FontPro Wants to Solve Two Common Typography Browsing Problems

While a lot of startups pay attention to more general problems to be solved with mobile apps or vertical e-commerce sites, this particular Indonesian startup tries to solve a more niche set of problems that few delve into: typography, or font types. Everybody uses fonts, and the right font can make a real difference on your site or comic. FontPro wants to help people find and download beautiful fonts more easily. Founder Yudhis Adi Nugroho tells us about how they plan to do that.

For starters, the site claims over 20,000 free fonts are available for people to browse and download. I found the site’s clean look easy on the eyes. Browsing and downloading the available fonts is also quite easy in many formats like HTML and CSS.

What’s nice is how FontPro lets users preview the selected fonts in many layouts, like in different sizes or in a paragraph. Users can also compare how the fonts look side by side using the typeface testing tool (pictured below).

Solving two problems

FontPro is founded by Surabaya-based developer Yudhis. He says they do not produce any of the fonts, but collect them from available sources. The idea is to help people find and download them easily. A few demo fonts on the site don’t have complete character sets yet. They require the user to donate money to the designer for the complete set.

What specific problem is he looking to solve? Yudhis says there are two. The first is about making font searches easier. The classic way for people to search for fonts is done in four steps: browsing, downloading, installing, and trying the font mockup on their computer. If the font isn’t suitable, users repeat that process all over again, which is quite tiring. FontPro helps eliminate a step, allowing people to see and compare the mockup before the download.

The second problem he solves is how even the biggest font source, DaFont.com, doesn’t offer its fonts in web formats. With FontPro, you can get all the font formats in just one click, claims Yudhis. All of this can definitely save web designers a lot of time in their work.

Monetizing from typography

So how do you earn money from this business? Yudhis explains two business models to us. First is premium membership. Premium members will be able to use more advanced features on the typeface testing tool in the future. Second is through a fonts marketplace. The way the team plans to do this is by building an extension tool for Adobe CS and plugin for Office programs. With those tools, users can download and purchase fonts directly from the programs. It can help people focus on their work without the need to open the FontPro site again, says Yudhis.

Are there a lot of people who want to sell fonts professionally? Yes, it seems like it. And they are quite expensive as well. Some fonts can cost you between $29 to $2,000. Although this is quite a niche market, professional designers are among those who Yudhis hopes will purchase these premium fonts.

I have to say that this line of business is definitely not a common one for Indonesian tech startups. The execution looks to be good so far, and the benefits it offers are quite nice too. But what do you think? Does FontPro have what it takes to succeed in this industry? Tell us what you think about it in the comment section below.