Startup #3 - Montage
TL;DR, Today I am launching Montage
Update: this product was acquired in 2019
Definitely the most technically challenging one so far. I only managed to get this launched on time by pulling 12+ hour shifts and basically shutting myself away in a serviced apartment for 7 days!
The customer problem
Whenever I need to quickly prototype something, I turn to the convenience of Sketch and a UI kit. Sketch is a popular design tool for Macs and UI kits are pre-designed catalogues of little UI components you can pick up and use, like nav bars and buttons etc. Note that Sketch is Mac only and most UI kits are things you have to buy, sometimes for hundreds of dollars.
Despite how easy these tools are to use though, the act of putting together a wireframe still seems like a dark art to many people. I've always thought it would be great to open up wireframing to a larger audience by making tools like this more accessible.
The solution
Montage is rapid web-based wireframing tool with a user-generated component library - and it's free to use for publicly-viewable projects!
The component library in Montage is entirely created by the userbase. Users can upload app screens they have designed, slice the screen into components, and then other users can use those components in their own designs! It breathes new life into designs you have that maybe didn't go into production, and I'm hoping designers will get a kick out of seeing how many times their designs get "remixed" by other users.
The business model
This is my first standard SaaS subscription pricing model startup that I've launched during this challenge. Montage is free to use for Public projects, but there is a monthly subscription fee if you want to use it for Private projects.
(I won't shout this too loudly but, for the meantime there is actually no payment functionality built in yet - so enjoy using it totally free for both public and private projects for now!)
Next steps
There is a ton of functionality I had to leave out in order to get this launched in one month. So things are really basic for now. I have a huge backlog that I'll get to work on after I launch this and start hearing some feedback from users.
I'll also have to devote some time to component moderation. Right now if you create a component, it doesn't go into the public library immediately. You'll have access to it, and people browsing the "unfiltered" section of the library will have access to it, but for a new component to enter the public library I need to manually approve it. Need to think of a more scalable way to handle that!
I don't update this personal blog very often these days, I'm busy working on my business Bannerbear 🐻