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independence3 unconnected · 2 more authors in those circles
standing

contested · 4 claims against 2

applies to

b2b and consumer, no audience needed

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

6 claims · 6 articles · 4 receipts

window

2013-02-19 → 2025-01-14

3 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Ship the page rough, or give it a week

One camp puts a page in market with stock icons and one oversized button, on the argument that a live page starts the feedback loop while a perfect one is still in draft. The other found that a rushed page can be so unclear visitors do not realise anything is for sale, and that a cheap looking site produces no enquiries at all. Both sides are arguing about the same week of work.

Where this splits

Zue, Frantz, Tringas and Barry all ship pages with known problems rather than hold the launch, while Barry elsewhere insists the sales page needs a dedicated week and Cort measured zero enquiries from a site that looked cheap.

  1. side 01 · 4 claims

    Put the rough page live and start learning

    Chris Frantz · Cory Zue · Nathan Barry · Tyler Tringas

    1. 1Ship a landing page you are not proud of rather than delaying, because starting the feedback loop beats matching your own quality bar.
    2. 2Ship the page while it still has known problems rather than holding the launch for it.
    3. 3A plain landing page and off-the-shelf components with all the effort going into selling can outrun a carefully built product.
    4. 4A launch page can be a few lines of text and one large signup button, with no logo and no branded email address.

  2. side 02 · 2 claims

    Give the sales page a week of work

    James Cort · Nathan Barry

    1. 1Give the sales page at least a week of dedicated work: a rushed one can be so unclear that visitors do not realise it is a page where you buy something.
    2. 2A site that looks cheap converts nothing. Buying a paid template and hiring a copywriter is what makes it presentable.

What it returned

  • 6,397

    6,397 visitors produced 228 subscribers, a 3.6% conversion rate, held down by Hacker News traffic which always converts lower

  • $10K

    A batchmate with simpler software and a template landing page went from nothing to $10K MRR in weeks and was near $1M ARR six months later.

  • Place Card Me ran for about its first year on a page consisting of stock Font Awesome icons and one oversized button

  • Storemapper launched with exactly that, and also without password changes, account cancellation, payment receipts, terms of service or a privacy policy

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.