An early-stage startup website that says what you do, for whom, and what it costs
Before a startup has customers, its website has four jobs: name the problem, show the product as it really is, give an honest sense of price, and show who is behind it. Everything else, from logos to case studies, comes later and should only appear once it's true.
The four things to say before you have customers
- The problem
- In the words your future customer uses when they complain about it. "Month-end close takes our two-person finance team a week" is a problem; "finance is broken" is a slogan.
- The product
- What it does today, shown with a real screenshot or a short screen recording. If it's still in private beta, say so; an honest "in beta with twelve teams" beats an implied general release.
- The price
- Even a rough shape helps buyers self-qualify: free tier or not, per seat or flat, whether there's a sales call. "From" pricing or "pricing at launch, beta is free" is fine.
- The people
- Founder names, photos and one line each on why you're the ones to solve this. Early buyers are betting on you as much as on the software.
What to leave out at this stage: a logo wall of companies that haven't paid you, testimonials from friends, a feature grid of things on the roadmap, and growth numbers you can't source. Investors and early customers do check, and a single invented claim taints the true ones.
How a startup site grows
| Stage | Main action | Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Idea | Join the waitlist | One page with a sign-up form |
| Private beta | Request access | Home, About, a short FAQ |
| Public launch | Sign up or buy | Home, Pricing, About, FAQ, Contact |
| Selling to teams | Book a demo or talk to sales | Add case studies, security and a demo request form |
You don't need a new site at each step. With Anticode the same project carries you through: start as a waitlist page, then ask for the change in a sentence ("add a Pricing page with three plans and an About page with the founders") and the design engine adds those pages within the design system you already chose. Version history keeps your most recent saves if a change needs undoing.
What Anticode builds for a startup
Using Anticode as a startup website builder, you describe the company in a sentence or two. The Architect asks up to three questions where the answer changes the site, such as whether you're taking sign-ups or selling yet, and shows a plan with the pages and the look. Technical (IBM Plex Sans) and Swiss (Inter Tight) are common choices for software; a consumer product might suit Playful or Editorial.
- Separate pages. Pricing, About, FAQ and Contact can each be their own page, so you can send a prospect straight to the price.
- Forms that reach you. Waitlist sign-ups and contact enquiries are saved and sealed; connect HubSpot, Notion, Airtable or Slack to route them. The "account sign-up" option on a design-engine site is an invite-request form, which suits a gated beta.
- Pricing buttons. Buy buttons open your account's one payment link, from Stripe Payment Links, PayPal, Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Shopify or Whop, so you can take a first payment before you've built billing. With several plans, point it at a page at your provider where buyers pick the plan.
- Checks before launch. The Critic flags stock startup phrasing and placeholder text; Sentinel checks forms, links and anything that looks like a leaked key.
When the product itself needs accounts
A marketing site and a product are different things. Anticode's design-engine sites don't have visitor accounts or member areas. When you need real sign-in, export the project as a standard Next.js (App Router) project in TypeScript, with Postgres through Prisma, email sign-in, an admin area with two-factor sign-in and roles, and no Anticode runtime. You can push it to a GitHub repository you choose and deploy it yourself; the Next.js export guide covers what's in it. From then on, it's your codebase to maintain.
Where Anticode stops
- No subscription billing. Subscriptions are handled by your payment provider's link; Anticode doesn't manage plans, trials or invoices.
- No in-product sign-in on the published site. Use the Next.js export, or your product's own app, for that.
- No A/B testing. You get page views per day by source, counted without cookies, but no split tests or heatmaps.
- It won't invent traction. You'll need to supply real numbers, names and screenshots; the checks flag placeholders rather than filling them.
Questions people ask
Should an early startup publish prices?
Usually yes, even roughly. A visible price filters out people who'll never buy and makes those who would more likely to get in touch. If you sell only through sales calls, say what the price depends on.
Can I use my own domain?
Yes, on a paid plan. Free sites publish to an anticode.dev address and show a small badge. See /pricing.
Is the Next.js export a one-way step?
In practice, yes. Once you change the exported code by hand, those changes live in your repository, not in the Anticode project.