I seriously doubt that his startup failed because the whole page was being refreshed. More likely, it was a multitude of reasons, one of which was a bad UI, whi

I seriously doubt that his startup failed because the whole page was being refreshed. More likely, it was a multitude of reasons, one of which was a bad UI, which he then blamed on the full refresh rather than the real problems with it. I'd suggest that a better question is "Can a startup fail because its product is an unnecessary SPA?". Users most definitely see differences between the two, mostly that a bad SPA is unusable where a bad multi-page website can still be useful. Go with your gut instinct. Server rendered with JS and AJAX sprinkled where it makes sense is a much nicer user experience and can also be extremely powerful where it counts.