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

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

#11

Post by urbandw311er »

neximo64 wrote: post #2

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…

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.

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

#13

Post by nottorp »

neximo64 wrote: post #2

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…

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?

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

#14

Post by 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.

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

#17

Post by 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.

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

#20

Post by jacknews »

fhd2 wrote: post #14

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…

  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.

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