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.

 

[Ja sa bong]

Your resources is what decides how you should start out. If you have the money to do so, it's smart to invest early on your themes. It will help with building your forum identity as quickly as possible. But if you don't have the money for it, you can invest later or use free themes.