This wasn’t a brainstormed startup idea, it started with frustration. I needed a replacement for the JamStack form submission tool I had been using, Formcake, which shut down in 2023. But it wasn’t a high priority, so I opted for an off-the-shelf Docker container that allowed me to receive form submissions and forward them to myself via email, without any bells and whistles.

That worked for a couple of years until I hit a new problem.

While building a different startup, I set up a waitlist with Sendy and found no good way to block trash submissions. Double opt-in could prevent sending to junk addresses, but there’d still be at least one bounced email, and no way to stop that.

I wanted a clean launch. I wanted to trust the data coming in. Since there wasn’t any way to do that with the tools I was using, I pivoted and started building Surmizr.

Surmizr is what I wished existed: a sharp, lightweight submission filter I could drop in and trust. Not just for my own forms, but as a proxy between any form and submission endpoint. Newsletter signups, waitlists, CRM submissions, lead magnets; whatever form you have, if you want to block the junk, Surmizr will help.

If you’re building something real and tired of wasting time on fake leads, this might be the fix you’ve been looking for.