Can You Customize my Startup's Login Page?

Early startup founder: Can you customize that login page for me?

Me: Sure I can, but it doesn't matter! We shouldn't bother right now.

Early startup founder: But it needs to look good, so more people will sign up. And we need to have good branding.

I once had that co-founder who optimized every PowerPoint he made. He hand made one for every potential customer, for every investor, for every talk he gave. He said, customers, investors, the audience — they were just people, too. They were more likely to trust you, to commit to the purchase when the presentation were good.

And of course he is right, it's true. That is how most people behave.

But he is wrong.

If your potential customer only signs up using a fully polished page, the customer doesn't value your product. If your investor only invests after seeing a custom made, pixel perfect deck, you don't have a product worth investing in (and you found a bad investor). If your talk only reaches people if the slides are perfect, your message isn't worth being executed on.

If your product only sells under the best given circumstances, you will never sell your product. Because you won't have the best possible circumstances.

There is a time for everything, but when you are a launching a startup, there is not time for everything. There is no time for perfecting your branding. There is no time for polishing your slide deck.

Because, you have limited resources. Because, having a non-perfect login page, having a non-perfect presentation, is a good sniff test if your product is actually good enough. If your customer wants it even with that generic sign up, that's a good sign!

Unless you have millions of venture capital to burn, focus on finding the right product first, then you can eventually think about your companies branding.