Some of the people interested in Formwork expect Formwork to be an enterprise eQMS software, with all the associated features. They would send me an email like the one below.
If you are similarly interested in enterprise-y features like locally-hosted data, in-person user trainings, heavy customization and a shady sales process, read on!
Dear Oliver,
Our department is interested in Formwork. I’ve already requested a free trial.
But in the meantime, could you provide some key numbers for your company e.g.:
- How many customers are using Formwork
- How many new customers during 2023
- Is there a decent turnaround in the company
- How many full-time employees are there in formwork?
- Is the company still in development mode?
These questions to set the scale of expectation that formwork will still be around in a few years, such that a potential investment in formwork (mony and time) is reasonable.
Furthermore, can you inform me whether formwork can be installed as a stand-alone installation within our company so that we have all the data locally? There is a lot of fear for using cloud solutions. But I need to be ensured that in case you are out of business someday, I can still access all my data.
Best,
Enterprise Person
Here’s my typical response:
Dear Enterprise Person,
In short: We’re four full-time people, our company is on the market since 2020, we’re profitable and we don’t have any external investors; this is in stark contrast to other eQMS vendors which are venture capital - funded and unprofitable which makes it very unclear what the future of each company might hold.
Over 1100+ companies have signed up for Formwork as of now, as stated on our website.
Let me cut the discussion short at this point: From my past experience, I think the probability of selling Formwork to you is 0%. What you’re looking for is enterprise QMS software, i.e. a vendor which sets up a clunky, customized, on-site installation with opaque pricing, year-long commitments and data lock-in. We vowed to do none of that: Formwork’s pricing is transparent and public, it’s paid monthly and you can cancel any time. If you want to move your data, you can export it any time via our formwork-batch-export.
Is this the right model for everyone? Definitely not. Some customers, like you, would understandably prefer e.g. a locally-hosted version and more “enterprise”-level support (whatever that really may be). That’s not what we provide.
Instead, Formwork is for fast-moving Healthcare startups who want to create their QMS and medical device documentation in (probably) the fastest and most efficient way possible without dealing with clunky eQMS configuration and crappy user interfaces :)
Of course the are risks involved - we’re a small company, but, that being said, we’re profitable and here to stay, it’s fairly “new” (2 years?) software and it’s cloud-hosted. But, then again, we’re hosted in France which makes us much more GDPR-compliant vs. other companies who are using US-based cloud providers, and the batch export allows any customer to move their documentation some place else if they so choose.
Will every company be willing to take on these “risks” in exchange for a faster time to market? Probably not, but lots of other companies have “voted with their wallets” and are proving us right by choosing Formwork.
All the best with your future eQMS search! :)
Oliver