Would you invest in a theme straight away or wait a while?

[Shortie]

Starting a new forum, blog or website is exciting for all webmasters and deciding whether to invest in a theme from the start or wait a little is a decision we all have to make at some point.

Whilst some people opt for a free theme until their website gets off the ground, some are willing to invest early on for a theme.

Would you invest in a theme straight away for your website or do you instead wait a while to see how the site grows?

 

[Arantor]

I’d invest early. Establish the brand identity in line with the site and space you want to create and curate.

 

[NeoMetallix]

I'd create one before launching officially. Visuals are a huge first impression. If your site is bland, it needs to have active and interesting discussions to make a good impression. Not that a good theme will make that irrelevant but it complements it.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

Same here. I would purchase one and then tweak it to my liking before going "live". Nothing worse, in my opinion, than visiting forums using the default theme.

 

[Husk]

Early for me. I've always liked to have the look established while creating the site.

 

[Nomad]

Frankly speaking, I rarely invest in a theme, most of the time, I work with free themes.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I like to invest in a theme right away before my community is launched. It's best to leave a good first impression, and having a unique theme other than the default theme looks best.

 

[Cory]

I like to have a custom theme attached to my board on day #1 to "brand" the forum and give it a more unique touch. If it weren't as serious of a board, I'd maybe just use a free theme found somewhere publicly available.

 

[Reverie]

It depends on the niche and software. The themes that are about 20-50ish dollars wouldn't be that bad either... but a custom theme would definitely be a bit into it because they can get expensive. On prior forums I would start out with a premade, as we grew we would get a custom one.

With premades though we would ensure we had awesome graphics to go with it to give it a fresh touch.

 

[prophet]

Previously, I've almost always used custom themes that were created for the site or created by myself. Xenforo themes can get pretty pricey if you're looking to have something custom made.