Anyone interested in collaboration on Wireflow.co ? [Open Source Project]

[shtefcs]

Hi people,

Recently one of our old, unfinished, buggy side projects got hunted on ProductHunt https://www.producthunt.com/posts/wireflow. It got quite good popularity. Most of the day was #1 product of the day, but finished as second due bad user experience.

People had bad ux cause app was not production ready, server was not prepared for that, and they mostly saw loading app -.- . We noticed that hunt to late in order to do something. Surprisingly Wireflow got 650+ votes, ~10k visitors and ~1000 registered users.

Wireflow started 1.5y ago as idea making of user flows , flow charts easier, with no photoshop skill requiring or buying wireframe kits.

I am not developer, but spent lot of time into Javascript ecosystem, specially in Meteor.js. I was thinking, lets use Meteor.js for web app and real-time collaboration + Fabric.js for canvas manipulation (cause it have all we needed) + beautiful graphics which will be used for flows.
So we did it in few weeks, casually. The app is huge mess I believe since few people messed with backend while they were learning Meteor.

Same day we were hunted on PH, we decided to make it open source https://github.com/vanila-io/wireflow. In that moment that was at least we could do, since it was collecting dust for 1.5 year and now that hunt gave us confirmation that idea I had is worth and that people want it. Despite bad user experience cause of some bugs and never loading app, people actually love it.

I am calling you guys to check the app out and give some contribution if you like it. Anything will help, from organizing project, reporting bugs, documentation, roadmap, upgrading app to latest meteor version, features … You know already, any help is welcome.

Little bit about me and the crew I am working with. My name is Stefan, started Vanila.io with my still grlfriend Jelena. I consider myself as a growth hacker, but also as product designer, business guy etc.

We have small crew on Vanila and our internal chat https://chat.vanila.io where we build interesting apps for ourself and clients. We are 100% remote team, self funded.

Currently we are involved into few projects of ours, the latest one Automatio.co and we need to finish it, launch it. That’s why I am asking for help and collaboration, since we can’t focus on few things at once, but will assist as much we can.

Also, here Wireflow have 25k+ followers on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wireflow/

If you are interested to check it out, consider visiting this links:

Github Repo: https://github.com/vanila-io/wireflow
Chat Channel: https://chat.vanila.io/channel/wireflow
Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm0XbLmXtXY
Blog post: https://blog.vanila.io/we-were-hunted-on-producthunt-unexpectedly-e92e7179bdec

Looking forward to hear your thoughts peeps.

Peace,

Stefan

[mikkelking]

Stefan,

This looks like an interesting project. I may be able to help (but not immediately).

I am interested to find out what you want to do with it, ie where you think the market for it is, and how to get there, what are the features that need to be added etc. I realise you may not have thought deeply about it, but you must have had an initial aim, right?

I am happy to join a conversation and see what we can work out. Where will the conversation happen?

Cheers

Mike
BTW I am a Meteor/React dev with a few years of Meteor and React under the belt, plus much longer being a dev in other web environments

[shtefcs]

Hi @mikkelking ,

Finally someone reply to this thread.

The market is is anywhere related to web & mobile app development. It involve developers, designers, project managers, business people, marketing guys to create those users flows.

As you already saw on my previous post, that unexpected hunt on ProductHunt gave confirmation that people love and want this app. Once again, Wireflow was completely unusable that day, so lot of bad user experience. But even with that, people like it.

This is 1.5y old project, i didn’t think a lot of out recently, but I have in my mind the plan and features which will make this app even more useful. All its need a good organisation of project and man power to develop those features.

I am consider myself as a growth hacker, and we grow Vanila and all other things 100% organically. No paid ads.

So, as you can see Wireflow got 115 stars on Github in just few days. This post gain 824 views, cause I did some growth and exposing it on other channels. Here are some stats of Github repo in last few days:

Right now what, the application should be updated to latest meteor version, optimize to support more users online. After that I will start working on content marketing and publish stories on big publications in order to get more exposure.

Also, I am UI/UX guy and currently working on new UI for Wireflow homepage which show more information about project, contributors, etc. Check it out:

I am exploring now Open Collaborative which give options to Open Source project go get funded/donated recurring by backers, donors. Very interesting concept, and I think I can make it work and get some funds.

Other things in my head is crowdfunding campaign trough platforms like Kick-starter or Indiegogo. But whats most excited me is ICO, which open opportunity to raise good amount of money. And since 90% of ICO’s are shit, Wireflow have working prototype and with that much higher chance.

Since I am involved in multiple projects, I need help. Either is that kind of techical CTO or community members/contributors. Of course, everyone need something in back. And that’s why I am looking for alternative ways to fund this project and keep contributors paid back.

All this said, but one project can’t or it will it be really hard to success without combination of good good growth strategy (growth hackers), UI/UX and Developers .

Julian Shapiro (developer of Velocity.js) said in one of his posts:

How was this possible? Because I treated Velocity like I treated my businesses: First, there’s development. That’s 10%. Then, there’s marketing. That’s 90%.

Peace,

[mikkelking]

Stefan,

I think raising funding is a good idea to keep this alive, and I agree
that it has potential. Open Collection looks interesting, and the
projects getting sponsored are significant.

I have looked around for online drawing tools previously without finding
anything suitable - the only things I found were commercial and quite
expensive with limited integration options.

So you have my vote for what it’s worth. The question is where to from
here - do you want to create a Slack channel to continue the
conversation? We could keep that open for anyone from this forum who is
interested to follow.

Cheers

Mike

[shtefcs]

Sure, I thought that you saw our chat already :). Come over https://chat.vanila.io , there are ~2.3k members and its built with Rocket Chat, another meteor OSS.

I am kinder there.

Btw I am setting Collective Page on https://opencollective.com/wireflow/

Peace,

[zpokoin]

Hi,
I see that this project has more value to it, and I would like to help out. it has some bugs that could be fixed immediately.

If you want to, buzz me up.

[waldgeist]

Thanks for reviving this thread. I wasn’t aware about this great project. Would be great if it got more traction.

[shtefcs]

Hey @zpokoin and @waldgeist, I am really glad when someone sees the value in the project.

You probably read the story about how everything started and how much time it’s invested in it.

Current Wireflow is an old buggy prototype built with Meteor, and it’s very little updated/worked on it since then. I and my crew focused on main project Automatio.co, but I am still interested in growing Wireflow.

My idea for Wireflow is to re-build it from scratch, using different more lightweight stack.

There is Adobe Funds program which had $10mil to invest in interesting projects. Wireflow was one of possible investment for $20k grants (free/no return money). Unfortunately, because Wireflow is left at dust and didn’t get any update for years, we didn’t get those grants. But I believe with core, stack it could get those grants.

I am looking for partner/collaborator for this project who would be able to re-build it from scratch using the different stack.

If anyone wanna talk more about it, hit me up over Vanila Community (the one we run) https://community.vanila.io/users/kinderminder

Stefan,

Peace

[waldgeist]

Hi @shtefcs, thanks for your response. Unfortunately, I’m currently pretty busy with my own startup, so I won’t be able to collaborate on Wireflow. But I’d love to see this project getting more traction. BTW: What framework did you use to create the Automatico teaser site? It’s pretty neat

[shtefcs]

I understand @waldgeist , good luck with your Startup. And soon or later Wireflow will be rebuilded, so don’t get surprised when you see it.

For Automatio.co landing page, its React site designed by me and coded by Jelena my bestie FE developer.