@tptacek You aren't listening, you're getting all hot and bothered about a claim you keep hearing that I'm not making. I don't think that professional design is important for startups.

It's a bit much to obsess about semantics and then throw your hands up in despair that people make the kinds of distinctions that counter your points.

Who, exactly, is saying to you that "only professional designers can create sites that will pass muster with buyers in the real world"?

This right here is the mentality that bothers me.

I promise you: the industry of professional designers is full of people who believe that only professional designers can create sites that will pass muster with buyers in the real world.

The reality is simpler, cheaper, and fairer: there is indeed a minimum standard that company websites need to achieve to look like a "real company", but it is many many thousands of dollars cheaper than a professional design project. You can buy it for tens of dollars on Themeforest. Your customers, unless you sell primarily to designers†, will never notice or care.

Most professional design projects by pre-revenue companies are vanity exercises. A lot of professional design projects post-revenue are too.

It is completely f'd up to say that a company looks unprofessional because its website isn't the product of a professional design project. Professional designers are not the gatekeepers of professional startup site launches. They just aren't. People need to stop acting like they are, because it's keeping them from getting to market.

† Do not do this.