Ask HN: Bootstrapping; should I buy a site template? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Bootstrapping; should I buy a site template?

9 pointsiamdave17 comments

I'm bootstrapping a recruiting process outsourcing consultancy for internal HR and recruiting staff and want to get a start on marketing, but don't have the funds for a designer and I haven't touched anything HTML related since 1998.

Is it advisable to throw the $50 at a template from ThemeForest or one such site early in the game? It would likely just be a landing page with an overview of services, and a contact form or phone number, I've received some validation on my concept in the form of an HR manager saying to come back in Q2 and they'll have the budget to talk about signing an agreement. So if anything, it'd be a very temporary site until successfully closing my first client.

I'm not selling a consumable product, nor is it SaaS, just an outsourced business process and I can swallow $50 much more easily than the costs for a designer to put together the type of site I'd be looking for.

Any feedback would be immensely appreciated!

I'd actually go further and say that you shouldn't even buy a theme, you should just use Squarespace, Wix, Weebly or whatever other easy site host+design catches your fancy.

You're bootstrapping and your time would be better spent on marketing and sales than even on the relatively small amount of time it might take to modify a theme or start from scratch.

This is doubly true for developers: separate out your marketing website and product. Spend less than a day on your initial (!) marketing presence and the rest of your time building the actual product. It's oh-so-easy for devs to get pulled into spending way too much time on static marketing pages.

Definitely go with an inexpensive theme.

It's a great value, gives you good design out of the box and lets you focus on building the more critical elements of your service.

Design is important. Initially though you just need something that looks good, quickly and inexpensively. Once you're profitable you can invest in better design.

I would go with bootstrap based themes. I see more and more corporate sites using bootstrap. It looks good and is easy to develop with.

As others have mentioned if your site is SaaS watch out for themeforest and their license requirements. Otherwise you'll be in love with a theme that will require an extended license that is $500 to $1,000. More friendly license terms for SaaS are offered by http://wrapbootstrap.com. I'd look there first.

Good luck getting up and running fast.

$50 is a small investment if you think about how much time it would take to get back to HTML circa 2015. I downloaded but haven't started the trial version of Pinegrow, so I can't speak from experience how easy it is to actually use it. But their videos show that the web editor lets you manipulate themes before you even buy them, giving you a good idea if it'll work for what you want even before purchasing. (I did try that feature out and it works well!) It'll give you the ability to modify the theme as you validate your business until you get to the level of success that a custom design by a designer may make sense.

EDIT: Link to Pinegrow

http://pinegrow.com

Do you need to buy it yet?

Don't fall intro the trap of equating using your credit card to building your business.

It's tempting to spend the early days boostrapping buying themes, registering for SaaS plans, and setting up your Trello board. But be careful. If you spend too much time on that, you won't have any code, and you'll burn out before you even start.

My advice: Code as much as possible without buying a template. When you're ready to make it look good, you can buy a template. But first, make sure you get yourself to the point where you need one.

I would agree. I have used https://wrapbootstrap.com/ to buy a theme to develop a bootstrap-based site for my wife's speech pathology business. I also ended up integrating Google Analytics, which was also extremely simple.

I really like the single page applications. Here is the one i designed for my wife (http://www.socialability.com.au)

I'd say go for it. $50 is chump change compared to the cost of hiring a designer or the time cost of relearning HTML, especially since you really don't need anything more than a landing page at this point in time.

Excellent, thanks for the response!

I'd be very wary about using ThemeForest for anything past a landing page. They keep changing their ToS for SaaS built using their templates.

Wrapbootstrap.com is a good alternative with much better terms.

ThemeForest has some fairly restrictive licensing terms on their designs. If you are doing a small site that won't make you much money then of course this is the best route. If not then exploring Bootstrap designs from http://wrapbootstrap.com and looking at a fully custom design from http://99designs.com might be your best bet.

I suggest you use Bootstrap, and use that unmodified. It'll look far better than anything you'd do by hand. You can also get free themes to change it, or just use it as it is, or upgrade it later.

I didn't know about the themes with bootstrap, but then again it's been a while since I actively looked at it. I see now it's evolved some and there are more visually appealing versions out than the vanilla.

Cheers!

Yes definitely. Templates are great for this. Its the fastest way for you to get a site up and begin promoting your business.

Thanks for the response! Do you have a favorite vendor/gallery that sells?

I've used themeforest a couple times

You can check

https://creativemarket.com/

An inexpensive wrapbootstrap theme is the way to go, I think.

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