As a designer myself, I think templates are great. The reality is that most business don't need a completely custom template, especially if they're still in that MVP stage.

So when you're starting out and don't have a big budget, by all means use a template. I would much rather work with your company when it's more mature and money is less of a concern.

To put in another way, template are in competition with cheap cookie-cutter design (e.g. crowdsourcing sites), not higher quality design.