What a founder’s personal website should include

A clear home page message

A founder site should answer three things fast, who you are, what you build, and why the visitor should keep reading.

This is basically the job a personal website is supposed to do. Shopify’s personal website guide describes a personal website as an expression of your identity and says it should show who you are and what you do. For a founder, that usually means the homepage does not need a TED Talk. It needs a clear signal and a path forward.

Founder bio and credibility signals

Add a short bio that stays neutral and factual. Cover background, focus areas, and relevant experience. If the founder has built products before, worked in a specific domain, or has credentials that help explain why they are worth paying attention to, include those too.

Keep it tight. The point is trust, not autobiography with bonus lore. Visitors should understand why this person is in a position to build the thing they are showing.

Useful credibility signals can include:

• A concise role or specialty
• Previous products or companies
• Domain expertise that matches the current work
• Links to public profiles or company pages
• A small proof point, if it is directly relevant and can be verified

Current work or products

This is the part that keeps the site from feeling abandoned in a digital attic. Show what the founder is actively building now, especially if they are an indie developer.

A simple current-work section can include:

• The current app or product name
• A one-line description of what it does
• The stage it is in, such as building, shipping, or maintaining
• A link to the product page, app listing, or launch page

This helps visitors see momentum. It also tells them the site is not a relic from three projects ago.

About, contact, and social links

A founder site should make it easy to verify who the person is and how to reach them. That usually means a basic nav with an About page, a contact method, and links to professional profiles or company pages.

If the founder is public-facing, this is also where people expect to find the boring-but-useful stuff, like a direct email or a contact form. Social links should support identity and follow-up, not turn the site into a link confetti machine.

A solid minimum set is:

• About page
• Contact email or form
• Professional profile links
• Company or product pages

Writing, updates, or a blog

A blog is optional, but it can pull real weight. It gives the founder a place to share thinking, document progress, and support discovery through search, as long as the posts stay relevant to the founder’s niche.

For an indie developer, that might mean build logs, release notes, technical notes, or short essays about the product area. The goal is not “content at scale,” which is internet jargon for “please make more pages.” The goal is useful writing that reinforces what the founder works on.

A simple trust and policy footer

The footer should make the site feel complete, not like somebody closed the laptop mid-shipping.

At minimum, include:

• Copyright notice
• Privacy policy
• Any needed legal or disclosure pages

If the site collects email addresses, uses analytics, or has other legal obligations, the footer is where those links usually live. This is one of those parts people ignore until it becomes very important very quickly.

How this differs from an app marketing site

A founder site and an app marketing site are related, but they are not the same job.

A founder site should emphasize the person behind the product, including background, current work, and ways to verify or contact them.

That distinction matters because the content format changes. For example, How to write App Store screenshot captions that read fast is about making screenshot captions work in a tiny, visual, glanceable space. A founder website has more room to explain identity, credibility, and what is being built now. Different tool, different job.

Worked example: a one-page founder site for an indie iOS developer

A useful first version can be just one page. No elaborate sitemap needed. No heroic design system. Just the essentials arranged in a way that is easy to scan.

A simple layout could look like this:

• Hero message: “Indie iOS developer building focused tools for people who hate clutter.”
• Short bio: One paragraph covering background, what the founder focuses on, and relevant experience.
• Current app: A section for the app being built right now, with one sentence on what it does and a link to learn more.
• Writing or updates: A small list of recent posts, build notes, or release updates.
• Contact: Email address and links to professional profiles.
• Footer: Privacy policy and copyright.

That is enough for a first version. It tells visitors who the founder is, what they are making, and how to continue the conversation. The site can get fancier later, but it does not need to start life wearing a tuxedo.