Ask HN: Design in an early stage consumer tech startup?

Hi, we are working on a consumer tech company (pre-seed; just starting out) in a team where no one has experience in design (think UI, figmas, product design). I am wondering how should we think about the design of our website. Are there any handbooks/blogs/good practices?

Specifically,

1. Are there any starting templates that we can use out of the box for our website? We see indie products with clean design (nothing over the top, but it does the job), and we're wondering if there is a repository that we are unaware of.

2. We aren't sure of the best practices for writing frontend code and how it communicates with the "designers". Are there any standard frontend code repositories that I should look at?

3. What is the advice on hiring for design vs agency work vs "just do it yourself"?

P.S.: We are at a stage where our customers like the idea, and now we are building features and testing further. A lot of the times, we now find it hard to isolate the "product" from the design issues.

Thank you!