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Conversion

What social proof can I show before I have customers

A brand-new product genuinely has none of this yet, so this is a prompt rather than a defect. What tends to work before you have customers: the number of people on your waitlist, who you built it for, or your own story of the problem.

What 13x checks

This is rule conversion.social-proof in the public registry: Some form of social proof. It runs on every audit, against the pages we actually fetched, and its result is derived from the response rather than estimated.

Surface
Conversion
Score weight
3 of the readiness score
Scope
Reported as skipped when the page renders only with JavaScript
Applies
To every site

Registry version 2026-07-30. Every rule is published, and the audit is deterministic — the same page produces the same finding every time.

The fix

The same text the audit hands you when this check fails on your own site.

No testimonials, customer counts, logos or badges were found.

A brand-new product genuinely has none of this, so treat it as a prompt rather than a defect. What works before you have customers:

- The waitlist number. "412 people waiting" is social proof. - Who it is for, specifically. "Built for freelance designers who bill by project" signals more than a generic testimonial. - Your own story. Why you built it, and what you were using before. - Something verifiable. GitHub stars, a Product Hunt badge, a published changelog.

Avoid invented testimonials and placeholder logos. Both are recognisable, and getting caught costs more than having none.

Does your site have this problem?

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