Ask HN: Should one launch a landing page as early as possible, before MVP?

2 points·_xivi··3 comments

I'm leaning toward launching a landing page for a product (side project) with basic copy and a sign up for updates but part of me feel like I dont have anything yet and it's too early to "promise" anything

Would that actually help slowly gather leads like I expect? or should I just focus on product and wait until I have sth to show for it

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Putting up a landing page is useless, unless you are going to actively drive traffic to it. And those leads are going to convert much much better if you can deliver some value on that page. I put up a landing page 4 years before I had my product ready to go (a baby book I was making), and over four years, I gathered about 200 email addresses. Only a fraction of those convert, and they were probably worth $500 at the end of the day. Once I had the book finished and could show people how it worked, I dwarfed that by 10x in one day.

You can build a landing page. But I wouldn't let it distract you too much from the actual project, unless you are great at marketing, in which case, play to your strengths.

I know your book! How's the baby book sales going these days?

Distill your idea down to its simplest core value proposition that would appeal to a niche group, make a landing page that demonstrates what that is, and drive traffic to your site.

Understand that the title/lead/copy is very important here: I made a thing that I'm absolutely positive HN peeps would like, and it still took me several attempts at posting it (with various titles) before it caught on.

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