This startup wants to make building websites as simple as chatting

Heek is the personal assistant that helps you create, maintain and update your website in just a few clicks

In this digital age having online presence is a must for every business, no matter whether you operate on a small scale or large. However, getting a website made for your business is one herculean task. Those who have gone through this process knew very well that finding a decent web developer and getting a bug-free website up and running within specified time is somewhat of a utopian idea as developers tend to delay while delivering.

This is all about to change as a startup is looking to make building websites as simple as chatting over text and answering a few questions.



Heek, created by a Paris-based startup, is the personal assistant that helps you to create, maintain and update your website in just a few clicks. The bot use a conversational interface to ask you questions about yourself, your business and your site, then shows you different designs from which you can choose as per your requirement. It also lets you customise the website to meet your needs. As you proceed further into the site creation, the bot would also prompt you to save your work.



The idea of using chatbot to create a website could be appealing particularly to small business owners who usually don’t have enough resources to hire a professional designer.

How does it work

It is really easy to use. Once you go to Heek’s website, the bot asks you for your name, your company’s name and the type of business. Depending on your answers to earlier questions, it presents you with a variety of site templates to choose from, ranging from e-commerce storefronts to sites for public figures, charities, businesses without products to sell, or those in the “media/entertainment” space, like news, food, music, sports, education, animals and more.



Heek would also suggest items that you may want to add to your websites, like your business’s address or a contact form, or a navigation menu for moving between pages. All you need to do is to click “OK” to accept the suggestion or you can turn down the offer by clicking “No, Thanks” and the bot will move onto the next element to be designed.



It further allows users to customise the web pages like uploading your own photos, adding product information and pricing etc. You can also tweak available templates as it allows you to drag and drop various elements around the screen to customise the design.

However, there are limitations to what could be done via text-based chat. Things like editing the text or swiping photos still require you to interact with the web builder directly.

The service costs $25 or $30 per month if you opt to pay annually. The fee includes the site creation, your custom domain name, search engine optimisation and customer support.


This article originally appeared on TechCrunch