5 ms·

Your Startup Needs a Website (even if your product isn't ready yet)

19 points by tsondermann 16y ago

bkrausz 16y ago
While I agree a sales website would be useful, it can often be a lot of wasted effort. Startups can pivot significantly before they launch, and building up a sales website before you launch could be wasted effort if you end up targeting a different audience. Still, once a startup is reasonably sure that they're sticking with their plan, no reason not to get one out there ASAP.
- kranner 16y ago
  A sales website doesn't have to be complicated at all. A simple website with traffic driven to it with advertising, blogging or other marketing can help validate the existence of a market before you've invested a lot of effort in engineering. I'm doing this with a placeholder site at http://codeboff.in/ http://codeboff.in/ and a blog that drives traffic to the site (and private beta list) at http://blog.codeboff.in/ http://blog.codeboff.in/ (I hope sharing these links will not be treated as spamming in the context of this discussion) I went with the more time-consuming blogging approach instead of the traditional and quick advertising pilot because I'm bootstrapping this from India and web ads are more expensive to me by 6x to 8x (or whatever the purchasing parity difference is) and I can't justify that expense, especially in the light of my previous startup ideas which in retrospect have been more or less cuckoo. I agree that startups do pivot before launch. I think you have to agree to take that risk against the market research advantage you're getting. It might help to keep the blurb on the sales website on the vague side to absorb minor pivoting. edit: Spun off in the middle. What I was trying to say was that interest in the blog justifies the much greater investment in engineering that's going into my startup. Without that interest, making up my mind about the idea would have been pointless.
- byoung2 16y ago
  I think it's worthwhile to get a following early on. It may be feedback from this early group that helps you pivot before launch.
known 16y ago
You need a separate website for advertising your product/service and another one for the actual service
AprilDunford 16y ago
I agree that the product/solution will change drastically after it is launched so having a site oriented around product features is pointless. What this article is suggesting is that you should have one for 2 main reasons - firstly to explore the problem (you can do this with a blog or other info on the site) and secondly to start gathering names for a mailing list. The product will change but you will have a sense of the broad problem domain. There are many examples of startups doing a great job on this. Mint for example launched a blog and collected thousands of email addresses well in advance of releasing their product into market. When they did launch they already had an established audience and some traffic built up, which takes time no matter when you start.

19 points by tsondermann 16y ago

While I agree a sales website would be useful, it can often be a lot of wasted effort. Startups can pivot significantly before they launch, and building up a sales website before you launch could be wasted effort if you end up targeting a different audience. Still, once a startup is reasonably sure that they're sticking with their plan, no reason not to get one out there ASAP.

kranner 16y ago
A sales website doesn't have to be complicated at all. A simple website with traffic driven to it with advertising, blogging or other marketing can help validate the existence of a market before you've invested a lot of effort in engineering. I'm doing this with a placeholder site at http://codeboff.in/ http://codeboff.in/ and a blog that drives traffic to the site (and private beta list) at http://blog.codeboff.in/ http://blog.codeboff.in/ (I hope sharing these links will not be treated as spamming in the context of this discussion) I went with the more time-consuming blogging approach instead of the traditional and quick advertising pilot because I'm bootstrapping this from India and web ads are more expensive to me by 6x to 8x (or whatever the purchasing parity difference is) and I can't justify that expense, especially in the light of my previous startup ideas which in retrospect have been more or less cuckoo. I agree that startups do pivot before launch. I think you have to agree to take that risk against the market research advantage you're getting. It might help to keep the blurb on the sales website on the vague side to absorb minor pivoting. edit: Spun off in the middle. What I was trying to say was that interest in the blog justifies the much greater investment in engineering that's going into my startup. Without that interest, making up my mind about the idea would have been pointless.
byoung2 16y ago
I think it's worthwhile to get a following early on. It may be feedback from this early group that helps you pivot before launch.

known 16y ago

You need a separate website for advertising your product/service and another one for the actual service

AprilDunford 16y ago

I agree that the product/solution will change drastically after it is launched so having a site oriented around product features is pointless. What this article is suggesting is that you should have one for 2 main reasons - firstly to explore the problem (you can do this with a blog or other info on the site) and secondly to start gathering names for a mailing list. The product will change but you will have a sense of the broad problem domain. There are many examples of startups doing a great job on this. Mint for example launched a blog and collected thousands of email addresses well in advance of releasing their product into market. When they did launch they already had an established audience and some traffic built up, which takes time no matter when you start.