Ask HN: Do you look down on startups that use a template? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you look down on startups that use a template?

1 pointmcrittenden9 comments

I'm thinking of using a specific template from ThemeForest. It's really nice looking, and I've personally never seen it before, but I'm sure some other have, and I'd hate for that fact to damage the perception of my startup.

Do you guys think less of a company that uses a template you recognize for their site?

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I evaluate sites on two levels -- as a designer/developer and as a customer. In the former mindset I will "look down" upon you if I notice it's a template. In the latter, not at all. In my "getting things done" mindset, I'll applaud you for identifying an nice clean template that enables you to work on other stuff.

The only one of those hats you should care about is your customer. Esp if you're consumer targeted, they will never notice that you used a template. Heck, most of them wouldn't know what that means even if you told them.

Don't worry about it. Worry about your business.

Thanks, that's a helpful response. In response to your second paragraph, I'm targeting web professionals (i.e., the group of people most likely to recognize and look down on it), hence my worry.

Sounds like there's a chance you'll be hurt because you've used a template.

How does that compare to the damage / delay suffered because you had to take the time to design the site? Generally, I'll start with a template to get things running quickly, then do a redesign later. Plus, I've found that redesign a great time to re-architect for the pivots I've experienced, so I have a fairly clean layout post-redo.

Template first, redesign later sounds like a plan to me. I'll try and pick a template that isn't very common and doesn't look templatey in the meantime. Thanks for the advice.

I think it's fine, unless you're targeting visual designers.

Are you building for your peers or your customers?

Is this supposed to be a rhetorical question? If so, then I'm not sure of your point, and if not, then I'm obviously building for my customers. I don't want to lose any customers by not being taken seriously for using a template.

Yes. But it may be worth the trade off in time and effort saved. Plus, for what it's worth, I'm a pretentious dick.

Are you a designer type? I'm wondering if designers would look down on it more than developers, since my target audience consists more of developers.

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