Can a poorly presented startup website do well?
RiderOfGiraffes: It depends entirely on your audience.  My parents hate almost every web site they go to, and the only ones they like are clean, clear, spare, minimal graphics, minimal color, and have a real "empty" feel.  Anything that current people call "professional looking" sends them away almost instantly.Compare that with a largely text-only site that I'm involved with, and almost every other comment is "it needs graphics to interest the students/youngsters/surfers/whatever."Do you call HN "professional looking?"Half the problem is that it takes virtually no effort to make something shiny, and most sites have that, and no content.