13 months ago we launched our Cal.com for Web3 on Product Hunt and celebrated another "Product of the Day" award with our community.
The Web3 App would allow users to restrict their calendar to certain token holders: Only an owner of a specific smart contract could book you (i.e. an NFT or a DAO membership).
Unlike any other scheduling product, we were very early adopters of this new technology. Still, ultimately, this experiment turned out not to be a sustainable product launch and not a feature we found valuable enough to keep maintaining.
Fast forward, the web3 market has evolved and we've seen very poor usage and retention of our Web3 app.
On the other hand, the Web3 app has added a decent amount of new complexity, multiplied by the fact that members of our core team are not experts in Web3 technology (The app was built by a third-party contractor who left) it is unsustainable for us to continue investing in this feature.
We will be removing the Rainbow app from our App Store in the upcoming version 2.8.
If you want to continue using the Web3 App, we highly recommend forking v2.7 and self-host.
Why now?
We are in the middle of refactoring our booking page, turning it into reusable react components that can be used "headless", without the full-stack app to be installed. We're calling these components "Cal Atoms", similar to Stripe Elements that can be used as an alternative to Stripe's Prebuilt UIs.
The booking page is one of our most important pages and will undergo a ton of performance improvements, restructuring and general optimizations, such as removing the Rainbow App.
Future outlook
We're still keeping our eyes out for the growth and future development happening in the Web3 industry but prefer to "cheer from the sidelines", as most VCs like to say it.
There is a chance we are revisiting plans to bring back our Web3 token gate in the future when we're done with our current refactoring endeavor and the booking page is more modular.
Alternatives to try:
While we haven't tested this, it seems like there is a Web3 Gate Zapier integration which you can try: https://zapier.com/apps/grindery-web3-gateway/integrations
Create a hidden Event-Type
Enable "Requires Confirmation"
Use Grindery Web3 Gateway to check for the Smart Contract
Return the Event-Type URL (as Email or similar)
Dear Web3 app-user, I hope you understand this decision.
Dear Core Team: I'm happy we tried this, even though we failed. This won't be the last experiment we'll be running but I think it's best to revisit everything we do within 12 months and double down on what works.
Yours,
Peer
