Why Our First Automated Agreement Was an NDA — And Why That Matters

Bogdan Pil — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 11:33:09 +0000

When we started building Contractize.app, we asked ourselves a simple but crucial question:

What’s the one agreement that almost every team, founder, freelancer, or startup deals with, often before anything else?

The answer was immediate: the Non-Disclosure Agreement.

👉 You can explore our automated NDA tool here: products.contractize.app/agreements/nda

This wasn’t just a guess or a convenient place to start. Choosing the NDA as our first automated product was a strategic decision rooted in real-world pain points we’ve seen again and again.

Let me explain why.

NDAs Are Everywhere — And They’re Still a Headache

Whether you're pitching a startup idea, hiring a freelancer, joining a new company, or just discussing confidential info with a potential partner — the NDA is almost always the first document exchanged.

And yet, for something so routine, it’s surprising how inefficient the process still is:

You Google a template (and hope it’s legit),
You manually edit names and dates,
You try not to break the formatting,
You send it, wait, revise, repeat...

It’s slow. It’s error-prone. It’s the opposite of modern.

We knew we could do better.

Why the NDA Was the Perfect First Product

We built Contractize.app to bring automation and clarity to legal agreements. But legal tech is a crowded space. So we had to start strong — with a real problem that affects a wide audience.

The NDA checked all the boxes:

High volume: Used across industries, roles, and company sizes.
Low complexity: Simple enough to automate with confidence.
High stakes: Even a small mistake can lead to serious legal risk.
Standardized: Most NDAs share similar structure and intent.

In short, it’s an ideal candidate for automation — and a great way to introduce people to our platform.

From Static Templates to Smart Agreements

Our goal wasn’t to create just another form.

We wanted to build an experience where:

You answer a few guided questions,
Get a professionally structured NDA instantly,
Customize and send it without legal guesswork.

The result? A faster, smarter, and safer way to handle one of the most common agreements in modern business.

You can try it out here:
👉 Create Your NDA Now

Educating, Not Just Automating

One thing we care deeply about is user empowerment. That’s why we didn’t stop at just giving users a form to fill out. We created a full NDA explainer page to break down:

What NDAs are,
Why they matter,
How and when they’re used.

This helps both first-time users and experienced professionals feel more confident about the agreements they’re signing or sending.

What’s Next?

The NDA is just the beginning.

Our vision for Contractize is simple: make legal agreements as intuitive and efficient as sending an email.

We’re expanding our product library with more automated agreements — from freelance contracts to partnership deals — while keeping our focus on simplicity, speed, and legal integrity.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by legal docs, struggled with version control, or worried about enforceability, we’re building this for you.

✍️ Want to see the NDA tool in action?
Start here: products.contractize.app/agreements/nda

💬 Have thoughts, feedback, or want to collaborate? Let’s talk in the comments or connect on LinkedIn / Twitter — we’re always up for conversations about legal design, automation, and product building.

How I Built a Contract Automation Platform with ASP.NET, Angular, and Dynamic .docx Templates

Bogdan Pil — Fri, 30 May 2025 12:37:07 +0000

When I started building Contractize.app, my goal was simple: let people create clean, accurate contracts in seconds — without legal friction.

But making that work under the hood? That was the fun part.

In this post, I’ll share how I built the backend with ASP.NET, the frontend with Angular, and integrated external document rendering through .docx templates and Formize API to generate final PDFs — all with automation in mind.

🛠️ Tech Stack Overview

Frontend: Angular
Backend: ASP.NET Core
Document Templates: Microsoft Word .docx files
API Integration: Formize.com (for template filling & PDF generation)
Output: Publicly accessible PDF contracts

📄 Why `.docx`?

Instead of hardcoding templates or using plain-text, I chose .docx because:

It's familiar to end users (Word format = comfort).
It supports rich formatting (tables, styles, variables).
It's editable by non-tech staff (lawyers, ops, etc.).

Templates were uploaded to a central storage on Formize.com, where variable placeholders like {{clientName}} or {{startDate}} were pre-defined.

🔌 API Flow: Dynamic Contract Generation

Here's the high-level flow of how dynamic contract creation works:

User fills a form on the frontend (Angular).
Data is sent to ASP.NET backend.
Backend compiles a JSON object with the correct variables.

A POST request is made to Formize API:

{
  "templateId": "nda-template.docx",
  "data": {
    "clientName": "Acme Corp",
    "startDate": "2025-05-27",
    ...
  }
}

Formize fills the .docx template and returns a PDF download link.
The backend saves that link, sends it to the frontend, and optionally emails it to the client.

⚡ The result? A professional, filled, legally structured contract in under 5 seconds.

🚀 Lessons Learned

Using .docx was a game-changer: Legal teams can update templates without touching code.
ASP.NET + Angular combo was seamless, especially for form validation and API integration.
Formize API saved weeks of work by abstracting template parsing and PDF generation.
Caching document links (or PDFs themselves) is key for performance if users generate many contracts in a session.

📚 Next Steps

We're now expanding to:

Dynamic clause toggles (e.g. include/exclude arbitration).
Multi-language templates.
eSignatures (integrating DocuSign or HelloSign).

If you're building anything document-related, or want to automate contracts for your team or startup — feel free to ping me or check out Contractize.app. Happy to share more behind-the-scenes!

💬 Have you ever built a doc-generation flow? Used .docx in production? Would love to hear your setup.

DEV Community: Bogdan Pil