

Ask HN: Why do many start ups have a "we launch soon" site? - nurik

If you have a viable product to show, promoting your site/service makes sense to me. 
But why should you promote a site/service and all you see is a landing page that states "we launch soon"?
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kolinko
The reason is that you usually start talking with the potential customers
about the idea before you have a product ready. You bounce your idea from
people on barcamps, you discuss the idea on forums, etc.

Now - these people quite often want to know when you launch, and the best way
is to give them the website address, so they can leave their e-mail address on
it.

So: promoting a landing page? Makes no sense. But talking about the idea
before you have a prototype - definitely!

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dgunn
There are a few good reasons to make a launching soon page. We made one
because it allowed us to determine some visual standards for our actual
product (branding, site layout, etc.) and we're using it as a way to find our
users. We created a competition that lets people vote on where we launch
first. We're actually going to move to which ever city wins. It seems to be
working. I think people like the idea of having control over our future. If
you’re going to request email addresses, I recommend playing an angle like
this or offering something. In the past we’ve asked for emails for nothing in
return and we got basically zero.

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willvarfar
1) you want to ensure no-one else has the named domain

2) there are people who you have shared the name with; if they do type it into
a browser, they should be reaffirmed that they remembered it correctly etc

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kilian
3) to create buzz/get a list of people they can email when they actually
launch.

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tfb
I'm with you on this. I always thought it was kind of silly but I guess having
even a single page that says "Launching Soon!" is better than nothing at all.

<shamelessPlug>My startup, <http://www.loggur.com>, says we're launching soon
but I actually did take a few weeks to describe it in as much detail as I can
on the site. There are at least a dozen pages of details.</shamelessPlug>

~~~
PonyGumbo
I got a kick out of the "Help us get featured on:" section. My first reaction
was, "How on earth did they get onto... OH. Clever."

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anothertodd
I did that when i was working on previous startup, but for now me and
cofounder are just trying to show prototype really quickly. No sleeps, Lots of
snacks and redbulls- but I think prototype > 'launch soon' site. You can even
get some sample reference datas. Whatever it looks like, something that
actually communicate with potential users is better, i think :)

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neilayton
I have used a landing page with an email catcher as an opportunity to get the
value proposition out there and start building a database to allow you to hit
the ground running when you actually launch. If you can attract users to
signup with a simple value proposition, it is a good start.

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joshbert
You want to keep your customers informed about the status of your project.

However, you did hit the nail on the head; it's better to have a viable
product to show or something to offer to potential customers/users in exchange
of their email addresses.

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damoncali
You shouldn't. You should at least put some relevant content up to get
Googlebot's attention. A simple "We're launching soon" is pretty weak unless
you've got some sort of angle (hype, pr, etc) that makes people want to sign
up for it.

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nurik
Thanks! Yeah, I totally see the quid pro quo and to offer something in
exchange for emails

