Ask HN: Why do so many startups invest so little in design? - freeelncer
======
codegeek
Because in the beginning, design is not as important as validation and user
experience. Classic example: Stripe. If you look at recent submissions on HN
about them, a lot of comments have been about their awesome design. But Stripe
became so huge because they made it so simple to accept payments online and
focussed heavily on being developer friendly. I remember their tagline used to
be "payments for developers". At that time, their design was ok not as shiny
as they are now. But it didn't matter initially.

So yea, as long as you are solving a real problem for your users and making
their life easy, they don't care. A different example: Craigslist. Still the
same as ever.

Hardly a company or product fails just because of bad design. That is why too
much investment on design upfront is not worth it.

------
muzani
It's expensive for the very early stages. Sometimes it also messes with
validation.

The biggest problems are so big that customers are willing to pay for an ugly,
hacky interface because it's better than what they have.

If the selling point is that something is nicer looking than the competition,
it's possible that it's the wrong problem to solve.

UX design can pay off, but usually UX kicks in around the stage where the
users need a tutorial. In the very early stages, the features are often too
crude and lacking to benefit from UX.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
I used to think this but I’m not so sure now. Some people are simply unable to
look past extremely ugly interfaces. Some people feel less able to trust
applications or web sites that lack good design. I think the answer to the
original question is cost. Design can cost more than the coder.

~~~
muzani
Yeah, after writing that I realized that design is a lot more expensive. You
can still get a decent coder who doesn't care about his work, but you can't
get a decent designer who doesn't care.

It's important that the designers really understand the user journey, and
that's not really something you can buy for just $5,000.

------
softwareman
Because design is still a luxury skill set. We need it to become a slight more
available in the market.

------
TaylorGood
What’s your story? Sounds like you have firsthand experience.

------
joeblow9999
I have seen this first hand many times. Many startups won't spend a dime on
design. A $5k design budget is unthinkable. They are being pennywise and pound
foolish IMO.

------
dudul
What makes you think they do?

