From Freelance Frustration to Form-Building Freedom
Freelance gigs from Dutch clients arrived; the juicy ones all shared the same headache: complex, condition-heavy web forms plus auto-generated PDFs. Nikhil kept rebuilding the same logic, so he did what every tired dev dreams of—he turned the pattern into a product.
How Nikhil Agrawal turned one gnarly client brief into FormX—the indie hacker’s Swiss-army form builder
1 · The spark: a rage-quit and a revelation
In 2015 Nikhil was knee-deep in a legacy PHP nightmare—no docs, late-night deploys, zero joy. One morning he fired off a three-line resignation email, moved back to his rural hometown, and spent six cash-burning months hunting for anything better.
Freelance gigs from Dutch clients arrived; the juicy ones all shared the same headache: complex, condition-heavy web forms plus auto-generated PDFs. Nikhil kept rebuilding the same logic, so he did what every tired dev dreams of—he turned the pattern into a product.
“I can’t ride two boats at once. I’d rather jump and swim.” — Nikhil
Fast-forward to 2025: the side-project is now FormX (a.k.a. FormNX), profitable, 5 k+ users strong, and still 100 % bootstrapped from a small Indian village.
2 · What makes FormX different?
| 🛠 Feature | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Unlimited forms & responses on the free tier—no credit card, no caps. formnx.com | Makers can test ideas without hitting a paywall. |
| Drag-and-drop power controls—conditional fields, dynamic calculations, e-signatures, voice upload, custom JS/CSS. formnx.com | Covers the 20 % of edge-cases that break Typeform/Google Forms. |
| AI Form Wizard | Paste a prompt, get a fully-styled form in seconds (demoed live on LaunchDay). |
| Built-in PDF Builder (beta)—generate invoices, certificates, contracts the moment a form is submitted. | Kills the manual copy-paste > DocuSign > email chain. |
| Native Stripe, Slack, Google Sheets & webhooks | Automate payments and workflows without Zapier fees. |
| SEO template flywheel—1 000 + pre-made form & PDF templates. formnx.com | Each template is a landing page that brings in organic sign-ups. |
| Human-first support—< 2 h average reply, 4.5⭐ G2, 4.4⭐ Trustpilot. formnx.com | Nikhil still reviews tough tickets himself. |
3 · Who’s adopting it?
- Solo founders & indie hackers – need more muscle than Google Forms but balk at Typeform’s $50/mo cap.
- Agencies & freelancers – white-label forms + PDFs to clients, keep margins high.
- Ops, HR, education & healthcare teams – rely on conditional logic, e-sign, and tamper-proof PDFs for compliance.
- Event & course creators – one-page checkout with Stripe and instant certificate delivery.
4 · Roadmap (what’s cooking)
- PDF Designer v1.0 – Canva-style canvas, brand-safe templates, conditional sections.
- Template Marketplace – sell or share your best forms/PDFs; revenue split with creators.
- AI Assistants – one-click copy tweaks, pre-built logic recipes (“if date < 18 then under-18 waiver”).
- Workflow Automations – Stripe payment → invoice PDF → Slack DM → Airtable row, all native.
5 · Why this story resonates
- All-in mindset. Quitting without a safety net forced rapid learning and product-market fit.
- Rural economics as leverage. Lower burn = longer runway = indie freedom.
- Customer-led features. Every major module (PDFs, AI builder) started as a real paid request.
- Support as a moat. In a space crowded by “good enough” tools, FormX wins on fast, human help.
6 · Try it yourself
Spin up your first form—or drag a submission into a polished PDF—in under five minutes. Unlimited forms, unlimited responses, zero cost to start.
👉 Create a free account at FormX and ship your next workflow before lunch.