Inspiration

The idea behind PDFku.ai began with a real frustration. Chan, the developer and founder, found himself repeatedly needing to fill out and collect PDF forms across a range of life admin tasks—real estate documents, immigration paperwork, rental agreements. These use cases had one thing in common: the process was unnecessarily painful.

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Competitive Analysis

To better understand the broader problem, we explored how users currently navigate PDF workflows. We discovered that most tools fell into one of two categories:

• Professional-grade tools like Adobe Acrobat were too heavy and required subscriptions just to fill or edit basic fields.
• Free browser tools were often unreliable, had clunky interfaces, or didn’t support mobile at all.

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🔍 Opportunity Summary for PDFku.ai

Our competitive analysis revealed several gaps in existing PDF form tools, opening up clear opportunities for differentiation:

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From this research, we defined a core insight: users don’t want a "platform" - they want a quick, clean tool that works without extra setup. This shaped our MVP to focus on minimal onboarding, mobile accessibility, and free-to-use functionality.

Product Strategy and User Segmentation

Before strategizing on product roadmaps and MVP scoping, we defined our users and use cases.

Who are the users?

• Individuals (2C): students, freelancers, job seekers, etc.
• Businesses (2B): HR, leasing offices, tax/immigration consultants, etc.

Common use cases: Tax forms, lease applications, HR onboarding, immigration docs, etc.

With a clear understanding of user pain points, We moved into product positioning. We recognized two distinct user groups:

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Creating personas is a critical step in aligning product decisions with real user needs. By clearly defining representative users like Mark and Sasha, I was able to ground our design and feature priorities in real-world contexts - balancing the simplicity needed by on-the-go individuals with the structure and scalability required by business teams. These personas helped me avoid designing in a vacuum and ensured that every decision from MVP scoping to UI layout was purpose-driven and user-centered.

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This strategic split allowed us to maintain the clean experience consumers expect, while planning for business-facing features like team collaboration, analytics, and custom branding in the future.

We also mapped our competitive positioning:

• Compete with Adobe-like products by offering a mobile-first experience
• Compete with JotForm by simplifying the flow to just 3 steps & a more affordable pricing to capture freemium users

Our goal was clear: be the fastest way to turn a static PDF into a smart, fillable form on any device.

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Scoping the MVP and Designing the UX

We began by mapping the core product journey:

1. Upload a PDF
2. Highlight fields to turn into simplistic webform
3. Instantly preview and share the form

To ensure we deliver a focused, scalable product, we scoped our MVP around the core need: turning static PDFs into smart, fillable forms with minimal friction. Our early design prioritized a fast, no-login experience for individuals, and a lightweight but extensible platform for businesses. The following roadmap outlines how we plan to expand from this foundation - gradually layering in AI, form creation tools, and developer access while maintaining a clean, user-first experience.

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From here, I created a responsive information architecture and defined essential user flows for both desktop and mobile. My design priorities were:

• Eliminating unnecessary steps to reduce user dropout
• Designing intuitive field-editing logic with clear visual affordances
• Avoiding clutter by using progressive disclosure (only show what’s necessary per screen)

Low-fi Wireframes

I then sketched low-fidelity wireframes to validate layout and structure, testing a few options for the editor interface and response pages. After review, we moved into mid-fidelity wireframes with more defined UI components and interaction states.

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High-Fidelity Mockups and Launch Preparation

Once the core user flows were defined, I translated the wireframes into high-fidelity mockups using Figma. This stage involved multiple rounds of iteration, especially in refining the PDF editor UI. We focused on improving button hierarchy, mobile gestures for editing fields, responsive empty states, and visual clarity around field types and icons.

A design system was created to unify spacing, buttons, input styles, and error handling—ensuring consistency across the tool while remaining easy to scale.

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With the product design in place, I shifted to building the marketing site. I created a clean, single-page landing page in Webflow, crafted to clearly communicate the product value and drive conversions. The messaging emphasized speed and simplicity, free to start, and great mobile performance. The site was optimized for fast loading, responsive behavior, and included feature comparisons, clear CTAs, and use-case examples to appeal to both individual users and businesses.