Worst VC Firms' Websites • Hacker News Board

Re: Worst VC Firms' Websites

#51

Post by gawker » Wed, May 16, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

webwright wrote: post #32

hkmurakami wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you want your investors to give a damn about their portfolio companies, rather than give a damn about their own facade of a website?

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.

They probably don't see it as a way of communication - hence, the lack of investment in it.

Re: Worst VC Firms' Websites

#52

Post by bfe » Wed, May 16, 2012, 11:20 PM UTC

zitterbewegung wrote: post #20

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 successfu…

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?

Re: Worst VC Firms' Websites

#53

Post by trevelyan » Thu, May 17, 2012, 3:23 AM UTC

ryanlchan wrote: post #38

zitterbewegung wrote: post #20

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 successfu…

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 lo…

> 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.

Re: Worst VC Firms' Websites

#54

Post by gala8y » Thu, May 17, 2012, 8:54 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #50

danielharan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they don't need it. 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.

No net. I was shocked.

Re: Worst VC Firms' Websites

#55

Post by brackin » Thu, May 17, 2012, 9:42 AM UTC

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.