Why Great Products Start with Content
Clear words build startups; design comes later
Published
Nov 20, 2024
Topic
Thoughts
Content Comes First
If you ask founders what makes a product successful, they’ll talk about beautiful designs, smooth animations, and elegant interactions. Rarely do they mention the actual words users read.
Yet most failed products I’ve seen weren’t ugly—they were just confusing. And confusion isn’t a design problem; it’s a communication problem.
Why do startups get communication wrong so often? Because they design first, then add words later. They treat content as decoration, something to sprinkle on top just before launch.
This is exactly backward.
Good design doesn’t create clarity—good content does. And clarity drives growth. In other words, content isn’t just important, it’s foundational.
The Hidden Cost of Putting Content Last
At one startup I advised, launching a new app felt like assembling IKEA furniture without instructions. Designers created sleek wireframes, developers built pixel-perfect screens, and then—only then—someone asked the writer to fill in the words.
It went predictably wrong. Messages didn’t fit, headlines were vague, instructions ambiguous. Users didn’t convert, because they didn’t understand what they were supposed to do.
This isn’t an isolated mistake. It’s industry standard.
Teams create designs based on assumptions about content. Then, at the last minute, they throw in placeholder text—assuming “the writers” will somehow fix it later.
But late-stage edits rarely solve the deeper problem: design built on vague communication is fundamentally flawed. It’s like building a house on sand. You can repaint, but you can’t fix a shaky foundation.
How Stripe and Mailchimp Got it Right
The smartest companies I’ve worked with have learned to start with content.
Stripe famously focused heavily on documentation and clear explanations before obsessing over their UI. Their API wasn’t just good technically; it was good at clearly communicating. Developers loved Stripe not because the buttons were pretty (though they were), but because Stripe explained exactly what they needed to know, exactly when they needed to know it.
Mailchimp took a similar path. They didn’t just create good email software; they created clear communication at every step. Their success was rooted in defining voice and tone first—before pixels, before wireframes. This wasn’t decoration, it was the essence of their product.
These companies aren’t exceptions. They’re examples of a principle hiding in plain sight: users care more about clarity than style.
The Moment You Realize This
At an e-commerce startup that I worked with, the team was stuck. Checkout abandonment hovered stubbornly above 60%. They kept changing button colors, layout positions, adding animations—nothing helped.
Frustrated, they finally did something radical: they wrote the checkout narrative first. No wireframes, no mockups—just the words users needed to see to feel comfortable and confident at each step.
Almost immediately, abandonment dropped by half. They hadn’t changed any visuals yet. Just the clarity of the communication.
That’s when it clicked: content shapes user experience far more than design. If users clearly understand what’s happening, they trust you. If they trust you, they buy. All the beautiful design in the world can’t make up for unclear words.
Why Teams Still Ignore Content
If content is so important, why do startups keep getting it backward?
Partly, it’s cultural. Designers, developers, and product managers operate in silos. They each want control over their territory, and communication slips into the cracks between teams.
Another reason is ego. Companies like talking about visual elegance and engineering complexity—because they sound impressive. Talking about words feels less prestigious, even trivial. “Copy” is often treated like an afterthought, left to interns or marketers pulled in at the last minute.
But this trivializes something deeply important. Words aren’t a detail—they’re the user’s entire experience, condensed into language.
The Four C’s of Content-First Design
How do you fix this? You put content first, literally and figuratively. Here’s a simple framework I’ve seen work consistently:
1. Clarity
Before designing anything, write down exactly what users must know, feel, and do at every step. Clear content clarifies everything else.
2. Collaboration
Bring writers, designers, developers, and product owners together at the start. Communication happens best face-to-face, not through Jira tickets.
3. Consistency
Use a single source of truth for content—no scattered Google Docs, Slack messages, or ambiguous emails. Every change happens in one visible place.
4. Continuous Improvement
Treat content as iterative, not fixed. Use real user feedback and analytics to refine your message, evolving it with your product.
When teams follow these four steps, they don’t just build clearer products—they move faster. Less rewriting, fewer misunderstandings, quicker launches.
Realizing What’s Really Important
Content-first isn’t intuitive for many founders, because founders are often makers. They obsess about the thing they’re making—its form, its shape, its feel. They think great products come from craftsmanship, careful polish, elegant design.
But successful products rarely win by form alone. They win by clearly solving a user’s problem, and clearly communicating that solution. A product doesn’t speak for itself; it needs words.
The teams I’ve seen achieve outsized success aren’t necessarily more talented designers or better engineers. They’re simply clearer communicators. They tell users exactly why their product matters—and users respond by caring deeply.
From Decoration to Foundation
Great design follows clear communication, not the other way around. You can’t make confusing messages beautiful enough to fix confusion. Confusion is fundamentally ugly, no matter how pretty the pixels look.
Yet the startup industry keeps pouring resources into prettier pixels rather than clearer words. It’s a habit that’s hard to break—because clarity isn’t flashy.
But today clarity is rare. And rarity is valuable. If you want your product to stand out, don’t chase style. Chase clarity.
Content-first isn’t just another buzzword—it’s a competitive advantage hidden in plain sight. Users don’t remember your gradients or transitions; they remember whether your product made sense.
So stop treating content like decoration. Make it your foundation.
Your users will notice—and so will your bottom line.