

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

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.<p>Do you guys think less of a company that uses a template you recognize for their site?
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Travis
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.

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mcrittenden
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.

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Travis
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.

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mcrittenden
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.

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

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DevX101
Are you building for your peers or your customers?

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mcrittenden
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.

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markstansbury
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.

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mcrittenden
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.

