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Interviewing indie founders about their journey and their products. itslaunchday.com
Dagobert (00:01)
Hey Nick here, welcome to lunch day.
Nikhil Agrawal (00:04)
Hey, DAGOs, thank you so much for inviting over here. How are you doing, DAGO today?
Dagobert (00:10)
You know, so I don't know if you've seen on Twitter, but I have eight calls today and you're number eight. And I'm happy to report I'm still in good shape. So it's fine. I'm still curious about your story and your product. So it's fine. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine, right? Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (00:16)
exactly.
You look very fresh today, actually not looking tired after so many
calls.
Dagobert (00:33)
Yeah, actually, you know, I feel better doing this because I know at the end of the day it's over so I can enjoy it. But if I have calls every day, it stresses me out more. So I prefer this, you know.
Nikhil Agrawal (00:47)
Yeah,
that's a good idea actually.
Dagobert (00:50)
So yeah, so yeah, man, I think you know, I've seen you on Twitter for a long time, but I don't really know your story, you know how, you know, so I guess you live in India and it's quite late for you right now. Yeah, okay.
Nikhil Agrawal (00:53)
.
I live in India. It is actually
9.30 p.m.
Dagobert (01:11)
Okay, so three hours and a half later than me, not that bad actually.
Okay. And so, how did you become an intimaker? What's your background?
Nikhil Agrawal (01:25)
So actually I joined a company on 2011 as a web developer over there So over the period of like four to five years working over there I got some like good experience on web developments all the different frameworks different different technologies over there It was a agency like they used to take the projects and used to get it done from us. Okay, so what happened is well like somewhere around 2015 like maybe
Dagobert (01:43)
Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (01:55)
January or February, I got into a project which was like very stressful. Like it was using a very legacy framework, nothing documentation, like a lot of different concepts over there. I have to work late nights, so a lot of different problems. like at one day at the morning, like I was very frustrated about the project. Like I don't want to work on this project anymore.
Dagobert (02:25)
Okay.
Nikhil Agrawal (02:26)
So like I like instantly I got an idea. Let me like just resign from the job and let me like resign from the job and let me do something else or maybe I will get into freelancing or something. Meanwhile, like I was following Peter levels, Peter levels. He was doing 12 startups for 12 months at that time itself. Maybe around 2014, 15, something around that.
Dagobert (02:53)
Yeah,
10 years ago, or even more, when he started. Wow. ⁓
Nikhil Agrawal (02:55)
So, yeah, 10 years ago. Yes.
So, like, I got into, like, I started following him and I started to go to... Yes, I resigned instantly. Like, I was very frustrated about the job. I said, like, I have to either leave the job or I have to either leave the project. But there was no option of leaving the project, right? Because there was no other replacement of me in that company. So, I thought, like, I have to resign it over from here and...
Dagobert (03:03)
So you resign right away, like that. You just... Fuck this. Yeah.
I see.
That's good.
Nikhil Agrawal (03:25)
So I resigned from the job and I served the notice.
Dagobert (03:28)
Did you have a
backup ⁓ plan or anything?
Nikhil Agrawal (03:31)
see like currently there is a lot of ⁓ like lot of information on the internet like we should have a backup plan we should have this and that but at that time it was very beginning right like there was no such information on the internet so I like it was something instantly that clicked into mind and I wrote a two to three lines email to my manager like I don't want to work on this project I want to resign it from here and
I served the notice period of two months over there and I came back to my hometown. After coming back to my hometown, I started looking like what should I do next? I was like around for six months, I was having zero revenue for me. I was like using my salary backups, like whatever backup I had.
Dagobert (04:05)
Awesome.
Nikhil Agrawal (04:20)
Meanwhile, I was looking like what all different alternatives. Should I open a physical shop in my local community? Should I like start a web development or something else? ⁓
Dagobert (04:31)
That's awesome. So you basically were like, I don't want this job. I don't want,
I hate it. So you just jumped and then, okay, what do I do now? But that's actually, now people recommend against it. But I think it's the best because for some people, because I'm like this too, if you don't do a big thing, you will never do anything. Like if it's just like on the side, like sometimes like you just, when you're like kind of passionate type of person and you need to be interested in what you do.
Nikhil Agrawal (04:38)
Yes.
Yes, yeah, exactly.
Yes, yes, yeah exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Dagobert (05:01)
At least for me, if I'm not interested in my job, I cannot work on the side because it will just kill me all day. And then at the end of the day, I have no inspiration for anything because this job just killed me. You know what I mean? It's hard. ⁓
Nikhil Agrawal (05:07)
Yes, yeah, exactly.
So that is what stuck with me like I said I cannot travel on two boats like I might be looking for another job or I might be working on this company but I cannot do both of these things at the same time.
So that is how it started. Luckily, like at the, like maybe around six to seven months, I got a freelancing client. I got a client from Netherlands for whom I started working. Like he was actually a lot of than me. Like he was around 25 to 26 years old, 26 year old guy. So I started working. I started taking some of the projects from him, delivered the best I can do. Slowly, like I built... ⁓
some network reach on LinkedIn, different platforms, Upwork. But Upwork is a very bad platform. I didn't like it. We have to do a lot of slavery works over there. Very low cost. So I started to give up on Upwork, but I started looking on clients on LinkedIn. I started reaching to some of the clients on LinkedIn. Yeah, direct.
Dagobert (06:13)
Yeah, it feels like it,
Like direct, directly.
Nikhil Agrawal (06:27)
direct like sending message to them like sending a connection request and if they accept I will be sending message to them if they have any projects. ⁓ Eventually I got another Netherlands client and he was looking to build some forms like some custom forms with like complex logics.
Dagobert (06:48)
I see.
Nikhil Agrawal (06:52)
Like when someone fills the form, it should generate a PDF. It should show different things over there. So like I charged a lot. Like I charged 1,000 euros. Like it took around two to three days or four days for the job. I charged around 1,000 euros. like I got multiple such clients, multiple clients related to building forms. So.
Dagobert (07:07)
you
Sorry, I really like how you keep it real. So keep going. really love listening to you.
Nikhil Agrawal (07:21)
So,
like one of the clients, he actually recommended me, like why don't you build something like where you can drag and drop and you can create forms. So started building a small prototype for that one. Like it was initial prototype was only in my local where I'll be dragging and dropping some of the fields and it will give me the code. Like it will give me a copy paste code which I can use for any other clients to build the form. Okay. ⁓
Dagobert (07:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Nikhil Agrawal (07:49)
So that is how it got started.
Dagobert (07:50)
What year was
this? ⁓
Nikhil Agrawal (07:53)
around 2019 or something around that like around 4 to 5 years down the lane.
Dagobert (07:57)
⁓ and people were still
needing... And just to understand these clients, so they couldn't build it with Typeform or any of these existing tools back then?
Nikhil Agrawal (08:07)
actually they they can build it in type forms but it was a lot of complex logics over there like lot of conditions if this happens then this should happen if this happens then this would happen so he said
Dagobert (08:16)
⁓
So you built something
that was handling more complex logic, and you could then generate the forms yourself for them, with complex logic.
Nikhil Agrawal (08:27)
this yeah
we can generate the form like I build a form for him then like I started like I slowly started searching on internet like what I can do next like freelancing for freelancing like we have to do a lot of we have to involve a lot of time like search clients then again work for them so a lot of procedure which I have to do alone.
Dagobert (08:48)
Yeah. yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (08:53)
So I started looking like I was following Twitter levels. So I got into indihacker.com like I registered over there. Initially the community was very good on Indihacker like a lot of, ⁓ like you will find a lot of interesting ⁓ like blogs and ⁓ conversations over there. Right now like it's, like I feel it's not that ⁓ good as it was previously. So that is how.
Dagobert (09:04)
Yeah, three years ago, yeah.
It feels like now it's
a bit more like big marketing things, more generic. I mean, it's not bad, but it's less, not the same indie hacking type advice. Now it's like, just like startup advice. It seems a bit more generic. I agree. Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (09:26)
Yes exactly yeah.
exactly.
So that is how I got into like I should launch something like I should build something and actually I build some multiple projects before that like I like I sell some scripts ⁓ like scripts which people can install and use for them. Then again I thought like I should also involve get into says products. ⁓ So I started building like I took my old code and started building on this form annex.
Dagobert (10:14)
Okay, and how long ago was this that you started building it?
Nikhil Agrawal (10:18)
Actually I launched it on 2023, like two years back, somewhere around November or September, somewhere around that, like at the end of the year.
Dagobert (10:28)
And so
since then, did you manage to make enough money to keep going? Like how was it on this? You were freelancing a lot, I guess, so make money with freelancing.
Nikhil Agrawal (10:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, actually like when I started working I I was Like after doing a lot of freelancing what I when I reached at a point I can survive I started working on my products like I started building some scripts Which I sell on different different marketplaces For example, there are marketplaces like code Canyon
Dagobert (10:55)
Yes, like what for example.
yeah, yeah, I remember that, yeah. And like what kind of script? Like the form scripts or different things?
Nikhil Agrawal (11:01)
Yeah, so thin forest.
Yeah, also the form scripts also some different projects over there ⁓
Dagobert (11:12)
Like you were trying
to convert the work you did as a freelance into things you could sell as products, already.
Nikhil Agrawal (11:17)
Yes,
Dagobert (11:20)
Yeah, that's the small thing to do.
Okay, and so now you still freelance or you make enough money from these products?
Nikhil Agrawal (11:28)
⁓
I don't freelance right now. I have a family so I like to get early to my home and enjoy with my family. with freelancing there is a lot of stress.
Dagobert (11:46)
yes.
Nikhil Agrawal (11:47)
So the current revenue which I got, yes, the current revenue which I get from all my projects is like easy for me to survive. have a very happy life for that. Also like I live in a very small village, like I should add a point, I live in a very small village in India. So there is a lot less expense as compared to like living in a metro city or different cities in India.
Dagobert (11:48)
And so you're profitable now. It's holding now.
That's awesome.
Man, that's a beautiful s-
Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Yeah. I live in a mid-sized city in France, because in Paris it would be basically 50 % or 100 % more expensive for the same thing. yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like one of the best moves, you know, to not... It's a balance. It's a balance, So in all this time, you also found a wife, now you have kids and everything.
Nikhil Agrawal (12:42)
I have two kids.
Dagobert (12:43)
This is cool man, this is a beautiful story and all
because you were like, fuck this job and you just left, know, we're like...
Nikhil Agrawal (12:48)
Yes, exactly,
exactly. I still have that email with me. When I read that email, it was two to three lines. I haven't mentioned any reason over there. I directly mentioned it was great working here. I want to resign from my job. Thank you. That's all was in the email.
Dagobert (13:11)
Wow, that's really cool, you you just went for it because I think we are scared, but at least what I realized after doing it is it's scary, but once you do it, you can figure it out. You can almost always figure it out. And it's a lot of pressure. But if you just try to stay a bit calm and keep going, this pressure is just actually motivation. And then you move fast and you make the changes and you can make it. And, you know, it's...
It's not as scary, I think people are a bit too scared now and that's like, that's preventing them from growing. Because when you challenge yourself, you can just learn and progress like you did in a few years, you changed everything. That's awesome, man. Congrats. That's beautiful. So now I would like to see Formex because I guess it has all of these advanced capabilities and I'm curious to see it. Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (14:21)
see my screen, no? ⁓
Dagobert (14:24)
Wow, you're the first one on Windows. Congrats man, you're the first one with Windows. okay. Cool.
Nikhil Agrawal (14:28)
Actually I love windows
like we have lot of flexibilities over here in windows.
Dagobert (14:36)
You know Windows,
⁓ I tried it for a couple years. I mean had it until I was 18, then I switched. But then I tried it again. And it's more messy than Mac, but it is way quicker. Because on Mac, every time you do something, there's like a nice animation, like the whole thing takes always a shit ton of time. Windows, everything, I mean once you have like a decent computer, but now it's not that hard.
Everything goes very quickly and it's just like they're not all of this ⁓ Apple style design things that are nice, but it's nice also sometimes to have something like this that is very snappy. So I get you. Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (15:22)
So, ⁓ like this is the landing page of form NX like with form NX you can create any kind of forms like it may be order form, quiz form, legal related form, feedback form, ⁓ any kind of forms.
Dagobert (15:38)
do you mind just closing
this little window because Riverside will stupidly record it. Yeah, thank you.
Nikhil Agrawal (15:46)
So you can create any kind of forms in Form Annex. You can create like forms like type form. You can create forms similar to Jot forms, one page form, multiple page forms. You can use AI inside forms. So a lot of different features are present inside the forms.
Dagobert (15:46)
Okay.
Nikhil Agrawal (16:07)
With AI you can create the forms for example if you want to create a registration form. So what you can do is you can simply you can simply if you I will create this new form I will use this use AI. With this use AI I have to simply write a prompt over here like what form I need.
Dagobert (16:22)
nice.
Nikhil Agrawal (16:41)
So you can, have to simply write the details of here. Like you can write as much as details if you need, you need and it will analyze your input. It will take some few steps and it will create a form for you.
Dagobert (16:41)
registration form for my course. Yes.
And how did you connect that to your system?
wow, cool.
Nikhil Agrawal (17:07)
will have name, first name, last name, email, phone number. You can select the course from here. It has course drop down, term and conditions.
Dagobert (17:15)
You know, I like that everything
is on one page. Because I don't know why, since Typeform started making everything on different pages, it takes 10 pages to fill 10 fields. Which is, depending on what you want, it's cool. It really can be. But I like that you're just like, it's just a form. So there's like five fields on one page. So I like that you, I don't know if you have both options or whatever, but I like that you have this option. I like that you have both. It's really cool to have both.
Nikhil Agrawal (17:39)
Yeah, we have both options. There is an option called as add new page.
Dagobert (17:45)
Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (17:45)
you can add as many as page you need. We have all the fields in the left hand side, like fields related to contact information, name, full name, email, phone, basic fields, choices over here, surveys and ratings related fields, page blocks, like you can add images, headings, text editor.
Dagobert (18:00)
Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (18:08)
then also you can have signature fields, calculation fields, take photo fields, voice recorder field. So, a lot of different advanced fields are present inside the form builder.
Dagobert (18:22)
Wow, voice recorder. That's all. Okay. So I can see what you meant, know, advanced. And what about the advanced kind of like, you know, if this then that thing.
Nikhil Agrawal (18:24)
Thanks
exactly so let me say like if you click on this field in the right hand side you will see all the configurations related to it like you can change the label placeholder you can add some text you can change the options from here default options add some options related settings like you can add ⁓ calculation values that is some advance over here ⁓ then again you can go to the conditions here
Dagobert (18:47)
Okay.
Nikhil Agrawal (19:04)
Okay, inside conditions, you can add some conditions like what should be the action like so course when name is equals to like let us say we want it when name is not empty. So when name will be not empty, then only course will be getting displayed. So you can add multiple logics over here like
Dagobert (19:20)
my god, yeah.
Okay.
Nikhil Agrawal (19:33)
and or conditions different different logics here. So you can use all these logics to build complex forms like different different depending on different fields you can show height or you can set values of different different fields. Then again you can go to the design from here you can design the form as you need you can ⁓
Dagobert (19:54)
Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (19:55)
change the size you can like we have some predefined color schemes over here but you can again change it from here. ⁓
change the color field or lot of different options. I can add some gradients ⁓
Dagobert (20:14)
Yeah, yeah.
You can, yeah, you have like
all of these. So if you need like special type of options, that's perfect. Like you, you can even add custom JS. my God.
Nikhil Agrawal (20:26)
Yes, we can add custom JavaScripts, JS
and CSS. And like if you suppose if you want to add Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel or any other JavaScripts, you can add it directly inside the JavaScript block. ⁓
Dagobert (20:42)
You know, I like,
I really like that you did this because I feel like now, and it's a good reason, but a lot of solutions, it's about making it super simple. And it's not so much about customizing. ⁓ And now it's more like you, everybody has the same style. And I really like that you just give all this power. You know what, you can paste your CSS and change everything. I guess you can make this look entirely differently with just CSS for sure. So.
That's really cool. I really like that. It gives control to people. So I guess it's for users who need more control than the usual typeform and everything. And I guess it's also maybe more affordable too, because typeform is super expensive.
Nikhil Agrawal (21:26)
So,
they can create a form which matches to their brand exactly which matches to their brand.
Dagobert (21:33)
Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (21:36)
So like if you go inside settings, have like you can send email, like you can send email to me, email to responder, conditional block. Like ⁓ when someone fills the form, it will send an email to me. Email to me means it will send an email to me.
Dagobert (21:45)
What is that? I don't understand. Like when there's a response?
I see,
Nikhil Agrawal (21:56)
can add your email address over here so when someone fills the form it will send an email to you with all the details like this and this person has filled the form you can use AI to create the form completely here like you can use the AI to build the email you can attach some PDF ⁓
Dagobert (22:08)
Awesome.
So what's this PDF
thing? I guess it's come from this freelance job that needed a PDF, but just let me understand the use case of the PDF because I don't get it.
Nikhil Agrawal (22:26)
Yes, actually this PDF is something we are working on right now, not completely released. What you can do is let us say you have a course registration form, where people can come, they can register the course. So at the end of the course, if suppose you want to generate a certificate for them, or let us say you want to generate. ⁓
Dagobert (22:37)
Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (22:49)
something like ⁓ registration confirmation PDF or if suppose you have a legal form you want to generate a legal PDF like with all the terms and conditions agreement form with all the terms and conditions. So when someone fills the form it will automatically create a PDF which will have all these details which will take all the details which is filled inside the form.
Dagobert (22:53)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I see.
Nikhil Agrawal (23:19)
like if suppose you have an order form you can create a order PDF like invoice PDF for that one.
Dagobert (23:27)
That's
really cool. I like these projects that come from freelance work because it gives you kind of unique ideas. Like I've never seen that, you know, create a PDF from the form so people can keep it or something. I never seen that. That's really cool. Yeah. And I see you have integrations. What do you have for that?
Nikhil Agrawal (23:47)
and ⁓
Dagobert (23:55)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, you can
do anything. Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (24:19)
then like you can publish the form once you have saved the form you can
can publish it like you can get a QR code of the form you can embed the form as a full page on your website you can add or also embed it as a pop-up in your website. ⁓
Dagobert (24:39)
QR code is cool. Yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (24:44)
So we have options with delayed trigger. For example, someone is on your pace for five seconds. Yes. Like how, when it will trigger? Like if suppose someone is on your pace for five seconds, then it will automatically open the pop-up which has all the, which has the form inside it. We have.
Dagobert (24:49)
you can even customize the pop-up. That's really cool. Yeah.
And I guess you just need
to add the JavaScript to your page or something.
Nikhil Agrawal (25:07)
yes like yeah we will provide the code you have to just simply copy the code from here there is an option copy code just copy the code in your website
Dagobert (25:13)
And can you show how it looks
like, like in your preview or something, how it looks like?
Nikhil Agrawal (25:20)
Yeah.
So this is like a button here. have enabled the button. So it is showing a button here. I can change the text from here. What will be the text once I have the text change. So we will click on this one. Yeah, it opens the form here.
Dagobert (25:34)
See.
and it opens the form like this. I see.
Awesome. yeah, and so the design is responsive, so it's going to one column instead of two. That's awesome.
Well, and do you have anything more to say about it? Like do you have like special things you're working on? Like what's your vision for it?
Nikhil Agrawal (26:05)
Yeah, currently we are working on this PDF builder. Like it's not yet done. We are working on this one. So with this PDF builder, like as I said, you can create custom PDFs. ⁓ Then again, like we have one of the specialty inside Formanax is like we have thousands of professionally created templates here.
you need templates for non-profit RSBP form, contact form, registration forms, so a lot of different templates are present. You can use any of these templates and you can create the form easily. So templates related to recruitment, RSBP, safety forms, Cyber Monday, quiz forms, Black Friday, registration, feedback. ⁓
Dagobert (26:29)
⁓ awesome.
I can see you put a lot of work into it, I really
like it, it's really cool. Like you can see like that's like it's a mature product with years of work on it, really awesome. Yeah. Yeah, and you have the templates with, okay, I see, yeah.
Nikhil Agrawal (27:04)
side registration we have, yes, event
registration, counseling, course, simple event, church membership registration. Yeah, this thing actually helps us a lot with SEO. Like, I don't put a lot of effort on marketing. We got a lot of results from SEO. We got a lot of customers from SEO itself.
Dagobert (27:11)
Does it help you with SEO, this thing?
for all these templates, yeah that's awesome, good move.
Nikhil Agrawal (27:29)
Yes, all these
templates which actually helps us with SEO. So similar to that, we will be having some templates for PDF also. Currently there are no templates inside the PDF, but we will have templates for the PDF also. Let me also show you, yeah, let me also show the review on Trustpilot and G2.
Dagobert (27:34)
It's brilliant.
Yeah.
That's awesome,
Nikhil Agrawal (27:58)
we a like we actually emphasize a lot on customer support like if you check any of our reviews they will say like we have a perfect customer support very good customer support yes actually I got a lot of ⁓ interesting ideas from customer itself ⁓
Dagobert (28:08)
Yeah.
That's the freelance background.
Yeah, like what?
Nikhil Agrawal (28:29)
This was a review six days ago. So here what truly sets FormNX is their commitment to last, their support is, team is phenomenal. So like we have put a lot of emphasis on support. Most of our feedbacks we'll have like support and person who did. So almost all of them.
Dagobert (28:44)
Yeah.
And do you handle all
the support yourself?
Nikhil Agrawal (28:54)
Actually, I have a guy with me who handles all the support for me. We use some AI tools. We get all our support tickets inside Gmail. And inside Gmail, we use some AI tools to write the response to the queries.
Dagobert (28:59)
Amazing.
Yeah, I see.
That's beautiful man, you did such a great product. Really cool, congrats, I love it.
That's awesome. Yeah. You can stop sharing your screen.
That was awesome to have you man, really cool to have finally met you after all these years and I'm really inspired by your story, know, that you just left, said fuck it and you made it and now you have your life. That's awesome.
Nikhil Agrawal (29:38)
so much.
Thank you so much. Yeah, that's the way actually
if someone wants to go into doing something like they have to put the 100 % effort into it. Like they cannot keep on balancing over things to achieve something, right? So that is how actually.
Dagobert (29:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, I 100 % agree with you.
When you go 100%, magical things start to happen. Like you realize you can go further than you thought. But if you're always 50-50, you will never find that. So yeah. Okay, that was awesome meeting you, man. Have a good one.
Nikhil Agrawal (30:05)
Yes, exactly, exactly.