All of the examples given are about trust. Does the user trust that the product is worth their time to use, does the investor trust that the company will make them money.
There are many ways to gain trust, and you often need some of everything. A website that looks like it was built in the 90s likely won't gain sufficient user trust to even get to proving the value of the features. An investor deck that doesn't pass a minimum bar won't even get a reply, let alone a chance to defend the product.
This is not because people are "shallow" and want their login pages or decks to be pretty, it's because we pattern match to save time. I don't reply to every terrible recruiter email I get because I know from experience that it's unlikely to be of any benefit to me – I don't need to do some job interviews every time to make that reasonable conclusion.
Know your audience, know what their bar is, don't spend time going above and beyond on details that don't matter, but do spend time reaching the bars that are necessary, there are many of them.
There are many ways to gain trust, and you often need some of everything. A website that looks like it was built in the 90s likely won't gain sufficient user trust to even get to proving the value of the features. An investor deck that doesn't pass a minimum bar won't even get a reply, let alone a chance to defend the product.
This is not because people are "shallow" and want their login pages or decks to be pretty, it's because we pattern match to save time. I don't reply to every terrible recruiter email I get because I know from experience that it's unlikely to be of any benefit to me – I don't need to do some job interviews every time to make that reasonable conclusion.
Know your audience, know what their bar is, don't spend time going above and beyond on details that don't matter, but do spend time reaching the bars that are necessary, there are many of them.