Ask HackerNews: What information should a stealth startup put on their website?

[spinlock]

My partner and I are just starting off and we don't have a website yet. It's been a task that we've put on the back burner so that we could focus on building a prototype (not a web app), raising seed money, and talking to potential clients. We don't want to put too much information about our product online yet as we're in a very competitive industry and we want to make sure that when we bring our product to market there is nothing else like it.

So, my question is, what info should we put up on our website? All I can think of now would be to have a page for the founder bios and a "contact us" link.

Thanks!

[smoody]

I believe it is helpful to provide, at a minimum, the general area being addressed "making hiring easier," "making photos more fun," or "making your bbq chicken taste better"-- there is no way anyone can deduce exactly what a company is doing from those above descriptions but they help make sure your sign-ups are actually relevant to your service.

Hipster might have seemed mysterious, but there were plenty of screenshots going around that explained exactly what their service provides. Plus, their sign-up landrush is uncommon.

[rchaudhary]

Put up a teaser page with some information that will pique curiosity so that you can start collecting emails. Then you will have good number of users ready to test the product by the time you are ready to launch the initial version.

[andyv]

If you've decided on stealth, why would you have a website?

[steveklabnik → andyv]

There's SEO benefits to having your content up for a length of time.

[bigohms → steveklabnik]

The only thing in a stealth instance that is aging is the domain name. You aren't really sharing that much content if in stealth. There may be some ancillary value from links from high value site talking your stuff up.

[steveklabnik]

Personally, I'd do exactly what Hipster has done:

http://sanfrancisco.usehipster.com/

Many other companies have done this too. Collect some emails, see how many people actually bite on your idea, even if they don't know what it is.