Why Typebot?

I'm Baptiste, 28 years old. I'm a software product engineer. I am passionated about great user experiences and beautiful interfaces.

This is why I've started working on Typebot, 3 years ago. It's my attempt on a great chatbot builder.

In France, people don't like chatbots. They always think about it as the guard before getting the chance to talk to a human. You ask a question to a robot and it tries to understand what you're saying and help, but it does not a great job at this. (now, it is maybe not that accurate since the rise of LLMs)

But I think we undervalue the potential of chatbots.

You chat with friends, colleagues and family on messaging platform daily. You are used and you like this chat experience. That's why businesses need to leverage this, it's a place where conversion is high.

In an ideal world, a user should be able to chat with a human from a company and have an instant answer. The problem is that it is synchronous, time-consuming and it requires a huge customer support team working 24/7. It doesn't scale at all. Waiting for an answer from a human impacts the customer experience.

Chatbots are a solution. You can chat with your customers, at scale.

But, when built incorrectly, chatbots can be detrimental to your user experience. Most solutions out there focus on customer support. It can be so much more.

A great chatbot should:

  • Provide a customised experience to the user
  • Have a great user interface and beautiful animations
  • Feel native to the business brand
  • Provide what the user is looking for

A chatbot is not necessarily tied to customer support. It can also do:

  • Lead generation and qualification
  • Quizzes
  • Surveys
  • User onboarding
  • Product presentation
  • Registrations (newsletter, waiting list)

To build that kind of chatbots, you need a tool that gives you enough freedom to closely tie it to your business logic. The build experience should be a reliable and fun experience. You also need a space where you can analyse your results so that you can incrementally improve your bots.

This is what Typebot provides.

I've built this tool by focusing on user empowering. Typebot is extremely flexible and provides the building blocks to create great chat experiences.

Often times, the more freedom you give to the user, the less intuitive the tool become. I try not to fall into that trap with Typebot by providing the best defaults for each option. I also try to help you learn master the tool with good templates and video tutorials.

Transparency

I believe any software company should be transparent with their users.

I believe people should not buy a tool because it has this X feature that a competitor does not provide. People should buy a tool because they resonate with the company and its philosophy.

The future I see isn't one with small number of big companies providing soulless do-it-all products, but rather a large number of small companies building the right tool for their (smaller) audience.

These small companies have their WHY clearly stated.

To name just a few, Linear explain their method, Lago explain why billing is a nightmare and Cal.com tell you about why they companies need an open scheduling platform. In all cases, it is beyond the solution they are offering, it's about their mission.

Typebot is 100% open-source and can be self-hosted. It is a way to show you that I'm proud of my craft (the code) and that I have nothing to hide (no 3rd party shady tracking).

I am proud to be part of a community of open-source SaaS who also believe in transparency (https://typebot.io/oss-friends).

Solopreneurship

In my past jobs as a software engineer contractor, I found myself shipping amazing features for a product that was not used and not promoted by the company. This was the worst feeling. It clicked at that moment, I wanted to have 100% ownership of my next project so that I am fully responsible of how the product is distributed.

Typebot was crafted with passion for the last 3 years by only me. I still work solo and I intend to keep it that way as long as possible.

My way of working is quite simple:

  • Listen to user feedback
  • Build and improve product features
  • Document as much as possible on social media

I like the freedom of mind of not having anyone who relies on my input.

I like the freedom of working any time, any where.

I like being independant and learn new stuff at my own pace.

Why will I keep working on Typebot indefinitely?

I'm passionated about web technology and great user experiences and Typebot is an amazing playground for that. Besides being a chatbot builder it can also be considered like an automation tool like N8N or Zapier. So the features-to-implement list is infinite.

A question that I often ask myself: "If money is out of the equation, would I still do what I do?" and the answer is frankly: "yes".

Obviously, there is always the risk of getting bored at some point, I guess? But I do my best to keep the spark by improving the code base, upgrade packages, use new technologies and new tools to improve my day to day relationship with the craft.

Also, Typebot is 100% open-source, it will never die.