhere, is going to get this right and it will be extremely popular. Maybe it's you, who knows. I bet there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on full on huge projects that are essentially a simple CRUD application. Do you support writing event based code in some way?

Event based code, or even webservice callouts would be a killer feature. It was the first thing I started looking for on the page. With just a few more features this could easily capture a portion of the SMB market who's interested in something as flexible as Salesforce, but can't swallow the $85+ monthly cost per user.

The leader in this space at the moment is Intuit, with their Quickbase product. You can get a rough idea of the customer base here: http://quickbase.intuit.com/customers

They claim 1/2 of the Fortune 100 are customers.

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#23

Post by dkyc » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

billyhoffman wrote: post #20

From a tech side this is great, but your pricing model is all screwed up. "Unlimited forms and fields" at the free tier? You need to align your pricing to scale with your costs. Limit by users but also the number of rows in the DB. MailChimp is a good example of aligning pricing with costs

"You need to align your pricing to scale with your costs"

I strongly disagree with that. You should align your pricing with the value the user receives. To do this optimally, you need to have a good grasp of who your user is, how much value he receives from the software and how the typical purchasing process looks like. For an early stage company, all these questions may not be answered yet, so it is best to wait and learn what the users do with the product before prematurely optimizing pricing at an early stage.

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#24

Post by bulte-rs » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 2:39 PM UTC

tdfw wrote: post #21

mistermann wrote: post #17

It looks nice at first glance. Eventually someone, somewhere, is going to get this right and it will be extremely popular. Maybe it's you, who knows. I bet there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on full on huge projects that are essentially a simple CRUD application. Do you support writing event based code in some way?

Event based code, or even webservice callouts would be a killer feature. It was the first thing I started looking for on the page. With just a few more features this could easily capture a portion of the SMB market who's interested in something as flexible as Salesforce, but can't swallow the $85+ monthly cost per user.

Disclaimer: I work for a sister-company.

"We" have something like this with event based "model actions" which also support calling out to webservices (both rest and soap).

Shameless "competitor plug"; will remove if considered inappropriate: http://www.bettyblocks.com/en

edit: App/marketing is being translated as we speak; you guys will be able to figure things out right? ;-)

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#25

Post by mercnet » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 2:39 PM UTC

mrmondo wrote: post #5

semperdark wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of what we're trying to do is abstract some of the backend systems to allow for quick building. When you make a form, we host it on our servers, provide an accounts system for inviting team members and a permissions system for controlling access. Right now we're working on securely implementing both custom SQL queries and javascript-based scripting for backend validation and frontend customization.

Ok, so for arguments sake it's a persistent form builder rather than anything really to do with building things for databases?

I also thought the form builder was going to output Postgres (or any database) SQL to create the tables, fields, and relationships.

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#26

Post by krmmalik » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

billyhoffman wrote: post #20

From a tech side this is great, but your pricing model is all screwed up. "Unlimited forms and fields" at the free tier? You need to align your pricing to scale with your costs. Limit by users but also the number of rows in the DB. MailChimp is a good example of aligning pricing with costs

I would argue that only covers half the equation. Prices should be congruent with increase in value which in itself is dependent on what is meaningful to the user. Mailchimp is pricing for increase in value as well as users find more meaning in having larger mailing lists (which also happens to increase costs). Optimising purely for costs is not always the most effective and misses vital opportunities.

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#27

Post by krmmalik » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

bulte-rs wrote: post #24

tdfw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Event based code, or even webservice callouts would be a killer feature. It was the first thing I started looking for on the page. With just a few more features this could easily capture a portion of the SMB market who's interested in something as flexible as Salesforce, but can't swallow the $85+ monthly cost per user.

Disclaimer: I work for a sister-company. "We" have something like this with event based "model actions" which also support calling out to webservices (both rest and soap). Shameless "competitor plug"; will remove if considered inappropriate: http://www.bettyblocks.com/en edit: App/marketing is being translated as we speak; you guys will be able to figure things out right? ;-)

Am very interested in something like this. I'm a can code, won't code type of person. I need something that can auto trigger things such as emails etc after certain events. I'm finding crm systems to restrictive or too bloated and other database software is either too tech focused or too limited in scope. Will this help me? I looked around your site but kept getting 404 errors

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#28

Post by WorldWideWayne » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 2:50 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #17

It looks nice at first glance. Eventually someone, somewhere, is going to get this right and it will be extremely popular. Maybe it's you, who knows. I bet there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on full on huge projects that are essentially a simple CRUD application. Do you support writing event based code in some way?

Totally agree. I can't wait for someone to get this right! Many, many enterprise shops spend way too much time building simple CRUD apps. It's basically a "Microsoft Access/VBA" or "FileMaker" for the web.

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#29

Post by semperdark » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

reacweb wrote: post #19

could you please initialise the date field with current date (at least when the field is mandatory) ?

We've been considering adding a "Now" link/icon above the field, which sets it to the current datetime when clicked. What do you think?

Re: Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications

#30

Post by blumkvist » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 3:23 PM UTC

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #28

mistermann wrote: post #17

It looks nice at first glance. Eventually someone, somewhere, is going to get this right and it will be extremely popular. Maybe it's you, who knows. I bet there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on full on huge projects that are essentially a simple CRUD application. Do you support writing event based code in some way?

Totally agree. I can't wait for someone to get this right! Many, many enterprise shops spend way too much time building simple CRUD apps. It's basically a "Microsoft Access/VBA" or "FileMaker" for the web.

Can't Access be used for web applications?