ff Venture Capital Website UX Design
a small website (uncoded) project by frankj

Better instructions will be posted later tonight. If you look at the two websites we like as well as the screen shots attached it should give you an idea of what we are trying to do.

Two things to think about is we want to have a very sharp and simple design.

Second, we just got our logo designed and we would like to see it incorporated in the designs posted.

Please feel free to be creative.

Update 4-May-11 GMT

Updated answers to many of the questions - sorry this wasn't included originally.


1. Tell us the name of your company or non-profit.
ff Venture Capital

2. What does your company do? This helps designers to better understand the target audience for the website design.
Invest in early-stage technology companies

3. List your size requirements here so that designers understand the scale necessary for your website design. It's common to design for 1024 x 768 resolution or to be flexible and stretch to the entire width of the screen.
Ideally, we’d like to be flexible and stretch to the entire width of the screen.
Site needs to be attractive on browser, mobile, and ipad (in that order)

4. List how many different pages you'll need designed for your small website design. Remember - design only. No coding.
HOW MANY PAGES (MAXIMUM OF 5) DO YOU NEED DESIGNED?

4 pages:
1. ffventurecapital.com home page
2. ffventurecapital.com company and people list pages (see e.g. http://66.228.39.122/companies/ and http://66.228.39.122/people/)
3. ffventurecapital.com company and people profile pages (e.g. http://66.228.39.122/companies/apparel-media/ and http://66.228.39.122/people/john-frankel/)
4. ffventurecapital.com static content pages (i.e. pages with the same header footer menu etc. and mainly text content. So the only real questions are what the h1’s look like, etc.)
5. Wordpress theme compatible and consistent with the overall design of the other pages

Target Audience
1. Knowing your industry will help designers create a more suitable website design.
WHAT IS YOUR INDUSTRY?
early-stage technology.

2. Describe important demographic info about your audience, such as age, sex, location, income, occupation, industry, education, lifestyle, values, and interests.
DESCRIBE THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN

We’re marketing to two main audiences:
-1) startup/early-stage CEOs. Typically male, age 21-40, based in US or Israel, high income (if you count both cash and equity), work in technology, well educated, very work-focused (but ‘work hard play hard’ in their downtime)
- 2) investors in our fund. Typically wealthy men, ages 40-70, interested in exciting ways to get wealthier.


List things you want to tell your customers about you. What image do you want to portray? What is unique or different about you?
WHAT 3 THINGS WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMUNICATE TO YOUR AUDIENCE THROUGH YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN

1. We are an early-stage venture capital firm. Since 1999, our partners have made over 100 investments in over 35 companies, generating industry leading, top-decile IRR in each of our funds.

2. Our companies are in: Austin, Chicago, Columbus,Jerusalem, Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco,Tel Aviv, Washington DC, and they are developing innovation in: Advertising, API,Content & Distribution, Digital Payments, Gaming, Location Based Services, Medical Devices,Mobile, Online-Offline, SaaS,Small Business Adoption, Social,VoIP

3. We provide operational support, not just advice.
We provide real work through our in-house operating team, plus a proprietary network of outside executives who work with portfolio companies on an as-needed basis. This is common in growth equity, but much less common in early-stage investing. Our principals are experienced operators. We have founded a range of businesses both as stand-alone startups and on the Goldman Sachs platform.


Why should others buy your products or services compared to those of your competitors?
HOW IS YOUR COMPANY DIFFERENT FROM YOUR COMPETITORS?

When marketing to entrepreneurs, our key differentiators are:
1. We provide operational support, not just advice.
We provide real work through our in-house operating team, plus a proprietary network of outside executives who work with portfolio companies on an as-needed basis. This is common in growth equity, but much less common in early-stage investing. Our principals are experienced operators. We have founded a range of businesses both as stand-alone startups and on the Goldman Sachs platform.
2. We reserve capital to make followon investments in our companies as they grow.
Most angel investors do not have the financial resources to provide support to their companies as they grow. We were the first outside investor in Cornerstone Ondemand, and then invested in [ ] subsequent rounds until it went public in March 2011.
3. We have deep experience in early-stage investing.
Since 1999, our partners have made over 100 investments in over 35 companies, generating industry leading, top-decile IRR in each of our funds.

Style and Concept
1. You can list links to website designs that you admire or describe the website design styles you like (Web 2.0, corporate, gothic, grunge, futuristic, retro, artistic, natural, funky, simple, etc.)
WHAT WEBSITE DESIGN STYLES DO YOU LIKE?

ffVenture needs to look more professional and slick. We particularly welcome design improvements to make it as social media friendly as possible; we want to encourage sharing, tweeting, etc. of our content. AVC.com is a model for this; note the buttons at the end of each blog post. Also see techcrunch.com as a model for promoting social media engagement. Note the multiple times that womma.org requests signup. Keep in mind that our target audiences are a) high net worth individuals/institutional investors, and b) entrepreneurs.


VC websites which are models for ffventure.com:
http://500startups.com (really like their design)
http://500px.com
http://firstround.com/
http://usv.com
http://www.benchmark.com
http://www.trueventures.com/ - featuring portfolio companies front and center
http://www.mkcapital.com/ - nice clean design
http://www.sequoiacap.com/
http://www.zelkovavc.com/
http://lowercasellc.com/
Another model is navonpartners.com, which David Teten (one of our colleagues) wrote and manages.

Role models for any.biz:
paulgraham.com
http://blog.asmartbear.com/
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/
abovethecrowd.com
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/about/
http://www.klososky.com/
http://informationarbitrage.com/
avc.com

We think that creativegood.com, http://www.visualmess.com/, and frontended.com have a lot of good resources on site design, and we agree with their philosophy.


Let designers know what colors you'd like to see in your website design or if your company already has an existing color palette, what colors they should use.
WHAT COLORS DO YOU WANT TO SEE IN YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN?

White, black, and the shade of green in our logo (#85a75a)

If there are particular colors designers should avoid, list them here.
WHAT COLORS DO YOU NOT WANT TO SEE IN YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN?



This will help designers focus on the right styles and design of your website.
WHAT ADJECTIVES SHOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN?

simple, clear, transparent, minimalist, social media friendly


Here, you can summarize the content you've uploaded as project files, or list the specific content you need included, such as written copy, existing logo, specific requirements for advertising, photography, etc.
WHAT CONTENT MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE WEBSITE DESIGN?

The content at http://66.228.39.122/ , plus we’re going to import all of the old blog posts from any.biz.

Use this space to share examples of work you like (feel free to include links) or to specify elements that must be in your website design, or even to list elements that must NOT be included.
DO YOU HAVE ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS OR LINKS YOU WANT TO SHARE?



Materials
1. Share files like logos, screen shots, examples you like or don't like, etc.
WE'D LIKE TO SHARE THESE FILES

Logo: http://66.228.39.122/static/images/ff_logo.png

Please include a breadcrumb trail at the top of each page (e.g., http://www.navonpartners.com/about/careers/crm-consultant-private-equity/ ).
Note the text in the breadcrumb should come directly from our CMS, so it’s easy for us to modify.

I would suggest we use Verdana/Geneva for general font on the site. We should use AvantGuardCTT for the name in the heading and this should be an image file.



2. These are the file types that you'll receive at the end of your project.
WE NEED THESE FILE TYPES
Small Website (uncoded) projects usually require Layered PSD, and JPG files. Change »
Layered PSDs and PNGs, please.

Update 8-May-11 GMT

Extending to give us a little more time to review the high quality designs as a team.