[lowercased]

> I believe that bootstrapping actually forces you to think about how useful the thing that you're building is to people

You can think all you want about it, but until it's in people's hands, it doesn't matter. And when it is, per the earlier comment above, the expectations - in many many many markets - is that the UI/UX matters. IMO it matters far more than it should in early days, but that's just me.

Functionality that solves real problems is ignored because ... well... could be any number of reasons. Didn't like the colors. No dark mode. Something not obvious to people. Not using their language/terms.

> some products are harder to build in a bootstrapped way than others.

Yes - the 'ease' of connecting to an audience of decision makers, and their expectations re: usability... it can be very different between markets and services. And again, per the earlier above comment, expectations are simply much higher than years ago. Competition is stronger in many markets, and often the competition is inertia. "Learn a new system" vs "keep emailing excel sheets around" is still a real thing in a lot of places.

[renegade-otter]

UX/UI matters because people are used to it. You have to have an insufferable need for a product to deal with bad UI. In the olden days, users didn't know better. HTML forms were primitive, now they are server-powered applications in their own right.

The users have been spoiled by slick, polished products. This used to be NOT the case. You could build something stupid out of boredom in a few days and walk into riches.

Frankly, the HN comments here sound quite condescending and snooty, telling me to find a narrower niche, be a better entrepreneur, and just maybe I don't know how to write code.

Not the point.