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I'm the founder of FormAPI [1], and my company's mission is to help developers fill out and sign PDF documents. It truly matters to my customers, because they'

I'm the founder of FormAPI [1], and my company's mission is to help developers fill out and sign PDF documents. It truly matters to my customers, because they're paying me money. And it truly matters to me, because if the company continues to grow, then I'll have lots of money and freedom. Honestly it's mostly about the money, but I really enjoy building things and solving problems for people. [1] https://formapi.io https://formapi.io

yunyu 8y ago
Quick side note: the main graphic on your website displays "Upload template", "Set up fields", etc.. in the default serif font on my computer probably because I don't have the Avenir Pro font installed. You can probably fix this by converting the text to outlines in Sketch.
- nathan_f77 8y ago
  Whoops, thanks so much for letting me know! I just converted the text to outlines and pushed the change. Very scary that I didn't catch that before. I should use a browser testing service, or take some screenshots during my CI tests.
rickycook 8y ago
the truly matters part i think needs at least 1 level of “but why”... okay they pay for it, but why do they pay for it? that’s the important thing... okay, it pays your salary and gives freedom, but why do you care about the product? what if it paid you nothing (but that didn’t matter); would you still work on it? why? i’m sure you know these answers; you wouldn’t have gotten to “paying customer 1” otherwise
- nathan_f77 8y ago
  Sure, they pay for it because it solves a specific problem, and it saves a lot of time. I care about the product because I put a lot of work into it, and it's a "creative outlet". I enjoy making all the decisions and having the freedom to work on whatever I think is important. I'd keep working on it for a while if I didn't need to worry about money. But I also really like the idea of a "finished product" that doesn't need any more work. That's what I'm aiming for, although I'm probably a few years away from that. I wouldn't keep working on it if it failed and no-one was using it. I would just move on to the next project.

yunyu 8y ago

Quick side note: the main graphic on your website displays "Upload template", "Set up fields", etc.. in the default serif font on my computer probably because I don't have the Avenir Pro font installed. You can probably fix this by converting the text to outlines in Sketch.

nathan_f77 8y ago
Whoops, thanks so much for letting me know! I just converted the text to outlines and pushed the change. Very scary that I didn't catch that before. I should use a browser testing service, or take some screenshots during my CI tests.

rickycook 8y ago

the truly matters part i think needs at least 1 level of “but why”... okay they pay for it, but why do they pay for it? that’s the important thing... okay, it pays your salary and gives freedom, but why do you care about the product? what if it paid you nothing (but that didn’t matter); would you still work on it? why? i’m sure you know these answers; you wouldn’t have gotten to “paying customer 1” otherwise

nathan_f77 8y ago
Sure, they pay for it because it solves a specific problem, and it saves a lot of time. I care about the product because I put a lot of work into it, and it's a "creative outlet". I enjoy making all the decisions and having the freedom to work on whatever I think is important. I'd keep working on it for a while if I didn't need to worry about money. But I also really like the idea of a "finished product" that doesn't need any more work. That's what I'm aiming for, although I'm probably a few years away from that. I wouldn't keep working on it if it failed and no-one was using it. I would just move on to the next project.