Show HN: Calcapp Creator, create apps instead of Excel calculators

by davidpolberger • 13 years ago

5 3 13 years ago

Hi there, we're a startup based in Sweden. We just launched a landing page for a new product we're developing and I thought that this could be a good opportunity to introduce ourselves to the HN community. The page I'm linking to is an MVP for a cloud-based calculator app designer that we hope will eventually replace Excel for the times when people want to build number-crunching solutions for use by other people. We've been doing spreadsheet-like calculator apps for some time now in the e-health industry -- calculating drug dosages and calculating the optimal nutrition for infants born too early. (My partner is a doctor with a Ph.D., which helps when you want to get into e-health.)

Along the way, we have built a lot of technology that makes building these kinds of apps very straight-forward. (It's the Calcapp platform, allowing formulas to be described and user interfaces to be built using an XML-based language.) Along the way, I realized that the key is to enable people who are proficient in their domain but who are not software developers to create these kinds of apps. These folks are often comfortable with tools like Excel and use Excel to build their solutions. Thus the need for a cloud-based app designer taking the place of the XML language I designed, something that people used to Excel would be comfortable with. The MVP is an attempt to validate that there is a market for this kind of technology and to get useful feedback that can help us shape Calcapp Creator.

We'd like to get feedback from the HN community on the effectiveness of the landing page and on whether you believe that the idea itself is feasible. Thanks.

mikeyouse• 13 years ago

This is actually a fairly clever idea, I really like it.

I spend a lot of my time at the office trying to explain calculations to various staff members, who typically remember about 60% of the explanation and can't reproduce the figures.

Well done.

davidpolberger2• 13 years ago

Thanks!

Show HN: Calcapp Creator, create apps instead of Excel calculators

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