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independence7 unconnected · 4 more authors in those circles
standing

contested · 14 claims against 2

applies to

b2b, no audience needed

confidence

high

evidence

16 claims · 15 articles · 4 receipts

window

2012-07-25 → 2026-07-16

7 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Put a page up before you build anything

A page describing the product, with a form on it, is the cheapest instrument for finding out whether the idea has buyers. It costs an afternoon and a domain, it can go live under a temporary URL with no name attached, and the signup count arrives within days rather than after months of building. The mechanism is simple: people who will not spend ten seconds giving you an address will not spend money either.

Where this splits

Most of these builders read signups off a pre-product page as proof of demand, while Tringas found his opt-in numbers told him nothing about who would actually pay and argues the first version has to do the job you charge for.

  1. side 01 · 14 claims

    Put up a landing page and count the signups

    Alex Brogan · Alex Kistenev · Bhanu Teja · Cory Zue · Justin Jackson · Luca Restagno · Nathan Barry · Paul Jarvis · Tibo Louis-Lucas · Wit Sumathavanit

    1. 1A landing page with no product behind it will tell you whether the demand is real, and it will tell you within days.
    2. 2Put up the landing page for a new product before the product exists, as the first concrete step in starting it.
    3. 3Put up a landing page for the idea and collect feedback on it before you have a product to sell.
    4. 4Put the landing page up before you write any code, and use it to build anticipation while you build.
    5. 5As soon as you have a problem worth solving, put up a landing page with a subscribe form and spend the pre-launch period growing that list.

  2. side 02 · 2 claims

    Signups prove nothing, build the thing and charge

    Tyler Tringas

    1. 1Do not validate a subscription product with a demo-video landing page that collects emails and then reveals a waitlist; the opt-in numbers tell you nothing about who will pay every month.
    2. 2Drop the viral landing page, the clickable prototype and the pre-product demo video; the rough first version has to genuinely do the thing you charge for.

What it returned

  • 2016

    In 2016 Standuply had 300 teams sign up within a few days on the strength of a landing page alone.

  • Zue's Django SaaS template, later SaaS Pegasus, began as barely more than a landing page

  • In his first month Zue put up a landing page for his place card concept and gathered helpful feedback on it, alongside picking which two ideas to pursue.

  • The whole first version took about three hours, with roughly two and a half of those spent on the dashboard mockup, plus a Mailchimp form on a plain HTML page.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.

More in landing page

all landing page plays

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.