Start small. Launch strong.
- Veronica Ferraro
- Jun 21
- 4 min read
It's ok to start small.
Not every brand needs a complex website. I'll be the first in line to say it.
If you are in the midst of starting a business or launching a brand and the website feels like this daunting thing you don't know how to start, grab a coffee, this one is for you.
Most of the time if you're in the early-stages of a new business or brand (still testing your offer, still finding your customer, still figuring out what you actually want to say) a five-page website isn't necessarily where you need to begin.
So let's talk about starting with less. On purpose.
The question nobody asks
Most founders come to me asking for a shopping list of website pages; Home, About, Services, Projects, Contact, is the standard set. Sometimes more. Rarely less.
But at this early stage the right question isn't, how many pages do I need? The right question is, what do you need this website to do for you right now?
In the early days of a business it is normally pretty simple, you need a place to introduce people to your brand and help them understand what you do, you need to make it easy for them to get in contact with you. In its simplest form; attract and answer. That’s it.
The thought-focused blog, the full services breakdown, the members only pages, those are all important, but if they are holding you back from launch then those pages are not doing their job well.
A landing page, built with intention, can do exactly that.
What a well-executed landing page actually does
One-page websites get a bad rap, usually from designers (guilty).
I’m sure you’ve heard the myriad of reasons. They won’t rank well on Google. There’s not enough content. It’s harder to build a proper conversion flow. And yes, sometimes that’s true.
But what’s also true is a landing page that’s clear, brand-aligned, and built around one strong call to action will generally outperform a cluttered multi-page site. And more importantly, can still pull its weight if used correctly.
When we rebranded to Majella Studio, the full site wasn’t ready, but I’m a website designer, I had to launch something. So we put together a one-page site with the essentials, it was clear, had a single call to action, and actually felt like us. It did more for our discoverability in four months than the previous site had done in a full year.
That’s not luck. That’s what happens when a page is focused.
The trap worth avoiding
I’ve had prospective clients choose other designers because “they are giving me 10 pages for the same price as your 6 pages” and I get it, I do. More bang for your buck and all that.
But they didn’t need 10 pages. They may not have even needed 6 (my quotes always say 'approx.' number of pages for this very reason). What they actually needed was a clear strategy for the purpose their website needed to serve at that point in their business.
Pages for the sake of pages don’t add value, they add noise. And confusion at the point when someone is forming their very first impression of your brand, is the last thing you want.
The goal isn’t really to launch small or big. It’s to launch well. That looks different for every business, and getting that part right is something that needs to be considered before the design part even begins.
Is a landing page the right starting point for you?
Launching with a landing page only is not the right call for every brand.
If you’re not sure if it is the right starting point for you, see how any of the below land …
You’ve got a product ready to launch in an untested market
Your offer is still evolving and you don’t want to lock in messaging you’ll likely need to change
Your branding is solid and you want people to be able to find you but your full content isn’t written yet
You need to launch something now so people can register their interest
This isn’t a consolation prize. It’s a deliberate choice that a lot of founders make, and the ones who make it well don’t look like they’re cutting corners. They look like they know exactly what they’re doing.
What growing into a full site looks like
A landing page built properly isn’t a dead end. It’s a foundation.
When the time comes to expand (and it will) the hard work is already done. The brand is established. The positioning is clear. The design direction is set. Building out from a strong one-pager is a much smoother process than starting from scratch on a full site that never quite felt right anyway.
Launching with a simplified version of your website won’t cause issues, it will give you room to grow. Issues arise when you launch something misaligned and then spend time trying to fix it, and fix your customers’ perceptions.
So, where does that leave you?
The website isn’t the hard part. I know it feels like that in the moment (I can help with that). Launching something that doesn’t represent you, that’s the hard part.
Starting with a single, well-designed page that says exactly what it needs to say, projects the visual of your brand that you want people to learn to recognise, and gives people one clear way to take action? That’s not settling. That’s strategy.
You can always add more pages. You can’t undo a first impression.