Is BVP too Flashy?

When Henry Phipps established his family office a century ago, he kept his name off the door, choosing instead to honor the scientist Henry Bessemer who invented the technology that he and Andrew Carnegie had commercialized. Ever since, Bessemer has followed a tradition of quiet privacy, settling in the shadows of our entrepreneurial partners. We’ve had no PR agent. No splashy sponsorships. No publication of our results. (And no promotions for our blogs.)

But for those entrepreneurs who consider sharing their dreams with us, we need to share our story with them. As early as 1998 we published a web site celebrating our entrepreneurs’ successes (and lamenting our failures) in a graphical motif that evoked our turn-of-the-19^th-century roots. Since then, BVP.com incrementally sprawled, as web sites do, into an aging maze of unmarked avenues and back alleyways. Pre-occupied with our portfolio companies’ online presence, we neglected to renovate our own internet lobby.

But recently we crossed the point where we invest more venture capital internationally than we do domestically. Engaging new communities of entrepreneurs curious about our practice, we asked our IT Director Fred Shilmover to streamline our web site with 21^st century technology and a Googlish respect for the web user.

Our design objective was to tell our story without getting in the way of what a visitor wants to find. Even with 6 offices around the world, 100+ IPOs under our belt, and 96 years of history, we strived, above all, for clear, simple navigation.

With help from web designer Twig Gallemore, we crafted a tight site map around three simple menu options (TEAM / PORTFOLIO / CONTACTS) and filtered portfolio search options, to deliver quick answers. But to satisfy the entrepreneur who wishes to stroll around and browse, we also incorporated sliding photo albums in the header, as an alternative navigator through our history, team and offices. (Technical kudos to Flash god Erik van der Neut.)

There are clear tradeoffs to building our site around a Flash element. We have critical performance issues to resolve, browser support varies (it’s best viewed in Flock!), much of our content lies hidden from search engines, and we still need to redirect many links.

But I think that the newly launched www.BVP.com achieves our design goals. Do you agree? Is it what you’d want to see from your venture capital partner?

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