DreamLabs
DreamLabs
[Case study]
Web app directory
Launched a two-sided directory web app in six weeks, built on a cleaned 5,000+ record data scrape.
Softr, Airtable, Make (Integromat)
6 weeks
[What it is]
CloudyHQ was a community and resource site for cloud leaders, the people responsible for their companies’ cloud initiatives, including a multi-cloud directory of the firms that serve them. DreamLabs built that directory as a working web app on Softr, Airtable and Make: separate profiles for providers and for companies looking to hire them, paid tiers for enhanced listings, and a back end that cleaned and combined a 5,000+ record data scrape. The build took six weeks end to end, across four stages.
CloudyHQ, brought to market by SquadGurus, a firm that matches companies with IT services providers, set out to be a one-stop shop for cloud knowledge. Alongside the directory it ran a Knowledge Hub of how-to guides, blog posts and white papers, and the Cloudless podcast. When the team previewed the site publicly in October 2022, they described it as a resource center and directory for everything cloud, with a focus on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, and said their database already held the AWS Partner Network, with Google’s partners to follow.
Listing was free for providers that met three rules: B2B only, in business for at least a year, and delivering the services themselves rather than making referrals. Firms already in the directory could claim their profile; new ones applied through a form.
CloudyHQ’s directory data started as a scrape of more than 5,000 records, and data from separate sources had to be cleaned and combined before anyone could search it. The product also had to serve two sides at once: cloud services firms that wanted to be found and to upgrade their listings, and companies bringing a cloud project to the table. And the back end had to handle that scale from day one.
[How it works]
We completed the build in four stages over six weeks.
Phase 1: Strategy (Notion)
We created a detailed, prioritized product roadmap with clear user flows, a sitemap, unit tests and spec’d features.
Phase 2: Wireframing and architecture (Softr, Airtable, Make)
We built the front-end screens and designed the back-end architecture, along with every automation and script needed to clean the data import.
Phase 3: Beta (Softr, Airtable, Make)
We connected the back end to power the web app’s functionality.
Phase 4: Launch (Softr, Airtable, Make)
We polished the UI and fixed the bugs found in QA.
What shipped
The provider directory lets visitors search by keyword and filter by rating, verified cloud program (AWS, Google or Azure), target client size, industry or domain expertise, and profile level. Each listing shows the firm’s cloud programs and its reviews.
Softr for the front end and member logins, Airtable as the database, and Make (formerly Integromat) for the automations and the data-cleaning scripts. For an early-stage product it is a good architecture, because data, interface and automations all live in tools the whole team can edit. Our no-code migration page covers what happens when a product built this way outgrows it.
Six weeks end to end, from strategy to launch, with the data cleanup designed into the architecture phase rather than left for the end.
CloudyHQ went from roadmap to a launched directory web app in six weeks. The 5,000+ scraped records became a clean, searchable directory with two kinds of member, paid listing tiers and an intake path for new projects, on a back end set up to handle that volume from the first day.
