You know who else has a horrible website? Berkshire Hathaway http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/ . Lets think about this for a minute. Do VC firms want people to go to their website and email them about a cool investment? How do people actually interact with VC firms is that its usually a one on one with the company that they are trying to invest in. Therefore, they don't really need a expensive website to be successful.
Lots of the top hedge funds also have total crap or almost non-existent websites -- but this is venture capital for tech startups. Rather than looking at what some top VC firms' websites are like, a more telling question is, what does a website look like for a VC firm that has made the most rapid recent gains? More like this: http://a16z.com . And, is there a relevant link?
There's a great point here - the VCs are just like any good start up, and are investing only in things that help make them more successful. The difference here is that the VCs are likely satisfied focusing on qualifying inbound leads, whereas most of the businesses we see on HN are actively trying to attract traffic with outbound messaging.
A nice looking webpage is the VC equivalent of a 'vanity metric' - sure it looks good, but does it help them source great investments? Perhaps it raises the number of views on their website, but are any of them the high-quality entrepreneurs they'd like to invest in?
Frankly, I'd think that the problem that the top VC firms is not knowing enough people, it is finding enough time to properly evaluate them all. If you're picking a VC based on their website and not their intrinsic business worth or ability to help you succeed, you probably aren't the kind of business they're looking for.
> you probably aren't the kind of business they're looking for.
Sure, but isn't this the problem?
Assume you have a revenue-generating business making 250k in year two. In my opinion, this startup should be valued at considerably more than 10x revenue. But that sort of valuation is hard to get, and likely impossible if the founder has to jump through hoops simply to get introductions.
What will these companies do? They'll focus on growth and avoid raising capital. Because once you break about a million capital becomes really easy to raise, and you can get money on far better terms than any VCs will offer. So there's an adverse selection problem here that effectively concentrates investment in high-risk businesses, since as soon as companies become self-sustainable pursuing funding for growth is usually less preferable to chasing down outside money.
I also think that the stage of the VC plays a big role here. Usually early stage VCs are the ones that will be the most involved in product, and also given their abundance at the moment, they need to "show off" that they know what they're talking about.
Late stage VCs add value in a very different way, operations, sales, finance, etc. and thus have absolutely no idea nor interest on how to create a compelling website.
However there's an other audience: limited partners. Most of those sites communicate a "we're stuck in the 90's, plus we're really boring" message. Maybe that's the right thing to do? Seems like horrible branding to me.
In any case, you'd think they'd at least update things so they're decent on mobile.
Hollywood sites tend to be similar. Very minimal the further up the chain you get. For example, powerhouse agency CAA's forward facing site is just addresses and switchboard numbers for their offices. http://www.caa.com/
These are sites for entities that don't really need to sell anything via their web presence.
There are whole industries sectors with zero presence on the web (read: google gives you nothing when searching for a part number or company name).
You just rely on a dated excel spreadsheet with companies and reps phone numbers listed hard to believe to be up-to-date. You call a number across the continent and introduce yourself and just pick up on an old relation. No questions asked, great people, stuff gets done quickly.
What is horrible about BH's website? All the information I might be looking for is probably a single click away. There are no distracting stock images or Flash animations. They're using tables for layout, but it's probably still screen-reader-friendly.
Well GEICO is owned by BH, but you're right, that doesn't quite explain why BH would choose to put an ad there.
Maybe it's because GEICO is the only company/service that BH owns where every single extra pair of eyeballs that see a company's ad benefits the company. (Seeing ads on the BH page for railroad companies or electricity companies or even clothing companies probably doesn't nearly as much good for the firms as it does for a car insurance company)
GEICO is by far the most favorite company of Warren Buffett (with probably Ajit Jain's National Idemnity close second). I think this is more of an expression of sentiment rather than real advertising.
The Lightspeed Venture graphic is the best, looks like they were aiming for the Peter Jackson tricks of perspective to make the front row guys look like hobbits. Maybe looking to corner the hot Shire startup scene?
I did the new version of Kleiner Perkin's site (http://www.kpcb.com) and the first thing I did was to review the other VC sites out there. It is amazing how many VC websites look like they were coded up by an intern in a weekend.
Thanks! It was an interesting project to work on, glad you like the result. KPCB has a very good person that was previously at Hulu to help them with marketing (Christina Lee) and she was the driving force behind them getting it done the right way - rather than having an intern do it.
It's certainly reasonable to say that VCs shouldn't be great at building web sites. But I want my investors to give a damn. One of my favorited tweets (by Alexis Ohanian):
"Give a damn. Give so many damns. As a startup/small shop, it's the only competitive advantage you have against incumbents."
I think their website can be a reflection of how much they give a damn. Maybe they are an incumbent and they don't have to. But if I have the choice to raise money from someone who still gives a damn, I will.
I will never understand this mentality. A website is a storefront, it creates trust. Do you want your portfolio company working out of a basement, a shack?
I agree with you. But from another angle, these companies are already world famous. In a way, a poor design on their web sites may become an indicator of trustworthiness in their small niche. Like sometimes very high quality products come in drab packaging, because (a) they don't have to show off, and (b) it distinguishes them from the reasonably good and they don't have to worry about being mistaken for the really bad.
This is actually a very interesting point. But it's not industry wide in this case, meaning that some of the top firms have pretty awesome sites, so that's what got me curious.
False choice. VCs have a functionally unlimited budget-- they can give a damn about both with a negligible cost.
And their web site isn't a "facade"-- it's how they communicate with their future portfolio companies, press, people looking for jobs at startups, new partner/associate prospects, LPs, etc.
I will say, having worked on two VC sites now (see comments on http://kpcb.com below - KP is an exception to this). Most VCs can be incredibly cheap when it comes to these types of expenses, for whatever reason they are not willing to pay what it takes to get it done well.
The title is currently "Worst VC Firms' Websites". Just move the adjective over: "VC Firms' Worst Websites" or to get rid of the semi-ambiguous possessive: "Worst Websites of VC Firms".
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Totally agree. However, I grew up with a family in the film business, and my parents always said you could tell who was in charge because they were usually wearing jeans. The pages/errand boys were the ones in suits.
I also wish their website would be a bit nicer, but they have probably realized it doesn't matter, they are on top and anyone whose worth one's salt already knows it.
CrunchFund has no website at all. Google ventures has an awesome new site. Isn't a big deal to the established firms as people will flock if they have one or not. In fact the big firms almost wholly rely on recommendations and introductions from current investments so don't want people to easily be able to cold contact them through their site.
This article is funny that it points out the fact that the websites for the venture capital firms are lacking and quite horrible. You would think they would want a better looking site but then again, they are the ones who are being sought out so why care?
I don't know about VC, but people says you can judge how successful a contractor is by its website; successful one usually has crappy/nonexistent website.
