It's pretty easy for absolutely terrible decisions to be made at a smaller startup, especially when you don't have the tools handy to prove that they're terrible decisions.

I happen to work at a smallish eCommerce startup with lower traffic volumes and a 5% (checkout–not engagement) conversion rate, and while A/B testing small (or even large) changes to our homepage haven't proven fruitful, two small changes to our product pages have made a meaningful difference to our bottom line. (And I mean small as in I spent maybe an hour total setting up those tests while on an Optimizely free plan.)

So yeah, I'm an Optimizely and A/B test fan.

Ahh... That last part makes sense. This is what I was trying to get around to. If you only have a handful of designers and developers, you shouldn't be focusing on min/maxing your landing page. It's not that this is a "myth", it just doesn't make sense for a new team to worry about it vs product development.

I'm not claiming this to be truth or anything. Just in my experience. Bringing up a/b testing to my clients or teams just results in a "we have better things to do."

(I suppose being the head at a co. that does this would make it biased on at least some level).

This is a completely fair point. Startups naturally will have to decide where the highest ROI is. It may not be a/b testing. However, they should know that a/b testing isn't necessarily off the table.