Your product is 100x more important than “good web design”
Updated on
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear·Apr 2
At WP Engine, we once invested in fixing our 'poor web design' weakness and got zero return. Why?
Because our words and product/market fit were 100x more important.
Lesson: Double down on strengths.
Jason Cohen from WP Engine dropped a truth bomb: they spent time and money fixing what they thought was “poor web design”… and got zero results. Turns out, it wasn’t the layout—it was the message and product/market fit that mattered.
Why It Works
- Customers don’t buy pixels, they buy outcomes.
- A clean design can’t fix a messy message.
- Strong copy and positioning hit deeper than fonts and colors.
- Doubling down on what’s already working compounds results faster.
Real World Echoes
- Dropbox grew with a dead-simple landing page and killer video explainer.
- Craigslist crushed UX norms by focusing on utility, not beauty.
- Figma won designers by refining their product experience, not their homepage.
- Basecamp’s success came from brutally clear messaging, not fancy visuals.
Analyzed by Swipebot
Loading analysis...