OpenView Partners is a venture capital firm that expands software companies. When this Boston-based company approached us to redesign their online presence, we crafted a strategy & delivered websites to achieve their goals.
OpenView Partners has a unique target market—they help software companies expand into market leaders. They needed a digital presence to reflect their caliber of clients, and they also needed to consolidate their content, which was on four different domains.
The new website needed to be a modern brand and identity, so companies shopping for an investment partner can truly understand what the amazing team at OpenView offers. Prior to the redesign, the homepage was dated and losing the sense of value for the OpenView brand. Navigation was also clunky, and relevant content needed to be put front and center.
The OpenView Partners digital presence needed a pretty drastic makeover. We built them a completely new website, and we gave their separate OpenView Labs blog a facelift to match the new branding.
Careful content migration was also a concern on this project. We migrated content into their new site from their old site, their main blog and their HubSpot pages. All in all, this involved strategic planning, design, development, migrating and condensing a massive amount of content across 4 different domains.
OpenView Partners came to us initially for a website audit. This is a service we provide clients who want to understand the true pain points in their technology. We delved in deep and identified quite a few areas that needed attention. Frequently, websites with a long history online carry a bit of technical debt. The audit helps us get up to speed and address this quickly. OpenView liked our work on the audit, so they approached us for a full-scale redesign and migration.
R&D involved meeting with the OpenView team to delve into their current issues, and studying their business goals, understanding their market, planning sitemaps, scoping development tasks, creating tickets, and just organizing the entire project vision.
The direction and early decisions we made for the OpenView site were critical to the success of the entire project. During this initial phase, we asked all the needed questions and delved into how solutions would be implemented. This benefited the project in immeasurable ways and avoided costly miscalculations.
Improving the user flow of the OpenView Partners site was one of the biggest motivations for the redesign. To encourage users to get to know the OpenView team quickly—we created easy ways to navigate the site. We also added a feed of featured and recent posts from the OpenView Labs blog right on the home page. This quickly shows off their expertise as industry leaders. We delivered over 30 wireframes for the project.
Communicating how modern and effective the team is at OpenView.
Initial impression strongly affects the emotions of visitors shopping for a venture capital firm. Rather than just adding new polish to an old design, we started from scratch. We went through several rounds to find the layout, and we worked closely with the OpenView team to express their vision for the brand. They already had a new branding package, so we designed the website to match it. The design is clear, fresh, and modern while feeling sophisticated and trustworthy.
We design everything to be flawlessly mobile responsive, so the site looks amazing on all modern devices. Navigation, content and social sharing are easy for mobile visitors.
A huge part of the value in our development is unseen—it’s on the backend. When we build a website for a client, we customize the WordPress Admin functionality for their individual needs. This allows clients to easily manage their own websites.
For OpenView, we built a custom tool to fit their specific needs. We worked closely with them to understand each part of their site—events, job listings, team members, and so on. With a clear vision of their functionality needs, we provided tools to make updating the site a breeze.
OpenView also promotes job listings — pulled in from outside job boards — for their portfolio companies and for their internal team. We ported in content from the job boards and made a manageable system for their team. These outside job boards provided an API, so we can match those jobs up with OpenView portfolio companies and display them right on their site. What we delivered is not just a website, it’s a powerful tool for managing their online presence.
OpenView Partners also have a separate blog—Labs.OpenView. Since they had content in several places, all of it needed to come under one umbrella. Becuase the majority of OpenView’s traffic comes from visitors to their Labs blog, the Labs blog needed a facelift and careful migration handling. We migrated content and implemented all new styles on the Labs blog.
We worked closely with the OpenView team to respond to user feedback and quickly fix any issues that arose.
We went through intense Quality Assurance (QA) focused on mobile responsive, since making a website look universally great on all devices is a requirement in our age of mobile devices.
Launch went according to plan, and our team was available post-launch for last minute tweaks. We then handed the project to Valet’s ongoing support team, and they continue to keep a close eye on the site.
Along the way, there are always extra requests and edits that arise. For this project, it was new sections and pages. What enabled us to include these for OpenView?
The way we built the website was very modular. When OpenView wanted an additional section, we were able to use existing design elements and include the new pages and sections into the project budget.
For the OpenView site, the Approach and the Network pages were brought in late in the game, when the client decided they need to be included. Because of our flexible approach, we were able to include them and stay on track.
Creative Director & Designer
Backend Developer
Project Manager
Front-end Developer
Backend Developer
Backend Developer
The OpenView team loves their new website, and they’re receiving positive press that makes us smile. They’re already working with us on strategic planning for the next phase of work together. As they listen to user feedback and continue iterating on the site, they’re seeing continual increases in traffic.
We’re proud of our excellent working relationship together, and we love standing behind and iterating on a quality product we’ve built.