The best VC websites have one goal: authenticity
By Katherine Finney
At Edgar Allan, we’ve built quite a few venture capital websites over the years, and through our experience, we’ve found that the best VC sites have one goal: authenticity.
The best VC websites have one goal: authenticity
By Katherine Finney
At Edgar Allan, we’ve built quite a few venture capital websites over the years, and through our experience, we’ve found that the best VC sites have one goal: authenticity.
In as crowded an arena as venture capital, we’ve learned that it’s especially important to set yourself apart from the crowd and give potential future partners a reason to remember who you are and what you’re all about. One of the best ways to do that is by authentically communicating what your VC has to offer.
Here are three ways to authentically communicate with your site visitors and give them the experience — and information — they’re looking for.
1. Find your specific brand of VC and own it.
The most successful venture capital firms don’t try to be everything to everyone. Instead, they have a specific niche, and they own it.
Do you only invest in Series A? Are you mainly concerned with healthcare tech? Do you have a penchant for picking unicorns? Whatever your brand is, figure it out, hone it, and own it — because the competition (and the founders you’re trying to attract) are trying to sniff it out.
Find your unique message, then show your website’s visitors how you bring that message to life in your work with your partners. Not quite sure what that message is yet? You may need to spend some time exploring your brand strategy. It’s a fundamental first step — you can’t authentically communicate with your audience without figuring out who exactly that is.
2. Tell your stories.
VC is all about building rich relationships over the course of years — and the depth of those relationships can’t be communicated through stats like investment rounds and IPO dates. Your website visitors will care about the cold hard data, but they’ll also care about the human side of those numbers.
Did a member of your team coach a founder through their first pitch? Did they pick up that 2 am phone call when things went wrong? Were they sitting at the table for the first back-of-the-napkin drawing? By showing off the depth of your rich relationships with your partners, you give site visitors a real, authentic look at how you work.
The way you communicate that info can come in many ways: through short-form video interviews with past and current founders, an ongoing podcast series, a series of blog posts, or even a weekly newsletter. Whichever route you choose, just make sure to integrate those stories into your web experience.
3. Show off your team.
Your site visitors don’t just want to know about the companies you’ve worked with — they also want to learn more about the team that makes it all happen. As you build out your site, make space to spotlight your team and find unique and interesting ways to show off who they are and what they believe on their individual team member pages. Communicate authentically by showing off who your team members really are and giving them space to inject their personality into their page, whether through a favorite quote, a personal story, or even a well-crafted bio.
Need help honing your venture capital website?
At Edgar Allan, we’ve built over a dozen VC websites and have worked with many of them from brand to build, helping them hone their brand strategy, messaging, and structure to better communicate to site visitors what they’re all about. In our experience, we’ve learned that authenticity is critical, working with our clients to find what makes them unique and sets them apart from the pack.
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