Startups
Why Startups Need Testimonials Buyers Can Verify (and How to Get Them)
A startup has no brand, no track record, and no benefit of the doubt. When a buyer lands on your site, they are asking one question: can I trust these people? Your features page cannot answer that. Other customers can. That is why testimonials are not decoration for a young company. They are the closest thing to a track record you can build in your first year.
But not all testimonials work equally, and some can hurt you. Here is what to collect, why it matters, and how to get it without adding another job to your week.
The proof problem
Buyers have been trained by a decade of fake reviews. A wall of five-star quotes with first names and no context reads as marketing copy, because most of the time it is. What persuades a skeptical buyer is a testimonial they can check: a real name, a real company, a date, and some way to confirm the person actually said it and actually used the product.
For a startup, that difference is the whole game. An established brand can coast on recognition. You cannot. Every claim on your homepage is unverified until a customer vouches for it in a way a stranger can trust.
The risk nobody warns founders about
Testimonials are regulated advertising. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission updated its rule on consumer reviews and testimonials in 2024, and it covers exactly the things young companies do when they are moving fast: posting testimonials without the customer’s clear permission, using incentives without disclosing them, and presenting praise in ways that mislead buyers about how typical the results are. Violations can be fined at over $53,000 per incident.
Most founders are not trying to cheat. They are copying a quote from an email, cropping a screenshot, and assuming it is fine. The problem is that “the customer said something nice once” is not the same as “the customer agreed to be featured in our marketing,” and when that customer is a video on your homepage, the gap gets expensive. The fix is boring and simple: ask properly, get a signed release at the moment of submission, and keep the record.
What good looks like
A testimonial program a startup can rely on has four parts:
Easy collection.
A link or QR code a customer can open on their phone, with no account to create. Text, a photo, or a short video recorded in the browser.
Consent at the source.
The customer sees a plain-language release and agrees to it when they submit, and that agreement is stored with their words, not in a separate spreadsheet you hope you kept.
Honest verification.
Each testimonial carries a level the buyer can see, from “the submitter confirmed their email” up to “the purchase was verified,” with a public page where anyone can check the details.
Effortless publishing.
Approved testimonials flow into a wall, a carousel, or a single quote on your site and update themselves when you approve new ones. No developer ticket every time a customer says something kind.
That is the standard Get Reviews is built around. Every submission stores the exact release text the customer agreed to, with a fingerprint of that text, an audit trail of what happened to the testimonial afterward, and a public verify page for each approved quote. If a buyer, a partner, or a regulator ever asks “says who,” you can show your work.
How to get it
Getting started takes an afternoon, most of it waiting for replies.
Create your free account.
Sign up at get-reviews-app.simplebusinesssuite.com. The free plan needs no credit card and includes your first testimonials, video included.
Set up your space.
Your first space is created for you when you sign up. Use Quick setup to paste your website address and the app drafts your collection page for you: your name, logo, brand colors, and questions matched to your kind of business. Adjust anything, then you are done.
Share your link.
Every space gets a collection link and a QR code. Put the link in your email signature, on invoices and receipts, in a follow-up email after delivery, or on a card in the box you ship. The app can also send invitations for you and follows up once, automatically, with anyone who has not responded.
Approve what comes in.
You get an email for every submission. Review it in your inbox, approve it, and it is published with its release and verification record attached. Nothing goes live without your say-so.
Put it on your site.
Open the “Add to your website” section on your space, pick the wall, carousel, or single quote, and paste the snippet. On WordPress, there is a shortcode. Approved testimonials appear on their own from then on.
What it costs
The free plan is enough to collect your first testimonials and put a wall on your site. When you outgrow it, Starter is $19 a month flat, with unlimited video testimonials (fair use of 200 a month), and Pro at $49 and Agency at $99 scale the volume and the number of brands. Annual billing takes two months off. There is no per-space pricing trap and no charge for the testimonials your customers took the time to record.
The bottom line
Startups do not lose sales because their product is unknown. They lose sales because an interested buyer could not find a reason to believe them. Testimonials are that reason, but only when they are real, permitted, and checkable. Collect them properly from day one, while your first happy customers are still easy to ask, and you will own an asset your competitors cannot copy with a screenshot.