Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon report series, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to spotlight standout solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon report series, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to spotlight standout solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Proof of Usefulness Hackathon report series Proof of Usefulness Hackathon report series Proof of Usefulness Hackathon Proof of Usefulness Hackathon $150k+ Submit your project to get started Submit your project to get started In this interview, we talk to Elvis Ndubuisi about Formonger, an API-first form backend designed to eliminate the need for repetitive boilerplate code. By offering secure endpoints, spam filtering, and automated workflows, Formonger aims to help developers focus on their core product rather than infrastructure. Formonger What does Formonger do? And why is now the time for it to exist? Formonger is an API-first form backend that saves developers from writing repetitive boilerplate code. It provides a secure endpoint to handle form submissions, robust spam filtering, and automated workflows like email notifications and webhooks. This allows you to add a fully functional, production-ready form to any website or application in minutes, so you can focus on building your core product instead of managing infrastructure. Now’s a good time for Formonger to exist because developers are increasingly seeking modular, serverless tools to speed up deployment cycles without sacrificing security or functionality. What is your traction to date? How many people does Formonger reach? As a pre-launch product currently in a targeted private beta, our direct audience reach is intentionally focused on a core group of about 15-20 active developer testers. However, our initial "build in public" content on Twitter and LinkedIn has already generated over 181 impressions, validating strong interest in the developer and startup communities for a solution like Formonger. Who does your Formonger serve? What’s exciting about your users and customers? Formonger is built for developers, freelancers, and agencies who are tired of the repetitive and time-consuming task of building form backends from scratch. It's for anyone who wants to add a production-ready, spam-filtered form to a website or application—be it a Next.js app, a static site, a Webflow project, or a WordPress build—in minutes, not days. What technologies were used in the making of Formonger? And why did you choose ones most essential to your techstack? To build a scalable and serverless infrastructure, Formonger relies on a modern stack including Next.js and NeonDb. The backend heavily utilizes AWS services like Lambda, SQS, and SES to handle processing and email delivery reliability, while Shadcn ensures a polished UI and Dodopayment handles transactions. What is traction to date for Formonger? Around the web, who’s been noticing? Early traction has been driven by a "build in public" approach, which successfully attracted an initial cohort of over 27 beta sign-ups. The project is currently refining its features based on qualitative feedback from a core group of active testers within their community Discord, confirming the demand for better form backend solutions. Formonger scored a 41 proof of usefulness score (proofofusefulness.com/formonger-report) proofofusefulness.com/formonger-report What excites you about this Formonger's potential usefulness? What excites me most is the potential to give developers back their most valuable, non-renewable resource: time. Every hour a developer saves by not having to fight spam or debug an email service is an hour they can invest in the unique, creative features that make their product special. I'm excited to build a foundational tool that removes a universal point of friction, supercharging developer productivity and enabling creators to bring their ideas to life faster. Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: brightdata.com Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: more Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Start for free Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Learn more

Between Two Computer Monitors: This story includes an interview between the writer and guest/interviewee. 

Formonger Earns a 41 Proof of Usefulness Score for Building an API-First Form Backend for Developers

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