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It's worth noting, that all of the sites shown share another thing in common. They were all established / founded in the early web. I'm not saying that there w

It's worth noting, that all of the sites shown share another thing in common. They were all established / founded in the early web. I'm not saying that there was not competition, or that their success was because they were first - they still gave superior products which beat any rivals at the time. However, trying to draw parallels with these site's design and success today is not totally relevant. If you launched either of them today as they were / are, they may not succeed (despite as we know, the core product / service / functionality being great). Rob Walling writes in his book that these days: 'It's Market(ing) First, aesthetics second and functionality third'. Firstly you need to have a market for your product and hopefully be able to market it well enough to get people to 'want your product' / know you exist. Then when they look at your site, you need the aesthetics to give a first impression of your product and gain trust from your customers in your product. It doesn't matter if your service / functionality is brilliant. If you can't get the user to even try you over any competitor, then you've wasted your time. Then thirdly, if you're lucky to achieve the top two - give your customers a good user experience / functionality they want, so hopefully they pay / keep coming back. The reason the sites given in the example can happily remain ugly, is because they already have the user's trust and are a known 'experience'. Therefore the aesthetics don't need to work as hard to make an impression as say a newly formed start up today. - EDIT... I'm not saying that a site which is kept basic in design can't be successful. Infact, I agree quite heavily with the principle of keeping things simple and have blogged about it in the past. Perhaps the original author should've done the article on one of the many great sites over the last few years, which have embraced this 'Keep it simple and clean' attitude. Hacker news being a perfect example.

prs 16y ago
plentyoffish does not fall into the established / founded in the early web category. What all these sites have in common is that they provide the visitor with something they want. No need for fancy graphics if you have something to offer that they cannot get elsewhere (for free).
- PaulJoslin 16y ago
  While I agree with the author's points of keeping things simple and the importance of a good product / functionality underneath the aesthetics. Plentyoffish was one of the first / earliest online dating site which went free, when all competitors charged a fee. Thus making it the first / earliest in that category. These days the internet is saturated with free dating services. I just felt, that the author mistakenly picked a bunch of sites which had an edge (of being in the early web) and therefore aesthetics didn't matter to get a following. I feel there are plenty of examples of modern sites / services that are new and demonstrate the keeping it simple / clean design perfectly well! There was also the fact that he says Google's biggest selling point was its simple design. Yes Google's simple design was a breath of fresh air compared to the cluttered yahoo portals of the world. However Google's biggest selling point was that it's search algorithms were undeniably brilliant. The quality of the searches you got in Google beat any competitor and that's why many (including myself) made the switch!.
- akamaka 16y ago
  Actually, Plenty of Fish is the best example of success due to being early. The site lacks any kind of special features that distinguished it from its competitors. Success came from being an early entrant into the SEO game and recognizing ahead of others that AdWords could support a totally free site.
  - zephyrfalcon 16y ago
    How was PlentyOfFish "early"? According to Wikipedia, it was founded in 2003. Similar sites had been around long before that, e.g. eHarmony (2000) and match.com (1994).
    - PaulJoslin 16y ago
      As has been said. Match / eHarmony were not free services. That was what made PlentyOfFish unique at the time. If you go and find the founders blog you can track the entire process of the site (like BingoCreator), including his girlfriend holding a (2 month) paycheck from google adsense for $450,000
j_baker 16y ago
I think these are all extremes that illustrate a point though. A less extreme point is airbnb's website. It's not necessarily ugly. However, it's definitely not going to win any awards for beautiful design either. And most importantly, the company's founders could definitely have come up with something better if they put their minds to it. The point is that a startup can grow with a design that is a bit lacking as long as it does something that people want to use.
ajscherer 16y ago
You're using a site right now that wasn't established early in the web, doesn't have great aesthetics or marketing, and seems to be doing okay.
- rokhayakebe 16y ago
  But it isn't making millions.
  - ajscherer 16y ago
    You got me there, but I am not sure it matters. Like hacker news, Google and craigslist (and to some extent the other two) make their money from having a large number of users who don't directly pay anything for the service. Are you arguing that if hacker news were somehow monetizing it's traffic people would no longer be willing to tolerate the design? In other words, do you think a free service that was created recently and isn't especially pretty can be successful, but if the site is generating revenue from those users the design becomes problematic? (btw I think ebay is the only truly ugly site in that article, and I think hn looks just fine).
  - lsb 16y ago
    YC puts effort into Hacker News to find new prospects for investing and, secondarily, to have a solid place to read interesting stories and try out language-creation. How are you able to assess the ROI, when even YC takes a 5-10-year look at their portfolio, and a 100-year look at language design?
- PaulJoslin 16y ago
  There is a difference between 'clean' and simple, like hacker news (which is good) and ugly / cluttered like many of the sites shown as examples in the post.
- michaelfairley 16y ago
  Hacker News doesn't exactly make millions (at least not directly, and not in the short term).
- 16y ago
ciroduran 16y ago
I would certainly keep Google out of the "founded in the early web" group. Google was established in 1998, well after big names like Yahoo and Altavista were the most common names in search. Also, I wouldn't classify Google as an ugly site either.
- dasil003 16y ago
  If you look at the growth/adoption curve of the web there is no way you can't call 98 early.
jscore 16y ago
stackoverflow.com wasn't established early on and doesn't have a great UI and it's doing fine as well.
ohashi 16y ago
I can say that ugly sites often monetize better if I look at it though a domain name investor lense. Those parking pages which are specifically designed to make you click a PPC ad... little industry secret is: uglier=more clicks. I don't know why, I could hypothesize all day, but that's just what years or experience and talking with others with experience tells me.

prs 16y ago

plentyoffish does not fall into the established / founded in the early web category. What all these sites have in common is that they provide the visitor with something they want. No need for fancy graphics if you have something to offer that they cannot get elsewhere (for free).

PaulJoslin 16y ago
While I agree with the author's points of keeping things simple and the importance of a good product / functionality underneath the aesthetics. Plentyoffish was one of the first / earliest online dating site which went free, when all competitors charged a fee. Thus making it the first / earliest in that category. These days the internet is saturated with free dating services. I just felt, that the author mistakenly picked a bunch of sites which had an edge (of being in the early web) and therefore aesthetics didn't matter to get a following. I feel there are plenty of examples of modern sites / services that are new and demonstrate the keeping it simple / clean design perfectly well! There was also the fact that he says Google's biggest selling point was its simple design. Yes Google's simple design was a breath of fresh air compared to the cluttered yahoo portals of the world. However Google's biggest selling point was that it's search algorithms were undeniably brilliant. The quality of the searches you got in Google beat any competitor and that's why many (including myself) made the switch!.
akamaka 16y ago
Actually, Plenty of Fish is the best example of success due to being early. The site lacks any kind of special features that distinguished it from its competitors. Success came from being an early entrant into the SEO game and recognizing ahead of others that AdWords could support a totally free site.
- zephyrfalcon 16y ago
  How was PlentyOfFish "early"? According to Wikipedia, it was founded in 2003. Similar sites had been around long before that, e.g. eHarmony (2000) and match.com (1994).
  - PaulJoslin 16y ago
    As has been said. Match / eHarmony were not free services. That was what made PlentyOfFish unique at the time. If you go and find the founders blog you can track the entire process of the site (like BingoCreator), including his girlfriend holding a (2 month) paycheck from google adsense for $450,000

j_baker 16y ago

I think these are all extremes that illustrate a point though. A less extreme point is airbnb's website. It's not necessarily ugly. However, it's definitely not going to win any awards for beautiful design either. And most importantly, the company's founders could definitely have come up with something better if they put their minds to it. The point is that a startup can grow with a design that is a bit lacking as long as it does something that people want to use.

ajscherer 16y ago

You're using a site right now that wasn't established early in the web, doesn't have great aesthetics or marketing, and seems to be doing okay.

rokhayakebe 16y ago
But it isn't making millions.
- ajscherer 16y ago
  You got me there, but I am not sure it matters. Like hacker news, Google and craigslist (and to some extent the other two) make their money from having a large number of users who don't directly pay anything for the service. Are you arguing that if hacker news were somehow monetizing it's traffic people would no longer be willing to tolerate the design? In other words, do you think a free service that was created recently and isn't especially pretty can be successful, but if the site is generating revenue from those users the design becomes problematic? (btw I think ebay is the only truly ugly site in that article, and I think hn looks just fine).
- lsb 16y ago
  YC puts effort into Hacker News to find new prospects for investing and, secondarily, to have a solid place to read interesting stories and try out language-creation. How are you able to assess the ROI, when even YC takes a 5-10-year look at their portfolio, and a 100-year look at language design?
PaulJoslin 16y ago
There is a difference between 'clean' and simple, like hacker news (which is good) and ugly / cluttered like many of the sites shown as examples in the post.
michaelfairley 16y ago
Hacker News doesn't exactly make millions (at least not directly, and not in the short term).
16y ago

ciroduran 16y ago

I would certainly keep Google out of the "founded in the early web" group. Google was established in 1998, well after big names like Yahoo and Altavista were the most common names in search. Also, I wouldn't classify Google as an ugly site either.

dasil003 16y ago
If you look at the growth/adoption curve of the web there is no way you can't call 98 early.

jscore 16y ago

stackoverflow.com wasn't established early on and doesn't have a great UI and it's doing fine as well.

ohashi 16y ago

I can say that ugly sites often monetize better if I look at it though a domain name investor lense. Those parking pages which are specifically designed to make you click a PPC ad... little industry secret is: uglier=more clicks. I don't know why, I could hypothesize all day, but that's just what years or experience and talking with others with experience tells me.