“That’s genius. You should do it.”

Ever been in one of those conversations where someone shares an idea with the excitement of a 6-year old who’s about to open presents on their birthday?

That’s what we’re tempted to say in response, isn’t it?

It’s usually a business idea, and it sounds promising, but deep down you feel your gut nudging you to an inevitable reality:

The chances of this idea becoming a reality are less than 1%.

Why is that anyway?

Because most of us understand that the amount of effort required to execute on an idea, especially a business idea, is 1 million times more than coming up with the idea itself.

And those who have tried also understand that it takes more than anticipated at first glance.

Opportunities and ideas are easy. When they come, it’s easy to say “yes, I’ll do that.”

But actually doing the work to achieve the goal is what makes all the difference between someone who’s just talking and someone who’s changing reality.

At other times, you’ll talk to someone else who is dead serious, and their track record shows it. And you start thinking, “they might actually do it”. And then they do.

Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.

Forms are like this.

What do I mean?

At First Glance

They seem so simple.

Forms use fields—text boxes, drop downs, date pickers, etc.—to capture and store data.

They are the integral component in the creation of digital documents, such as contracts, invoices, registrations, etc. They’re simple and effective and as such, they’re everywhere.

You want to open a business? Get a loan? See a doctor? Fill out a form. It’s part and parcel of our daily existence.

‘Can I get you to fill out this form, please?’

‘If you’ll give us just a little information here we can get started.’

‘Sign here and here and here, and you’re good to go.’

They just record and save information. Simple. In fact, they’re so simple and so pervasive that they’ve become a trope in stories.

• The grizzled detective on a police procedural buried under a mountain of paperwork,
• The inventor stifled by bureaucratic red tape,
• The attorney producing a document that’s the smoking gun in a high stakes criminal trial

They’re all dealing with forms.

And we all do, constantly, and in every facet of our lives. A form, then, is basic and universal.

You get the idea. We see forms and their visual boxes like this, as merely ideas. “See, it’s a form. Just a form.”

Developers, however, know better. They know that a form is never just a form.

Under The Hood

A form is actually the building block of a database—the database’s simplest and yet most essential component.

What is a database anyway, really? It’s a store of information.

What tool captures and saves that information?

A form.

It’s easy to mistake a form’s simplicity and pervasiveness for something inconsequential, something trivial, but without them, and all the information they carry, we’d be left with a void, a vast expanse of nothingness.

But once the form is actually completed, and submitted, and the information is collected, and sent to where it needs to be is when it actually means something.

Execution.

It becomes a powerful tool. They do things, according to a plan, and in an environment in which to perform.

That’s why we have drag and drop form builders all over the place.

But, there’s a crucial piece that’s often overlooked at first glance. It’s what missing with nearly all drag and drop form builders, the thing you can’t ignore. It’s the execution behind the execution.

It’s building the environment for your forms.

PLUS, with all of this data that’s been recorded, captured, consumed, and processed, what kind of environment is suitable?

Here’s a more interesting question: What if the form could build the suitable environment for you? Tailored to your needs and your concerns AND housed where you need it?

That’s what makes a form not merely a form, but a Form.