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Ask HN: What happened to startups, why is everything so polished?

130 points by keepamovin ↗ HN
At launch everyone has the complete package: polished website looks like they already have 1000 customers, are hiring, have investors, and ... well, it's all a bit generic and potentially ... phoney, right?

Wind back the block to Microsoft and Apple, and those guys were super scrappy, not an ounce of polish at the outset, yet they made their dent in the universe.

Now everybody's fronting like they're making a dent, but maybe it's just a slick template from WordPress again.

134 comments

[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] thread
neximo64
You're surely joking. It's gone the other way. Maybe your memory is better than mine.

All the apps today look all the same, made on electron, single page landing page, same live chat/support, same style of charging, same flat design, same email campaign styles.

Everything is set up from a SaaS or tool to help deploy it so rapidly the polish and self character is almost non existent. Everything is rushed to the point they all look the same.

Rastonbury
Character doesn't really make you money, IPO and late series products all look the same
neximo64
That doesn't seem to be true if you look at Apple products. All the high margin/high growth products/services don't follow that generic nature.
lupire
"MicroSoft" is not a unique name full of character.
Rastonbury
I was talking mainly about software products and their landing sites. But let's disagree that Apple products have character
urbandw311er
I’m not sure that you and OP really disagree that much.

Everything looks very similar. Whether you find the look polished or uninspiring is almost tangential.

muzani
I think when you know how the nuts and bolts work, you realize that the shiny chrome is just cheap metal.
nottorp
Personally I can't tell all the SaaS startup sites that get mentioned here from each other.

Most of the time I can't even figure out what they do. Maybe they're there to display generic team stock photo with fake smiles #2618782?

Solvency
op literally used the word generic so not sure why you think you're in disagreement.
elforce002
Website using webflow, etc. Reality is that even customers are moving on that direction. If you don't look like you're a serious company, they won't look at you.
ollysb
If they'd had slick WordPress templates they probably would have used them too.
Ekaros
Because that visual is easy nowadays. Just take something ready made, slap logo, stock photos. Search replace company name and done.
shafyy
I agree. Also bothers me that everything looks the same. People are afraid to try something new or go with their own style.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
tjpnz
For big tech products the "style" is dictated by at most one to two hundred people, living in the same place whose formal education involved the same dozen or so people. Those decisions then get bundled into one of several design systems which are filtered down to the rest of us. That's one of the big reasons why there's so little diversity in thought.
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B
You’re both right. You can have a pixel-perfect web site with Tailwind in a few minutes.

And that’s why OP sees everything as polished. The backend and features are another story…

BMSR
And they all have that "Life at x" section in their website. How can all those businesses I never heard about provide life.
lupire
So you think their employees are dead?
keepamovin
Yeah, with generic stock photos of some random office and actors
lawgimenez
Reminds me of amie.so calendar lunch the past few days, cool site UI and all, but still having trouble with the servers until now.
lordnacho
Those things are super easy to put together, so now they are a requirement to get investment. So all the startups do it.
zerr
I first got similar feelings when Bootstrap CSS framework plagued the (new) web.
fhd2
I see the same in the consulting space - people who've barely ever talked to a prospect let alone had an actual customer (I happen to know from talking to folks like that) have a shiny website with pricing packages talking about "their team" and what not. Feels like pure hustle culture.

I started my business a year ago, and there is no "we". There's me and (at this point) enough clients for comfortable living. I went completely scrappy on my website (https://dahlke.tech). Felt rebellious in this day and age, but it doesn't seem to hurt.

I don't think that stuff matters in the beginning, clients see right through it from what I've heard. Some people get off on trying to look and feel like "a real company". I find there's joy in accepting that my company is not that, not yet, and putting all of my energy into getting there.

jacknews 

  For the time being, I, Firstname Surname, am the main product;
love it

all the stock websites with photos of suited 'professionals' (usually just models) are a real turn-off, unless they show the actual team; customers want to know who they're dealing with.

fhd2
Thanks :) I got plenty of advice to not write something like that, but it's just how it is.
keepamovin
This is truly inspiring. Authentic is the way to go! Hahaha :)
MattGaiser
In a past role, one of the things done was to create an IVR system that had all manner of different menus for sales, support, or technical questions and they were split by whether you were a casual or enterprise user. There was just one person answering, no matter what you selected. The goal was to seem sophisticated and thus more reliable and trustworthy.
thfuran
Did it at least ring through to that person differently depending on menu selection or did they want to seem properly enterprisey by immediately asking all those questions again?
MattGaiser
Properly enterprisey. They didn't record the pathways or announce them. It was just all there to make it seem sophisticated rather than a guy on a cell phone.
kingkongjaffa
Some feedback:

If im a prospective customer I dont care about

“Over time, I aim to use this income to bootstrap a software business based on one of my side projects.”

Tell me how you can help me make more money or save more money. Your side project ambitions are not relevant to your customers.

Instead I would recommend personal info on an about page or a separate site for your side project.

For your background info this should come later, please tell us what skills you have and recent projects you have done straight away so I can understand if you are the right consultant for me, I dont want to first read your life story!

Note: feedback can be hard to receive and give, please treat feedback as a gift, I am trying to be kind, but also nice and kind are not the same thing, so if my feedback is unwanted or seems blunt that is why!

fhd2
Thanks for the feedback! I was actually pondering about that sentence. I don't think it helps sales in any way, it's just me trying to be transparent, but it's probably too prominent for how irrelevant it is.

In an interesting plot twist, at this point, I enjoy my consulting work more than working on my own projects, so I'm not even sure this is still my strategy. There's something about genuinely helping people that I find more rewarding than building things nobody asked for by myself.

Edit: Ah, you added some more thoughts - thanks for those too! I might revisit the content of that site and maybe even add a sub page one of these days I think.

Aeolun
> my answer is usually that I refuse to chose just one

Refuse to choose. Not sure if spelling mistake or typo, but since everyone is doing feedback, thought I’d point it out.

fhd2
Haha, thanks, I didn't even spell check this I guess. I also wrote "advise" as a noun in there...
abhinavstarts
Honestly, I liked your website. It's clean, minimalist, professional & to the point.

In future, I will make for myself similar one.

zipping1549
I'm curious: how come there are no German version of the website? Are most of your (desired) clients not German? Or is it that practically everyone speaks English in Germany so it doesn't matter?
fhd2
Almost all of them are German in fact - since I find them through my network primarily. I guess the answer to your question is because I'm too lazy :) Plus I primarily work with startups, they tend to be pretty international here.
iancmceachern
Very cool!

I thought the same thing when I started my consulting company 10 years ago. It'd called Nerdian Inc (My name is Ian). My website and brand name is simply my name: www.iancollmceachern.com

cyrillite
Aesthetics and branding is a much lower bar than being useful. Substance is much more important, but in very short supply.
MattGaiser
A polished website is as simple as a Webflow template (for landing page) and a component library (for app). It would be more work to have something not polished, as it meant you built everything from scratch.
FrankChalmers
Today's tech world is very product and market focused. So it does stuff like webpages well.

That's not bad of course, it is how you win against competition or when the value you provide is a convenience or non ground breaking in other ways. The websites of the hard tech people are often less polished. They just come from a different DNA.

skrebbel
Those slick wordpress templates enable even the scrappiest startup to have a website that doesn’t suck.
paradite
It's just a case of sampling bias.

You don't see startups that are not like this because they receive less publicity and press.

keepamovin
That’s an interesting point. Again likely valid but also hinting at an industry sickness that doesn’t value quality but something specious and generic
sludgebunny
I came to this post literally 2 minutes after rage quitting doing some UI design for a startup idea I have. I was trying to make it look too shiny. Thank you for reminding me to be more authentic.
keepamovin
Hahaha :) good, you’re welcome. Can relate! This is my favorite comment
madduci
With the advent of ChatGPT & its brothers, it's easy to generate fake text and visual effects that are eye-catching.

And companies look for more experienced/bigger companies rather than startup-level ones, which have less trust, when it comes to cooperation/business.

firtoz
There's some irony and conflicts of interest.

People make slick landing pages and try to get interest to decide if enough people sign up for a thing that doesn't exist yet, then "it may be worth building it"

But also potential customers are fed up of such tactics and want to actually try a product before signing up to another thing which may or may not ever exist.

So what happens in the end sometimes is that the developers may think "nobody signed up for it so I will pivot".

Would love to hear opinions and experiences about it though for success and failure.

samuelstros
Haha check our scrappy website https://opral.com

We got a bug report once that „the website is not loading“.

is_true
inlang's website is beautiful
samuelstros
thanks. do you understand what inlang is by looking at the site?
layer8
No, and I suspect GP was being sarcastic.
samuelstros
What is unclear?

we know that we haven't nailed communication yet. one team member is working full time on communication/the website

layer8
I have no idea what “globalization ecosystem” is supposed to mean. There is a list of software components (“products”) I’m probably supposed to see a use for, but why would I go to that website to browse them? There is mention of “inlang projects”, but what is “inlang” and why would I have such a project? There is mention of “plugins for inlang”, but again, what is inlang and why does it need plugins?
samuelstros
Great feedback. I'll forward it to Nils, who is responsible for communication. Reply from him should follow on Monday
nilsjcbsn
I’m the responsible person that Samuel talked about. I agree thanks for the feedback. Any chance that we can get on a call?
lgkk
I got it. But it’s because I worked on software that is global by design and we serve markets all over the world.

I think some of these others may not have worked on such software requirements.

Your site makes sense.

timeon
Well there is section 'popular products' directly on landing page so it is not hard to guess.
alberth
No

Mainly because:

> The globalization ecosystem for software companies. Plug inlang's products together for market expansion and a broader customer reach.

I have no idea what that means and who it’s for.

I don’t know if this is exactly what your product does but maybe a heading like:

“The developer platform that makes data integrations easy”

That at least tells me who is the buyer and what benefit I will get

samuelstros
> That at least tells me who is the buyer and what benefit I will get

That is our problem. Taking a software product global (i18n/localiation/marketing) targets multiple personas and buyers (managers, developers, translators, designers, etc). We started with a dev-focused line but that didn't work for everyone else.

Are product pages clear(er)?

- https://inlang.com/m/gerre34r/library-inlang-paraglideJs - https://inlang.com/m/tdozzpar/app-inlang-finkLocalizationEdi...

alberth
Maybe something like this might be better …

Heading: “Localizing your app, has never been {easier/facile/etc}”

Subhead: “A developer platform for all your i18n needs”

That the {xxx} is animated and changes languages

is_true
I did, but I had to click a lot to understand.
coldtrait
Wish I could work for an employer like this.
timeon
There used to be several star-architect offices that had white background at their website with only black text for contact. While other firms had shiny websites with all project in huge pictures.

But these were just like "me shit is out there and you already know it".

layer8
I would suggest to fix the orthography to “PS: Nothing is broken about this page. It's just simple on purpose. :)”. Simplicity is nice, but correct punctuation and capitalization is also appreciated as a proxy indicator for professional diligence.
pjot
Love your page. Especially your careers page - never seen one posted as a git repo before.

You really know your audience.

samuelstros
the reason is less knowing our audience and more "it was just easier [than setting up a careers page]" :D
keepamovin
Hahaha that’s awesome. That’s like the original Google user testing sort-of-bug report where people they showed it to would sit in front of the screen with the search box, doing nothing. and when they asked them what are you doing? It’s: I’m waiting for it to load.

because at the time it was so strange to just have a search box in the middle of the page and nothing else.

upmostly
Next time you read the testimonial section, copy paste the author's name into Google. You'll find that they're made up.

They also share the same stock photo of the smiling woman in red.

It's borderline fraud.

rchaud
I always check if the testimonial tweets are clickable.
keepamovin
This is important to understand! Don’t debase yourself with phoney testimonials it only erodes trust
padolsey
Yeh. Makes it intimidating to try to make a startup until you realise it’s just generic polish over some cobbled-together SaaS APIs and docker containers. That’s what depresses me. You don’t need good tech, you just need business sass, marketing, and networks.
stavros
All the low-hanging fruit has been picked. You can't start with just a crappy app that solves a problem, you have to get all the packaging around it right too.
rrr_oh_man
That’s what Alexander said
stavros
I have to trust his judgment then.
mbork_pl
I'm not a businessman, but I don't think so. Case in point: Beeminder. Their web app has a bit of an "unfinished" feel to it – definitely not a "modern SPA", rather a traditional Rails web app (not that it's something bad, quite the opposite!), but it solves a real problem and has stayed afloat for over 10 years now.
WA
I don’t know Beeminder. But if they launched 10 years ago, they are not a case in point. By now, they probably stay afloat despite feeling unfinished, because they have established marketing channels and word of mouth. Would the same service with the same presentation be as successful if they launched today? Hard to tell.
gbear605
I absolutely love Beeminder - I use it daily - but they’re not a good example of what an average startup is going for. They have a small but dedicated group of users, not a massive user base that they can later monetize. That makes enough revenue to pay for their employees and for the founders to take a salary, but they’re never going to go big and have an exit. That’s fine (a good thing, in my opinion), but it’s the opposite of what most startup founders want.
jcpst
A crappy app that solves a problem would be an upgrade in a lot of cases, rather than a company engineering a problem to justify an app that’s been created.
rchaud
It's more likely that a company started off with a solution for a problem, then got told by investors that it wasn't a big enough problem, and so they had to "pivot" into a more crowded space, without really adding much value.
is_true
Our website is just a bunch of "hand made" HTML files . We promise to update it every month but here we are, like 10 years later.
huqedato
It's so easy, cheap and fast today to produce a "polished" website... So why not ?
Draiken
The key is that it's not polish, it's simply because the baseline level increased.

Now it's easy as hell to get something that looks polished, but that's all it is: visually polished.

If you talk about actual functionality, I don't think I've ever seen so much half-baked shit being sold as a product as in this day and age. Every startup I see is taking the "fake until you make it" a bit too literally. It's basically only the fake part.

lupire
There what "fake it tip you make it" means. But not "make it" is much later, and "fake it" survives longer from investors.
CerebralCerb
There's little to gain from innovating on the landing page. A slick Wordpress template gets the job done just as well as a tailor-made landing page. Effort is better spent elsewhere (the product).
nico401
Co-founded a startup about a year ago. Also released a bunch of websites in the past 15 years.

The experience is really different now. It has become really easy to get the design and content 80% there with free tools. We’ve used goHugo with a template at first, it was faster than writing our HTML/CSS, but then discovered webflow and it was REALLY faster. Our non-technical co-founder could do really powerful customizations in there too without diverting efforts from the product. (Result here: https://www.hellodata.ai)

In essence, I don’t think people necessarily spend more time on their landing page now, but given that you can get 80% there by spending a weekend or two on your website, not doing it would almost feel sub-optimal.