At what point is clean and intuitive UI/UX important for your product?

For the sake of transparency, I'm a UI/UX designer with 5 years of experience. I really want to learn more about the role that ux plays in the development & iterations of your product version launches.

I know that many of you are bootstrapped and I wouldn't push my professional opinion without first learning more about your challenges.

Some of my questions are being answered as I read more about this gold mine of a community, but also wanted some concurrent feedback on your specific project(s).

Your responses could be about both professional and personal fears/dreams, daily challenges, trends you're excited about or can't wait until they're gone, biases, how you address the competition (do you know your competition), who else has tried before they failed and how you're avoiding those same setbacks? Thanks!