Congrats on launch. This is a space I've thought about a lot in my 12 years as CTO of a consulting agency that centers around Salesforce.
Salesforce's "killer" feature really is the Custom Object. You can create a new data model, customize a UI and have a production API up and running immediately. I've been wondering when someone would attempt a modern take on this, and this seems like a decent start (from what I can tell in the video, login doesn't work).
Competitors like Hubspot do provide better functionality OOTB, but as soon as you want to automate or integrate, you quickly realize that they haven't "doggedfooded" their API's. Most business's of moderate size & complexity will eventually outgrow the platform.
> One thing we can’t decide if it’s a need-to-have is Apex
You might start with the just more serverless style event hooks that fire after the DB commits, but eventually you will need something that can be more "transactional".
But please... for the love of god... do not roll your own language like apex. Just pick something like typescript and sandbox it.
Same goes for UI components. Don't build your own crappy web component framework... Just figure out how to allow custom react/svelte/etc components to be embedded.
Other thoughts:
- Don't wait to nail down your access control model. One of the most daunting aspects for Salesforce Admin is designing the access control and entitlements model. For Custom Objects make sure to cover both FLS and RLS. IMO, the Salesforce approach here is pretty good, but just the admin UX is an absolute fire full.
- IF you build a low code workflow tool, enable it to transpile to a simple text based language and back. Salesforce Flow is a nightmare to maintain because the visual abstractions mask the details and make it impossible to construct a mental model.
- The SF metadata and deployment model has caused so much pain and they've still never been able to fix it. IaC style configuration could solve a lot of these problems, but I expect it will be a big challenge.
+ What I'd really like to see in this space is "the supabase for business application development". Basically a framework like this, but with complete focus on developer experience.
Would handle all the challenging infrastructure & non-functional areas and just let you focus on writing code for workflow, integration, etc.
Sorry for the late reply, my email is in my profile (and the link to the product if you want to see before contacting me, though in would prefer to get in touch either by email or discord that you can find on the main page)
Salesforce's "killer" feature really is the Custom Object. You can create a new data model, customize a UI and have a production API up and running immediately. I've been wondering when someone would attempt a modern take on this, and this seems like a decent start (from what I can tell in the video, login doesn't work).
Competitors like Hubspot do provide better functionality OOTB, but as soon as you want to automate or integrate, you quickly realize that they haven't "doggedfooded" their API's. Most business's of moderate size & complexity will eventually outgrow the platform.
> One thing we can’t decide if it’s a need-to-have is Apex
You might start with the just more serverless style event hooks that fire after the DB commits, but eventually you will need something that can be more "transactional".
But please... for the love of god... do not roll your own language like apex. Just pick something like typescript and sandbox it.
Same goes for UI components. Don't build your own crappy web component framework... Just figure out how to allow custom react/svelte/etc components to be embedded.
Other thoughts:
- Don't wait to nail down your access control model. One of the most daunting aspects for Salesforce Admin is designing the access control and entitlements model. For Custom Objects make sure to cover both FLS and RLS. IMO, the Salesforce approach here is pretty good, but just the admin UX is an absolute fire full.
- IF you build a low code workflow tool, enable it to transpile to a simple text based language and back. Salesforce Flow is a nightmare to maintain because the visual abstractions mask the details and make it impossible to construct a mental model.
- The SF metadata and deployment model has caused so much pain and they've still never been able to fix it. IaC style configuration could solve a lot of these problems, but I expect it will be a big challenge.