Do I need a website before I start my business?

Do you need a website before you start your business?

Well, it depends.

If all you do is make content, no.

But the moment you want to sell something, a service, a product, your work: yes.

And the good part is that your first website does not have to be perfect.

Not at all.

And here's why. From my own experience and from what I've seen with my clients. (So no universal truth here. Just what worked.)

When don't you need a website yet?

If your business is pure social media, in my opinion and observation, you don't need one.

Because your website is a platform like Instagram. That's where your content lives, where people find you, and where they get to know you.

Even if you sell something small down the line, a PDF for example, you can use tools like Gumroad to sell your product.

That works, because your followers already trust you.

Although... even then, most creators I follow have at least a short landing page that explains what's inside the product.

Because humans don't like to buy a mystery box if they do not know what is inside.

A website is a distraction, sometimes

If your goal is content creation, and only content creation, spending time on a website does not make you better at content creation or lets you create more content.

If that's the case, a website is a liability rather than a helpful tool.

There are exceptions to it (I know, it's always a boring "depends"), but more on that later.

However, here are two more cases where you can skip a website in my opinion:

• You're completely local and sell door to door. (I have to admit, I don't know much about that world. I can only speak from my experience.)
• Word of mouth. Most clients I've worked with didn't have a website in the beginning. They did the work, got paid, and more and more people came through recommendations. At some point they wanted a website to manage things and bring in traffic. Then the website came.

When does a website become non-negotiable?

A clear answer for me is: the moment you want to make money from a service or product.

If you have to sell something, like a product or service, a website is incredibly helpful.

Take my own first business: selling websites

Could I do that through social media only? Probably. I would get my leads on Instagram, close them in the DMs or through a quick call, done.

But it also means I have to make content. Constantly.

Because the moment I stop posting, the leads stop coming.

A website is a second lead pipeline. It keeps working while you film, sleep, or eat the best cheese sandwich of your life.

And the more people visit your website, the higher it gets ranked (usually).

Why do people google you when they found you on social media?

For some people, a website has more credibility than seeing a person in a video.

In their mind, a "real service" must have a website. Right?

OK, let me give you an example.

I was running Meta ads for my website service.

One day a lead came in through my website (not through my ads).

He wanted to work with me, we agreed, and we jumped on a quick call.

In the call he said: "Yeah, I found your ad and your service looked great for my use case."

Great! So I asked which ad he clicked on, because I wanted to know which one worked best.

And...

He described an ad that wasn't mine.

I was confused. (My first thought: I must have fucked up some setting in Meta, and now there's an ad running somewhere that I've never seen.) But he insisted: "No, no, that was it."

I asked him to send me a picture of the ad. It wasn't mine.

It turned out he never clicked on the ad.

He saw it, got curious, and googled the service to check if it's legit.

And on Google, he found me. Not the other service.

Someone else's ad made him curious. My website made him book.

That's what a website does. It's one more sign that you're a real person with an offer, and that people can trust you.

And I'm not the only one who googles. In DreamHost's 2026 survey of over 1,200 US consumers, 58% said they often or always check a business website to confirm what they saw on social media, Google or AI tools. (DreamHost sells hosting, so of course they'd say that. But it matches what happened to me.)

How does a website get you better leads?

A website lets your visitors know what you offer, for whom it is, and what they can get out of it.

Imagine someone watches one reel about a website service. They see a super cool, fancy animated website and think: "Hey, I want this!"

They DM you, and you say: "Sure, that's $15,000."

And they say: "Wait. I only have $300. I didn't know it was so expensive?!"

That's a mismatch between service and lead.

And it wastes everyone's time.

A website shows what you offer, but it also says for whom. That's its real strength.

The people who reach out have already checked if you fit.

As an example:

Daininki, a social media agency in Japan I work with, does exactly this for their creators. Each creator is on their website, so brands can see:

• who the creator is, and what kind of creators Daininki has
• how many followers they have, and their engagement
• how to reach out, and who is responsible

The creator becomes searchable on Google. They're part of a network people trust. And brands know what they're getting before they send the first message.

What does a website do for you, not the customer?

That might be a controversial point, but...

A website forces you to understand your own offer.

For my kind of service, I always had a website first. Not only to show the service, but to make it clear what I offer exactly, how, what I deliver and to whom.

Because if I'm unclear on my website, nobody books.

Imagine I walk up to people and say: "I'm making websites. Do you want one?" And they ask: "What does it look like? What do I get? How long does it take?"

If I haven't thought that through, my answers confuse people.

Writing your website makes you answer those questions before anyone asks them.

So, in my opinion, a website is not only a representation of your service. It's also a clearance tool for yourself.

Another example is content creation.

Good content creators take their time before they post to understand what they want to create, for whom, how, and what the audience needs.

You basically create a persona that you address directly in every piece of your content.

That is what makes your content and your offer clear.

What does your first website need?

Most people (funny enough, including myself) think they need a complex website with everything on it, a thousand pages, blog posts, a newsletter and whatever.

But in reality, it's less than you think.

Your first one needs to show what you offer, who you are, how long something takes, and what makes you different.

That's it.

In practice, that's:

• a headline
• a subheadline
• a picture or video of what you offer
• a button that says something like "Give it a go / buy / book"
• maybe a short list of what you offer underneath
• if you have them, testimonials or other proof of credibility

Anything else is, in most cases, unnecessary.

No animations. No hundred subpages. No blog posts.

It's all about selling the service.

The best example I've seen: a $60 loaf of bread

Whether you need a website now or later, building one should be as easy as possible.

And you don't need to spend a lot of money on your first one.

It still has to look good, and it has to work.

But in 2026, you can learn to make your own website, especially the first one, in an hour or three.

For anyone who hasn't earned much from their service yet, that's more than enough.

The best example of an "enough website" I've seen lately is a bakery.

Rye by Martin Auer is a new bakery in New York, by an Austrian baker. It's a premium, or let's be honest, luxury bread store: one loaf costs $60. That itself is kind of crazy.

Around the bread, they built a whole lifestyle brand. They sell the toaster, caps, kitchen utensils, basically everything around your kitchen.

And their website is so simple it just makes sense.

There's an intro page with images in a sequence.

Getting to the products is honestly a bit hard, especially on your phone, because you have to tap an extra link instead of just scrolling down. (Not perfect. See? It doesn't have to be.)

Once you're there, the product page is just... products. Each one has:

• a photo without background, clean and well lit
• the name
• the price

Two products next to each other, in a grid.

And that's the whole page.

Is it the best website for Google? Sorry, no. And it doesn't have to be. People who know the name google it, find the website and click. It's not built to rank. It's built to sell to people who already know the brand.

That's the point. Rye understood what their website is for, decided what really has to be on it, and left everything else out.

And honestly? That's exceptional.

So: do you need a website before you start your business? Not to start. But the moment you want to sell something, yes. Give it ONE purpose, keep it simple, and build the first one yourself.

That is one reason why I'm doing this 90-day challenge and building the community around how to create your first "good enough" website with AI. Because that's all it takes in the beginning.

FAQ

Can I use Instagram as my website?

If all you do is make content, yes. Instagram is where your content lives and where people find you. Once you sell a service or a product, add a simple page, so the people who google you actually find something.

Do I need a website if my followers already trust me?

Not necessarily. Warm leads just want to buy, so a payment link can be enough. Still, a short page that explains what's inside helps, because nobody likes to buy a mystery box.

How much should my first website cost?

Not a lot. In 2026 you can learn to build your first one yourself. It still has to look good and work, but it doesn't need animations or a hundred subpages.

Does my first website need to rank on Google?

Not always. Rye's website isn't built to rank. It's built for people who already know the name. Decide what your website is for, then build only that.

PS: The site you're reading this on follows the same rule. I write in Obsidian, and Cloudflare builds it for free. The whole setup: How this site works, and how I built it.