
Show HN: Sourcery – get a free, self-updating website - jarnoux
https://sourceryapp.com
======
ignoramous
Landing page is crisp and precise. I love the idea. Congratulations on the
launch.

Auto-complete is fast and relevant. I believe you're boosting local results?
That's super nice. The generated webpage is nicely filled with details from
Google Maps (?) along with reviews and a contact-us form. I like the overall
simplicity of adding and editing subsections of the pages, too. Kudos.

Quick questions:

1\. From where'd you scrape data for businesses world-wide, if you don't mind
revealing? The data you have (judging by auto-complete) is frankly unsettling
but not surprising.

2\. There's e-commerce too, and the flow is manual: Upload photos, add price
and description. Simple enough. As your product evolves, how'd you plan to
manage to keep it that way rather than turn it into a Shopify-clone which most
business owners would then need a _IT guy_ to run it for them...?

3\. On the pricing page, you mention business plans are coming soon, but the
only two features I found that's extra from the free plan are _24 /7 support_
and _...and more_. Curious: what _more_?

4\. How long have you been working on this idea? What were you inspired by,
initially?

5\. How do you generate the pages? Randomly choose a template and fit the data
in, or is it powered by AI? I see that no matter what I choose as a _Goal_
among _Brand_ , _Leads_ , and _Conversion_ the template and the structure of
the page remains the same.

6\. Can you give us a 10000-foot view of your architecture and tools, if
that's okay?

7\. When you mention _personalize the website for each visitor_... Is that
like ad networks that show relevant ads where you mean to show relevant
products? If so, how'd you gather enough data abt a visitor to be sure of the
personalization (acquire/gather data from third-parties)? What value do you
see that personalization offers? I'm not being skeptical, just want to hear
your point of view on this.

Thanks.

~~~
jarnoux
Thanks for the good questions!

1\. Mostly google maps and social networks

2\. At the moment we don't have a "back-office" integration, we have a
rudimentary editor that can be manually edited at the back of our "Products &
Services" feature and if the user provides their PayPal merchant ID we add
"Purchase" and "Subscribe" and "Pay Invoice" buttons wherever it makes sense.

3\. We have a number of ideas for that, including specialized business
platform integrations, custom domain names, and other features that would be
used by businesses that we think should be on a paid plan.

4\. We've been working on this for a few months now, we were inspired by the
readily available and fresh data and the price (in time and/or $$) to get a
decent website created and updated for a small shop people like restaurants,
barbers, nannies, garages, etc.

5\. Given your business category, location, amount of data available and other
signals we try to be smart about what your site should look like and what
sections should be where. That stuff has been figured out with A/B testing
every day for the past 20 years and humans should move on. That also means we
can generate the website in real-time, for the specific business and the
individual visitor making the request...

6\. Heroku + EC2, mongo atlas for the DB and lots or nodejs and react.
letsencrypt for the certs.

7\. It means we're able to shape the site depending on the history of the
visitor. For example we'll show a menu first to a visitor who is likely
hungry.

~~~
saagarjha
> For example we'll show a menu first to a visitor who is likely hungry.

How would you possibly know this?

~~~
cco
If I go to a restaurant's website I want to know two, maybe there things,
their hours, the menu, and possibly their phone number/reservation link. I
have never wanted anything else.

~~~
jjakque
As simple as it sound, I feel there's need to stress on how important it is
for users to find what they seeks without going through maze of hyperlinks and
visual fluffs.

* If I'm seeking for contact number and/or address, I'll attempt to find it in "Contact Us" on first level navigation, or footer of any page.

* If I'm seeking for menu, I wish it's available on first level navigation. Price would be nice, but understandable if it's not feasible/ideal to show them.

* If I want to make online booking, I either look for widget on side of homepage, or proceed to "Contact Us" to see if there's either a widget or hyperlink for booking. If not, then at least I should see a telephone number for me to call.

* If I want to see more details of an event I heard of that is happening now/soon, then I wish it's available as a feature on homepage. If not, I'll look for "News" on first level navigation and hoping to see what I'm after in the first page of listing. And for the love of god, please include year in your news post or in the body content. This is especially important when it is an annual/reoccurring event.

------
m712
While the concept is sound, I do hope that you will allow users of your
service to 'detach' at some point to make their sites into something more
complex. Working around Website as a Service limitations is a tremendously
tedious haul. I have worked with a Shopify project for a few months now and
having to either write or pay for (via an app) functionality that has existed
on any self hosted e-commerce for years is really annoying. Not being able to
modify backend code impedes development speed as you try to hack around the
backend's deficiencies with Liquid. I didn't want this post to be this long
but I just wanted to give my experience on this kind of subject and I hope you
take appropiate measures to save your customers from dealing with similar
issues.

~~~
joantune
If you don't want to pay for the Shopify app you can always write it
yourself..

~~~
m712
I am already aware of that, but why should I have to for basic features? If
you need reviews for products, you will need an app _developed by Shopify_
(but for some reason not integrated into their main product - what the hell?)
which doesn't interoperate properly with _any_ multi-language app (again,
which shouldn't even be an app, as multi-language is a core part of many
e-commerce applications) since it generates HTML server-side with embedded
texts and returns it as JSONP. Another example is getting orders in a
printable format. You need an app for something that could probably be done in
100 lines or less on the Shopify admin's backend. Don't get me started on
multi-currency support which you can't even do with an app and need to rewire
your entire checkout process to a third party system for. It's an agonizing
mess.

------
azangru
Please change `width: 100vw` to `width: 100%` in the header element on your
landing page. It results in the horizontal scroll bar in the bottom of the
screen (you will see it if you view your landing page on something other than
a mac).

~~~
jarnoux
done

------
SparkyMcUnicorn
Since Google Places API doesn't allow storing any data, are you just footing
the bill for the site to be "re-created" every time a user visits it?

You're offering this for free, which is great, but I'm not sure how this works
out financially.

~~~
HNLurker2
You can easily use Web Scrapping using Javascript dataextraction and storing
into a CSV.

------
cookingoils
It’s slightly sad that the internet is turning into a bunch of sites that are
all based on the same templates. Don’t we need more website builders that are
open and creative by design? I understand not everyone has the time to learn
how to write html but we should at least be building tools to make websites
more interesting and distinct.

~~~
sdoering
I second your sentiment. I ask myself, if at least one of the reasons behind
this is the human need of recognition.

I mean don't we all want our presented thoughts to be seen/read if not
appreciated?

But how do if your quirky design is being punished by the search engine
overlords, because it doesn't conform to the standards defined by them? By
their rules leading to SEO spam and mediocre, conform designs?

Just an idea not totally thought through.

~~~
StavrosK
You want Neocities.org, the spiritual successor to 90s-era website quirkiness.

------
brokenkebab
How do you verify that it is exactly business owner who's trying to create
website? Ease of generation almost invites pranks, and maybe even fraud.
IANAL, but I strongly suspect you'll got sued at some point for damages caused
by a fake website.

~~~
ignoramous
In their defense, anyone could buy a domain name of any unclaimed business'
today and setup a website and email accounts.

SourceryApp does pre-populate the phone number attained from Google Maps for
auth but that remains editable, currently. I believe the problem of fake
websites will bite them if they get anywhere as popular as Twitter, but they
don't have to worry abt that, right now, imo.

------
dakoondog
From the terms of service... “ In other words, you grant us and our
subsidiaries affiliates, and successors a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-
free, fully-paid, transferable, irrevocable, perpetual, and sub-licensable
right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, prepare derivative works of,
distribute, publicly perform, and publicly display your Content throughout the
world in any media.” lol nope

~~~
jarnoux
Thanks for the remark. This simply makes sure we have your permission to use
the content you send us to generate and host the website you're asking us to
create.

~~~
me_bx
Is the "irrevocable, perpetual, and sub-licensable" really necessary for this?

------
reilly3000
I think this is pretty brilliant. I offer a word of warning: SMBs are a tough
crowd to sell to. Even with a 100% turnkey offering, they are a remarkably
vocal, high-maintenance group as a whole. The idea of the external web, the
social web as a CMS has lots of implications in enterprise as well. Don't let
SMBs sour your love for your business.

------
sergiotapia
Very slick! Tried it for a no-online-presence second hand retro gaming store
here in Miami and it spit out a decent website!

[https://sourceryapp.com/preview?gId=ChIJj_kmPXvn2YgRgamV6Yh8...](https://sourceryapp.com/preview?gId=ChIJj_kmPXvn2YgRgamV6Yh8qPU)

Pretty damn good lads! Congratulations on the launch!

------
carlosdp
This is a pretty solid, simple idea, gotta say. Of all the "quick website"
apps, this approach seems like it could get a pretty good result from the get-
go, given a good amount of social media / website information available for
the business.

~~~
ignoramous
Curious, what other quick website apps you know of? Not low code, but quick.

I've seen [https://milkshake.app](https://milkshake.app),
[https://onuniverse.com](https://onuniverse.com) before and walked away
impressed. [https://glideapps.com](https://glideapps.com) is in a similar
domain, but for apps.

~~~
scooter_de
The most minimalist that I'm aware of: [http://txti.es/](http://txti.es/)

------
thewarpaint
I got this error message while trying to generate a website:

{"message":"Cannot return null for non-nullable field Entity.phone."}

~~~
jarnoux
happens in the rare cases when we can't find a phone anywhere for the business
- we're working on a solution.

------
mlthoughts2018
My business doesn’t come up in the autocomplete and there’s no category for
the type of business. There’s no free text field for me to enter my business
type and if I choose fixed categories from the list, none of the imagery in
the generated sites looks passable.

I don’t understand what functionality this offers that GoDaddy GoCentral
doesn’t have? Why do I care if it happens in 5 seconds if the result doesn’t
feel tailored to me or quality?

I can’t help but feel like it’s a bargain basement ripoff of a hodge podge of
ideas already in the market from Squarespace and GoCentral.

~~~
jarnoux
That's fair, Squarespace has a use case. Sourcery is opinionated and not a
freestyle tool - we are building websites that you don't have to design, build
or update and that lets us offer features that aren't possible in DIY site
builders.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
I think GoCentral already does this: autogenerated single page sites where the
imagery & text are dynamically generated based on a small number of user-made
choices at sign-up.

------
lexicality
I tried a couple of companies but I just get a blank page and a bunch of JS
errors in the console :/

~~~
jarnoux
should be fixed now

------
jarnoux
we're hitting API limits and themes are defaulting to generic - sorry about
that, we're working on it

~~~
jarnoux
ok, themes are back in business

------
coolandsmartrr
Just a head's up to the site admin that browsers may disable autoplay on
video, resulting in a blank box next to the "How it works" paragraphs.

You can enable autoplay by including a `mute` attribute in the <video> tag.

~~~
jarnoux
thanks for the advice, `muted` was added

------
drusepth
How do you proceed if your business isn't found in the autocomplete?

~~~
her_tummy_hurts
I tried it. It still works, looks like you’ll have to provide more info though

------
cbhl
Tried a few restaurants in my area.

RT Rotisserie in San Francisco yields an error: {"message":"Cannot return null
for non-nullable field Entity.phone."}

------
higherkinded
Add a <noscript> to your landing mayhaps? Takes a little while to figure out
that I need my JS on for a proper representation.

------
anonmymous3467
great project. But why? Do you intend to out-compete wix/etc?

This is a significant piece of work, effort, and skill. I feel so bewildered
some times. Maybe i am just too focused on end-result and revenues.

p.s. yes, i am working on my own startup. yes, i am a developer not a manager.
yes, i do get sidetracked into side projects

p.s.s. i love the pay-pal integration

~~~
jarnoux
thanks for the kind words

------
aargh_aargh
Oops... we've encountered an error. GraphQL error: Cannot read property
'alias' of undefined GraphQL error: Cannot read property 'alias' of undefined

------
wilg
My site doesn't look as good as I was expecting:
[https://i.imgur.com/6c89cqu.png](https://i.imgur.com/6c89cqu.png)

~~~
jarnoux
should be fixed - does it look better now? :)

------
sroussey
Nice. I wanted to do this when I was at Weebly, but never happened.

------
thrownaway954
So basically you're taking all the content under a Google Business Listing and
flattening it out. It's slick but nothing crazy.

------
glaive123
Oops... we've encountered an error. GraphQL error: Cannot return null for non-
nullable field Entity.phone.

------
njsubedi
Please check the designs on Firefox on Android. Doesn't work properly.

------
franciscop
Okay, I'm seriously impressed, this is amazing! Congrats on launching.

------
JDiculous
Really cool idea

------
aszantu
typed: angryangels, got Angry chicken xD

------
oceanghost
Who are you and why would you think I'd trust my business to you?

~~~
thekevan
>trust my business to you?

Clearly you haven't taken a proper look. They are just scraping what is
already there, so they aren't the ones holding the trust you mention.

