
Ask HN: Bootstrapping; should I buy a site template? - iamdave
I&#x27;m bootstrapping a recruiting process outsourcing consultancy for internal HR and recruiting staff and want to get a start on marketing, but don&#x27;t have the funds for a designer and I haven&#x27;t touched anything HTML related since 1998.<p>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&#x27;ve received some validation on my concept in the form of an HR manager saying to come back in Q2 and they&#x27;ll have the budget to talk about signing an agreement.  So if anything, it&#x27;d be a very temporary site until successfully closing my first client.<p>I&#x27;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&#x27;d be looking for.<p>Any feedback would be immensely appreciated!
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michaelbuckbee
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.

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c1sc0
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.

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saluki
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](http://wrapbootstrap.com). I'd look there first.

Good luck getting up and running fast.

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dchmiel
$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](http://pinegrow.com)

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chatmasta
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.

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jalateras
I would agree. I have used
[https://wrapbootstrap.com/](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](http://www.socialability.com.au))

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striking
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.

~~~
iamdave
Excellent, thanks for the response!

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strictnein
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.

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thisguychicity
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](http://wrapbootstrap.com) and looking at a fully
custom design from [http://99designs.com](http://99designs.com) might be your
best bet.

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unoti
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.

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iamdave
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!

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

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

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xspectre
I've used themeforest a couple times

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sharedmocha
You can check

[https://creativemarket.com/](https://creativemarket.com/)

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27182818284
An inexpensive wrapbootstrap theme is the way to go, I think.

