Email Collection Setup Guide - FREE Options ($0)

Your TDK website needs to collect waitlist emails. Here are 100% free solutions with no backend required.

Option 1: Google Forms ⭐ (RECOMMENDED - Easiest)

Cost: $0 Setup: 5 minutes Reliability: 100%

Steps:

  1. Go to Google Forms
  2. Create a new form titled “TDK CLI Waitlist”
  3. Add one question:
    • Type: Short answer
    • Question: “Email address”
    • Required: Yes
  4. Click “Send” (top right)
  5. Click the link icon (🔗) to get the form URL
  6. Extract the form ID from the URL: 
    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/viewform
                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                 This is your FORM_ID
  7. Find the email field entry ID:
    • Click “Send” → “Link” tab
    • Add a test email and submit
    • In the URL after submitting, look for entry.1234567890=
    • That’s your entry ID
  8. Update your HTML: 
    <form action="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/YOUR_FORM_ID/formResponse" method="POST" target="_blank">
  <input type="email" name="entry.1234567890" placeholder="Enter your email" required />
  <button type="submit">Join Waitlist</button>
</form>

Pros:

Cons:

Option 2: Tally.so (Modern & Beautiful)

Cost: $0 (free tier) Setup: 10 minutes Limit: Unlimited responses

Steps:

  1. Sign up at Tally.so
  2. Create a form with an email field
  3. Enable “Embed” option
  4. Copy the embed code
  5. Paste into your website

Pros:

Cons:

Option 3: Airtable Form (Database + Form)

Cost: $0 (1,200 records) Setup: 10 minutes

Steps:

  1. Create free Airtable account
  2. Create a base called “TDK Waitlist”
  3. Add a table with “Email” field
  4. Click “Form” view
  5. Share the form link or embed

Pros:

Cons:

Option 4: Netlify Forms (If you move to Netlify)

Cost: $0 (100 submissions/month) Setup: 2 minutes

Steps:

  1. Move hosting to Netlify (free)
  2. Add data-netlify="true" to your form: 
    <form name="waitlist" data-netlify="true">
  <input type="email" name="email" />
  <button type="submit">Join</button>
</form>
  3. Deploy → Forms appear in Netlify dashboard

Pros:

Cons:

Cost: $0 Setup: 0 minutes Reliability: Depends on user’s email client

Already implemented in your site as a fallback!

<a href="mailto:hello@tdk.dev?subject=Waitlist: TDK CLI Early Access">
  hello@tdk.dev
</a>

Pros:

Cons:

Option 6: Simple GitHub Hack (Creative)

Cost: $0 Setup: 10 minutes

Create a GitHub Issue template for waitlist signups:

  1. Create .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/waitlist.yml: ```yaml name: Join Waitlist description: Get early access to TDK CLI title: “[Waitlist] Your email here” labels: [“waitlist”] body:
    • type: input id: email attributes: label: Email placeholder: your@email.com validations: required: true ```
  2. Link to it from your site: 
    <a href="https://github.com/tdk-landscape/tdk-website/issues/new?template=waitlist.yml">
  Join via GitHub
</a>

Pros:

Cons:

Our Recommendation

Phase 1 (Now): Use the emailto link that’s already there + Google Forms

Phase 2 (Later): Switch to Tally.so when you want better UX

Phase 3 (Scale): Move to Netlify Forms or a proper backend when you have users

Quick Setup: Google Forms (Do This Now)

  1. Go to https://forms.new
  2. Create form “TDK CLI Waitlist”
  3. Add email field (required)
  4. Click Send → Link
  5. Copy the form ID from the URL
  6. Find entry ID by submitting a test response
  7. Update _config.yml with the form ID: 
    google_form_id: "1FAIpQLSfXXXXXXXXX"
google_form_entry: "entry.1234567890"

Done! 🎉

Testing Your Form

After setup, test by:

  1. Opening your site
  2. Entering a test email
  3. Checking Google Forms responses
  4. Verifying you received the data

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