I've been fixing UX for successful products and honestly - the mess is part of why they succeeded

Uncomfortable pattern I keep seeing: the products with the worst UX debt are usually the ones that found product-market fit fastest. They ignored "best practices," shipped ugly-but-functional features, and got users anyway.

Then they scale and everything breaks. That's when they hire me.

But I've started wondering - did the rough UX actually HELP early on? Not despite being "bad" but because it prioritized solving the problem over looking good?

Meanwhile, products that follow all the UX rules from day one often look great but struggle to find users.

Am I rationalizing technical debt? Or is there something real here about the relationship between polish and PMF?

For founders here: Did you ship "ugly" on purpose or did PMF justify the mess later?