Why we won't put fake testimonials on the site
A short note on launch-stage marketing integrity: real customer names earned the hard way, or nothing. Here's what we do instead.
The pattern
A SaaS lands, a designer adds a 'Trusted by' strip, somebody sources logo images from six companies they haven't actually shipped to yet, and the page goes live. Everybody does it. Nobody thinks twice.
We almost did the same thing. Had the logo wall designed, names picked, everything. Then looked at it and removed it.
Why
Because we're a new product. Because we'd be making claims we can't back up. Because the first real customer who saw their name on a wall of mostly-fake peers would rightly lose confidence in the rest of the page.
What we do instead
Show the product. Explain what it does in plain language. Let the free tier do its own work. When we've got real customers who want to be named, we'll add them one at a time, with quotes they actually said. Until then, the space stays empty.
Slow, but honest. Good enough.