Today,
Website Planet had the opportunity to interview Maciej Czajkowski, CEO of
WebWave. He was happy to introduce us to his company, explain how it evolved, and tell us what is in the pipeline for the future.
Please present WebWave to our audience.
WebWave is a website builder. This is a tool that allows you to graphically create a website without needing to manually write code. You can then launch it live with our hosting or export code and upload it to your servers. However, what makes WebWave unique is the true drag-and-drop feature, which allows you to freely move elements and position them anywhere on the canvas. Elements can overlap or overlap each other and there are no limits on where you can put those elements. There’s no invisible table in the background that other website builders use. This makes WebWave more similar to graphic design tools like Photoshop, Figma, or Canva than to other website builders., and it makes the designing process more flexible. It’s a great tool for people with graphic design experience.
Please describe the story behind the company: What sparked the idea, and how has it evolved so far?
Before WebWave, I was a software developer and, as a side hustle, I created websites for my customers. I was a good developer, but not a very good website designer, so my websites weren’t that great. Then I finally figured out that web design is not a task for technical people. It should be done by marketers or graphic designers. That’s why I started creating a tool specifically for graphic designers so that they can create their websites themselves in an environment that is friendly and familiar to them.
The first couple of years were pretty slow. WebWave took off around 3 years ago. We have now grown to 500,000 users and the tool hardly resembles what it looked like in the beginning. We’re constantly developing the tool introducing new features and upgrades. For instance, last year we introduced nearly 300 new product updates and we’ve updated UX and UI. However, despite the constant adjustments and improvements, the idea behind the tool hasn’t changed. We still want to create a graphic design tool for building websites. Right now, that’s even more important than before, when the no-code movement wasn’t what it is right now.
What services do you offer?
First of all, we offer a true drag and drop website builder. You can create your website and publish it for free for as long as you’d like it to be. You have to get a premium plan only when you want to connect a custom domain to your website. What’s special about our premium plan is that we provide the option of having mailboxes in your domain name for no extra fees. Of course, you’ll also get all the usual stuff like hosting, which comes with a content delivery network, speeding up your website. Additionally, you get tech support and a free domain name, too.
We also offer agency plans that include extra features that are really useful when you’re creating websites for clients. For instance, you can send bills to your customer directly, you have a commenting mode where your customer can comment on the project you created for him. You can give your customer’s account access to a content management system allowing him to add content to the website, but he won’t be able to edit how the website looks. Furthermore, you can white-label WebWave and replace the WebWave logo with your own.
What is the mission of WebWave?
The mission of WebWave is to help people present themselves and their businesses online in their own unique way.
Who are your typical customers, and what do you think is the main challenge that your product solves for them?
We have two types of customers. There are people who create websites for themselves, their small businesses, their blogs, etc. The primary reason why they’re choosing WebWave is how much they can customize their websites. They can start from scratch or pick a template. However, even with a template, everything can be changed, so the website can end up looking nothing like the template they chose. Additionally, if they create a business website with WebWave, they can expand the website together with their business. As their business grows and changes, they can adjust and edit their website so that they grow together. The website builder itself is pretty robust and you can do a lot with your website. One more reason why people use WebWave is that they can have mailboxes in their own domain name with no extra fees. That’s something that’s really important nowadays and none of the competitors provide.
The second group consists of freelancers and small agencies who make websites for customers. This group prefers WebWave because they can launch smaller websites much faster, maintaining high quality and uniqueness. With WebWave they can skip the mockup part of creating a website, because they’re creating the design right within WebWave. They can also simplify the communication with the client because they send a link to a working website to their customer, comment on the project and work together. Those agencies are not dropping WordPress altogether, but adding WebWave to their toolbox. I’ve heard many people saying that if they would try to do a project with WordPress, the amount of time would not have been worth it. But they took it, because they had WebWave, and the project was profitable.
What are the plans for WebWave for the near future?
On the business end of things our focus is on going global. We’re doing most of our business in Europe, but we’ve already launched an office and a team in Australia to serve the Asia-Pacific region. We’re currently working on improving our USA operations.
When it comes to the tool itself, we’re constantly developing it and adding new features every week, which you can check out on our website or our Facebook group. Right now, we’re improving the loading speed of websites. Our goal is to get results of above 90% on the page speed index, and we’re nearly there. We’re also improving e-commerce. For example, last week we introduced a feature that lets you translate your check-out into every possible language.
However, all the new updates and changes won’t affect our primary goal, which is to create a true drag-and-drop website builder. We’re not going to create just another website builder, we’re building a graphic design tool that lets you build websites.
