Why build another website builder?

We're in the early days of Makeswift but extensibility is a big part of our vision. The way we've built the core technology of our product is such that every component used in the builder is just a React component (and could be a Vue component or Svelte component), and even the controls in the sidebar, which we call panels, are also just React components. With this architecture, we plan to expose a public API where developers can just build their own Makeswift components and share them with the world. Someone could build a Stripe Checkout component, for example. Somebody else could build a table component that pulls the rows from Google Sheets, or Airtable, or from a Zoho API?

We've spent a lot of time thinking about the right architecture to pull this off. Today, we're focusing on removing bottlenecks for marketers so that they can build beautiful websites with flexibility, fast. So because of that we are making all the components ourselves. In the future, though, we expect most components to be built by other people.

Extensibility is a good way to sum it up, but there's many specific issues with each. The biggest problems we hear about with Squarespace are responsive layout overrides. The templates are also generally pretty rigid.

Wix's current editor is based on fixed position (think photoshop / illustrator). This approach works great for banners, graphics, icons etc, but is inherently at odds with web design. The solution for fixed position builders is to hardcode breakpoints, but there are too many devices. It's better to just design a UX around the box model, as that's how we code for the web anyways.

Editor X has potential but there's a little too much magic happening in the layout for my taste.

These are just a few of the many pain points. From our research, companies rarely keep using Wix / Squarespace after a certain stage. I personally haven't tried scaling a Squarespace or Wix site, but I also have never gotten them to a point where I was happy with all of the details before deciding to just code it myself.

I like to say it's 75% easier to learn than Webflow with 80% of the capabilities. Over time, we want to get that up to 95%. Webflow has an amazing product if you already know how to code. You can make award winning websites in Webflow, but it will take you time. Makeswift sites may not be winning any AWWWARDS (yet), but you'll be able to build something good in a fraction of the effort. In addition, other people on your team can learn it as well, parallelizing your throughput. If speed is top priority, then our product is for you.

Squarespace and Wix are great for people who want to set up a template, skin it, and forget it. Their focus on wizards and templates optimizes the user experience for beginners, but at the cost of flexibility for advanced customization. There are a lot of people that this makes sense for.

Makeswift is designed for opinionated people who are constantly tinkering with design, layouts, and new ideas, but don't want to climb a giant learning curve. We're focusing on making a generic, flexible user experience with composable components that doesn't have opinions about how you build your pages.

He's actually childhood best friends with our co founder, Andrew! We needed a celebrity endorsement and Russell Crowe priced us out.

Yep, that's right. I can see how that would be confusing though, thanks for the feedback.