The reason for sharing our thinking early is actually a way to gather feedback at the point in time where we're able to include it in the product. But I totally see your perspective and probably won't be able to convince you of our intentions, which is fine :)

If you haven’t built an MVP and used it, how can you be sure it’s revolutionary or even viable?

We're not sure, we'll find out if it meets our high expectations :)

Very disappointed. It's just a mechanism to collect emails.

If they had a bunch of screenshots of something that didn't exist yet, would that make you feel better? I thought one of the big lessons from startups was to talk to potential users/customers to discover and validate problems before jumping in to code. They seem to be trying a variation - putting out a scenario, and seeing who reacts to it. If people sign up, and they get some engagements from people with more problem validation, then build based on that... what's wrong?

It's a little bit more intricate than that. The point is to figure out what the customer needs. The Mom Test (book) covers this pretty well.

This page just kind of pokes at things everyone's frustrated about without offering a solution. But, as The Mom Test points out, there are lots of things people are kind of unhappy with, but are unwilling to pay for. I think the example they use are shoelaces: "Are you tired of bending down to tie your shoes? Having to stop in the middle of the street to re-tie them? Feeling your shoelaces wear out over time? Getting stuff stuck in there?"

Maybe, but are you actually gonna pay for a shoelace alternative? Probably not.

This page is that. It makes some sweeping statements about how work should be intentional and peaceful, and says "we're gonna solve it with a calendar", without offering any details about what that calendar is actually going to do.

If they had some screenshots, they could learn something about how their users engaged with the product. Saying vaguely positive-sounding things ("Rise is different than your current calendar, because instead of starting with meeting invites from others, it starts with you.") doesn't teach them anything.

That shoelace example is interesting because people do actually buy non-shoelace shoes, such as slipons, or the new Nike that have that folding hinge in the middle. But generally yes, I agree that one should focus on what is a real problem that people would pay lots of money for.

A bunch of mock-ups of something that doesn’t exist doesn’t seem any worse than a description of the same.

The problem is that the startup and the consumers have totally different goals. Misleading marketing is always better for the company than consumers. And it really does seem misleading in this case, even implying internationally acclaimed design! There’s a lot of “Rise is” rather than “We hope Rise will be.” That’s why everyone’s getting confused.