Ask HN: How much money does early startup spend on UI?

It's not about the cost, it's about the tradeoffs. That number is necessarily going to be different for every startup because every founder is going to value design differently, and make different compromises with regards to executing on a particular design versus shipping at a particular time versus developing it in a particular way.

Most recently, SFCD posted examples of their pricing. "Strategy & concept" + "User experience" + "Design" is a quarter to a half of the time spent working on the app. Good design always makes a lot more work for development. http://sfcd.com/blog/cost/

Other examples include Twitterific's response in this StackOverflow question, "Anyone who's done serious iPhone development can tell you there's a lot of design work involved with any project. We had two designers working on that aspect of the product. They worked their asses off dealing with completely new interaction mechanics. Don't forget they didn't have any hardware to touch, either (LOTS of printouts!) Combined they spent at least 25 hours per week on the project. So 225 hours at $150/hr is about $34,000." Other answers are similar. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/209170/how-much-does-it-c...

You can reduce the cost and amount of time spent on design if you've done market research and customer development up front. I'm working on an article about that; if you'd like to read a draft, my contact information is discoverable through my profile.

It depends.

If your startup is focused on providing a service that is truly innovative and not being done today:

-you may be able to sacrifice on craftsmanship in order to get the MVP out the door

-the fact that you are providing a new and novel service will buy you some time to get the design straightened out.

-it will also give you a mechanism for collecting feedback on the product, including customer criticism/praise and usage data.

HOWEVER, if your service only provides incremental innovation/benefit over competitors - or you are targeting a demographic that heavily prioritizes design in buying decisions:

-you really should invest in the design of your product upfront.

-it doesn't have to be perfect and you should have no expectation of not iterating based on feedback

When making decisions about where to spend design money, always prioritize the resources that are figuring out how the app will work. The screens, controls, and logic of the app make your product. You can skimp on the visual design aspect of things if you need to - but make sure you nail the experience from a flow perspective.

:)