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Show HN: Sheet2Site – Create Websites Out of Google Sheets (sheet2site.com)
145 points by andreyazimov on March 21, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 47 comments



Hi HN,

I made a tool that can generate a website from Google Sheets. It using Google Sheet as a DB.

Examples of sites: https://www.sheet2site.com/s/best-cities-for-digital-nomads/, https://www.sheet2site.com/s/best-coffee-shops-for-work-in-c..., https://www.sheet2site.com/s/top-100-cryptocurrencies, https://darkmodelist.com


I love your idea. And there's a huge market of individuals living on Excel that will pay you for doing this. Congrats!


Thanks. I hope!


FWIW, YC funded startup Cloud Stitch does something similar https://cloudstitch.com/


One cool thing about sheet2site is that the sheet2site's idea is presented clearer than the cloudstitch's one. I mean when I opened sheet2site website I understood what it does in a moment. But in case of cloudstitch I have to force my brain to work to understand what this means: "Cloudstitch lets you manage websites & run your business, all from your office suite."


haha, thanks :) Maybe if you are "true" startup you can't be simple and clear? :)


Looks like HN broke your server ;) Looking forward to checking it out when you get it running.

Is there a service that can easily stress test your app? Like a "TEST HN" service? Would be nice to run a project through that before posting to HN.


Just checked and seems work, can you please try one more time?


Checked it just now. Broke for me.


maybe me now?


Great work!

An alternative I have been using recently for some projects is Molnify [1], it has more focus on exposing calculation logic in the app created and less control over background images and layout. Takes either a Excel file or a google sheet doc as input.

[1] http://www.molnify.com/


I like the simplicity. Also, I'm assuming it's not free, it would be nice to know what's the price before signing up. Maybe you could just add some sort of a disclaimer, e.g. Generate / Create new site (free up to 1k visitors/month, $5 after). Good luck!


Agree! I've just added that for 1 custom domain it's for $5 /mon and for unlimited domains $10 / mon


Oh! If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about selling custom domains? Or if there are resources you can point me to, that would be helpful, too.


Not sure @andreyazimov is actually selling domains, only allowing you to connect your own, right? But if you want to actually sell domains via your application I'm sure that's possible via Namecheap API or something similar.


I do not selling domains for sure, just connecting :)


Reaffirming that Excel truly is the universal format for everything. Good work!


Agree! Go Excel! :)


Too funny -- about a month ago I built a web site backed by a Google Sheet so that my father could easily update content. Great idea with Sheet2Site and good luck!


Thanks :)


Nice work Andrey! Good luck with your $1000 MRR challenge.


Thanks!


This looks like a really cool idea.

What I noticed is that is somehow hard to understand how to create the page. ( Click here, then there, then copy paste, then click publish, etc... ). If this process was more it would be awesome.

Keep going the good work! I checked your $1k goal and wish you all the best in achieving it!


yeah, agree this instruction is sucks . Can you maybe suggest how I can improve it?


Move the steps around to remove switching between apps. My recommendation would be: 1, 6, 4, 2, 3, 5, with title and background info/other info as "advanced" config.

Make steps have sub steps, so step 1 is use this template, step 2 is prepare the spreadsheet; sub-step 2a is "press publish", sub-step 2b is "edit title on the main-page sheet" Step 3 is "Publish!" With sub-step 3a being copy url, 3b paste, etc.

It requires changing the code a bit, but should feel simpler, since there's no switching back and forth, and some complexity is hidden inside the sub steps.


Typo on your homepage image;

https://www.sheet2site.com/img/tabs.png

"backgroung"


Thanks. Fixed


Fun idea. I learned recently that Sheets also works as a JSON service to post and get data if you have a static site and don't want to stand up a DB server.


Any resource for this you can point me to?


There's a bunch on the web actually. The gist is that you create a Google App Script linked to your Sheet and deploy it publicly, which can receive GET and POST requests and respond as you like. See:

  http://chriszarate.github.io/sheetrock/

  http://douglasduhaime.com/posts/crud-operations-on-static-file-sites.html

  https://github.com/liddiard/google-sheet-s3

  https://www.johnastewart.org/coding/twine-game-data-to-google-sheets-via-javascript/

  https://medium.com/@dmccoy/how-to-submit-an-html-form-to-google-sheets-without-google-forms-b833952cc175


I used this https://googlesheetjson.herokuapp.com


Tried to access the site, but getting the error. Screenshot [1]

[1] https://ibb.co/kYtL5H


Fixed. Please try now


Great idea! Any ideas for expansion? I imagine you could map rows/columns to a bootstrap-like grid system for more custom layouts.


Thanks) I'm thinking to add a custom script from the sheet. Like Google Analytics or chat


Can you explain the backend? When the spreadsheet is updated, is the generated website automatically updated?


It's just getting a JSON from a spreadsheet.


Your copy:

They are working but I need to explain you how :)

could be improved to

They are working but I need to explain to you how to use it. :)


Done! Thanks!


The site is down for me. HN Hug.


Yeah probably with HN traffic, now seems work. Can you please try one more time?


All of the links seem to throw application error.


All should works now :)


Yep working now. thanks! Cool idea, best of luck!


Great!


Awesome work Andrey!


Thanks!




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