Not to sound contrarian, but startups generally focus on their areas of expertise. I'm a developer, and while I try to do a good job of making designs that aren't horrible (or Bootstrapped), I am not a designer. Consequently, all the apps I build could definitely use a designer's touch, at least in the early stage.
If you're a poor startup, the objective is to solve a problem. You can solve a problem without great design, just as you can solve a problem without great programming, or great copywriting, or great hosting, or any of the elements of building and running a startup. The only thing a startup has to do exceptionally well, I think, is to solve the problem it sets out to solve.
I know some designers who have started startups and naturally, their pages are beautiful. I could make a similar argument about how development/architecture should come first. Their apps will never scale, and if they'd had a good solid architect in at the start, we could have solved all their IT issues. That may or may not be true of course, but it's easy for me to make the statement that I could have helped and I'm probably right more than I'm not (just as you are) -- but that misses the point that except where funded, startups should focus on the things they can do well until they can prove the market or figure out if the idea has legs. Once you've proven that there's a benefit, or a customer base, or a way to make money, then you can start to pay money for things to make something more well-rounded.
Note: I'm re-reading this before I submit, and I can't tell if I sound like a giant prick or not, so please be aware that wasn't my intent. Your statement is of course valid, and I would personally love for startups to be better in UI/UX; I just wanted to posit that startups can't be good at everything and still be quickly built / cheaply built / etc.
I think that "good design" can be done by anyone, not just someone with a job title of "designer". The major design success that comes to mind is Google's homepage. Same with Facebook, the developer had an insight into what people wanted to see on the page and how they were going to interact with it. That's how design plays a bigger role than most developers realise.
I see design and development as symbiotic, and I wish I saw more start-ups using both to solve problems, rather than an over-reliance on the back-end and then shoving bootstrap, or a $10 template on the front.
And don't get me wrong, there is a place for these type of templates and crowd sourced art. But if your product is a web based service, you can't rely on clipart and templates to solve a problem effectively for the person using it.
I think that you're right, but I don't see that as a universal truth either. There are a lot of problems that you can solve even if the product looks like complete poop.
I certainly agree that design helps, and if nothing else, it helps traction. Stripe is an example of something that could suck, but works so well that it would still solve a problem. That said, it doesn't hurt that their product is gorgeous, and it certainly makes it more sticky in mindshare. I still remember how giddy I got when I noticed that their documentation uses your actual API keys instead of having the dumb old "<INSERT_YOUR_API_KEY>" you see everywhere else.
I'd have still used Stripe either way, but the fit and finish throughout made me a staunch advocate for its ease of use to everybody that's ever asked me.
In counterpoint, Dotcloud is the cloud hosting provider I generally believe to be "the best". Their homepage has come a long way, and if Solomon or any other Dotclouders are reading this, I apologize in advance, but it used to be downright ugly. On top of that, the dashboard they provided obviously had an abysmal level of fit and finish, and while some of its warts persist, it's come a long way. That their product wasn't beautiful absolutely impeded my use of it in no way whatsoever. It is easily the 'best' way to deploy code for a variety of services, whether or not it's attractive, or even 'complete'.
So long as the pain you ease is substantially greater than the pain you are introducing, the product can work.
I agree that isn't an excuse for bad design, but the notion that better design makes something better isn't necessarily a reason to always pay top dollar for it. If you can get design on the cheap (either Bootstrap or similar products), through 99 Designs, or even by just reading a book, and execute in other areas, then you'll likely come out ahead, and revisit the design when it's more easily affordable.
The point though, is that the same thing could be said for engineering. Bring in only the minimum you need to solve the problem you're trying to solve. If you don't have a rockstar engineer, but do have somebody that can mock up a proof of concept that may or may not scale, that's what you should push forward with.
Like I meant to say in my previous post, I feel like we agree more than we disagree, I was just trying to point out that the priority #1 for a bootstrapped startup should be pushing product out the door. If it's ugly, won't scale, whatever -- ship product. Would a more attractive product be better? Of course it would, but that shouldn't slow down shipping.
If you're a poor startup, the objective is to solve a problem. You can solve a problem without great design, just as you can solve a problem without great programming, or great copywriting, or great hosting, or any of the elements of building and running a startup. The only thing a startup has to do exceptionally well, I think, is to solve the problem it sets out to solve.
I know some designers who have started startups and naturally, their pages are beautiful. I could make a similar argument about how development/architecture should come first. Their apps will never scale, and if they'd had a good solid architect in at the start, we could have solved all their IT issues. That may or may not be true of course, but it's easy for me to make the statement that I could have helped and I'm probably right more than I'm not (just as you are) -- but that misses the point that except where funded, startups should focus on the things they can do well until they can prove the market or figure out if the idea has legs. Once you've proven that there's a benefit, or a customer base, or a way to make money, then you can start to pay money for things to make something more well-rounded.
Note: I'm re-reading this before I submit, and I can't tell if I sound like a giant prick or not, so please be aware that wasn't my intent. Your statement is of course valid, and I would personally love for startups to be better in UI/UX; I just wanted to posit that startups can't be good at everything and still be quickly built / cheaply built / etc.