Before Launch Series: Part 2
Branding: Making your search fund brand come to life
In part 1 of the Before Launch Series, I shared the administrative tasks associated with starting up your search fund, from selecting your tech stack to networking with 3rd party providers and others in the search community.
Now I will walk through the failure of SVB and why it matters for your search! Just kidding… I think enough people have written on that topic for now.
So instead of talking about fractional banking and bank runs, we’ll review an often-overlooked part of setting up a search fund: branding. I’ll share the main steps needed to set up your brand online to communicate your story effectively and consistently across different platforms and mediums. Who knows, you might even be inspired to rewatch Mad Men for the third time after this.
Opening thoughts
How much time you invest in your search fund brand is up to you. In fact, you can get by with minimal effort and still successfully acquire a business. How much time you invest in building your search fund brand depends on your targeted industries, skill set, budget, and personal preference. While owners in one industry may be impressed with your ability to create a professional brand, others may not see the value or need (i.e., software vs blue-collar service providers).
As I prepared to launch my search fund, I wanted to leverage my marketing and web development skills to build a brand that differentiated me from the increasing number of buyers in the lower market for private companies. My advice to the upcoming classes of searchers is to recognize that branding can be one source of differentiation during the search phase. First impressions are everything, and with a poorly structured, vanilla website, you may be setting yourself up to be lost in a sea of other buyers with more to offer. Branding is not about cool fonts and pretty colors but about clear storytelling. The more you think about how the business owner will consume the materials you put in front of them, the better you can tailor your brand to suit their needs. Good design is highly functional.
Business owners will engage with you through your website, email, and any ancillary materials you send them. I will walk you through how to build a consistent brand across those channels to tell your story effectively that helps you target the right seller.
Simple brand identity
The first piece to establish is your brand identity. For those less familiar, a brand identity is “the visible elements of a brand, such as color, design, and logo, that identify and distinguish the brand in consumers' minds.” In this case, the consumer you need to target is the business owner you’d like to buy your business from, not your friends, investors, professors, or family. Since we are not building a brand for a multinational company with various lines of business, we do not need to create a brand identity with the complexity you might see at some of today’s biggest companies. We just need a few guidelines to will follow when communicating the fund’s story.
Color palette
One place to start is by choosing the colors representing your brand. You do not need to hire someone to do this for you, as there are many resources available online for free that you can leverage in creating a compelling color palette. Simplicity and high contrasting colors are critical for your search fund brand, and for more tips on doing this, refer to this article by product designer Nick Babich on the seven rules about color palettes. When in doubt, feel free to take inspiration from many investment firms (and search funds) that utilize navy, blue, green, or burgundy coupled with white and black to communicate their brands.
Logo design
Now that you’ve found some colors that work well for you and your search fund, you must consider logo design. There are two approaches you can take depending on your interest and budget. One is to leverage font tools such as Adobe Fonts to create a text-based logo. If you want simplicity and value, you might choose this option, but your brand identity may be slightly less memorable without an icon. For those who want to spice it up, the second option is to develop a more professional one with an icon by using a designer from a platform like Upwork. The process is straightforward: you post a job describing what you are looking for and with what budget, and from there, you can negotiate with logo designers to develop one that meets your requirements. You can then leverage that design to create different versions to meet your needs (i.e., LinkedIn logo) using simple tools such as Canva.
Font selection
Another element that may coincide with your logo design is your choice of fonts. You will not need to outsource font selection to someone else as there are plenty of options online, but you will want to consider a few things:
Is the font easy to read online?
Are there ways to adjust the weight and spacing of your font to improve accessibility?
If you use multiple fonts, do they pair well with each other?
Do you have consistent guidelines for using the fonts?
Depending on the font choices you decide to choose, certain fonts may become difficult to read for those with vision problems or who read information online less frequently. For those interested in learning more about selecting appropriate fonts, reference this article by content consultant Lizzie Bruce on what makes a font easy to read and accessible. When in doubt, revert to a san serif font that is well known and available everywhere, such as Helvetica, Arial, or Verdana.
One last note on font selection. Ensure you have rules and guidelines for headings, subheadings, and body text. This may mean adding weight and size to titles for those with one font family. With those sticking to one font family, use weight modestly to headings (along with size) to differentiate from body text. For those with two font families, stick with consistent rules for using one font family over the other. Usually, that will mean one font for headings and subheadings and another family for body text.
Core contents
Before you build your website, it helps to make the blueprint of what you want to communicate to potential sellers. While you can find value in referencing other searchers and private investment firm websites, consider the messages you’d like to convey. Remember that people’s attention spans online are minimal, so your site cannot be overly complex and filled with every minute detail about you and your fund.
Based on the activity of those who have viewed the White Cedar website, most traffic goes to the home, criteria, and personal pages. And that’s expected: business owners want to know more about who is reaching out to them and whether the prospect of holding a conversation makes sense. As you consider the contents and framework of your website, I push you to keep it simple. Here are page ideas to consider:
Home page
Elements: Mission statement and firm overview, value proposition, searcher and team info, call to action
Team
Elements: Searcher profile and investor group
Criteria
Elements: Business models, industries of interest, investment profile
Contact
Elements: Survey form, contact information, location details
Other aspects of your website are less critical but allow you to differentiate yourself further. For example, you can dive into more detail about your story, provide resources that might be helpful for business owners, or share your values. That’s up to you to decide how you want to showcase yourself.
All you need during this process is a Word document and creativity. Begin to lay out the website's structure with the text populating each page, headings and body text included. There will be more to come on website copy in future posts, but do invest the time to ensure your communication is clear and makes an impact. You can always go in after launching and adjust based on the feedback you’re getting, but don’t gloss over this too quickly early on.
Building a website
Now is the time to create your website using the brand guidelines and content structure you developed to outline your business. You will first need to decide which tool to build out the website, and there are three main options: Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow. For searchers inexperienced in web development, Squarespace will likely be your best bet, as the templates and user interface enable you to quickly create a simple yet modern website. I don’t have experience with Wix, but I have heard similar reviews. You will lose out on some functionality with styling and animations, but it will do the job. For those with a bit more experience or interest in a challenge, Webflow can be an even better option. Most web developers today have shifted away from WordPress to Webflow due to its ability to create sophisticated user experiences with much more ease than ever before. I built my website on Webflow and recommend it to those looking for more functionality and personalization.
Regardless of the tool you use to build your website, you will need to upload your color palette and font families into the template you are leveraging to maintain your search fund brand. If you’d like to add stock photos to your website for a bit of variety, check out Adobe Stock. Depending on your level of interest, I can provide you with more resources for creating a modern and highly responsive website – comment below!
Mobile responsiveness is one element I often see overlooked on websites (not just by searchers). How often do you find yourself on a website not optimized for your iPhone? There’s nothing more frustrating to see when text is cut off or not scaled because the company or person cut corners and forgot to optimize their website for mobile usage. Luckily the newer website development tools are good at assisting beginners with this, but if you are still struggling to make your website accessible on all screens (tablets, too!), please consider hiring a web developer. It will certainly pay off with much more positive first impressions. Data from my search fund website shows that about 1/3 of all site visitors are on mobile devices!
Did I mention checking all of your links?
Marketing materials
While the website will be the anchor of your search fund brand, you may want to consider other forms of materials to share with owners in various settings. Those can typically take the form of a one-pager, benefits table, and business card, and they all can be created in Canva relatively quickly. Let’s briefly discuss the use case of each of these tools you will use and why they are essential.
One-pager
The one-pager is your best resource to send to business owners in your email outreach campaigns to find alignment early on. This resource should give an owner a high-level view of what your search fund does. I reviewed dozens of these in preparing my own version, and they are available on many search fund websites. Most include a brief overview of the fund, how it differentiates from others, the investment criteria, and highlights on the search principal. I find this one-pager most helpful after owners respond to my emails, in which I follow up with the one-pager to seek alignment before a first call. Since the document is within their inbox, it can be easier to click on it than go to their web browser and browse the extensive detail of the search fund website. Also, these are easy to print, so if an owner wants to review with a hard copy, they can do just that. Below is an example of the one-pager draft from the pre-launch days of my search in early 2022. You can probably tell where I could have been more clear and concise.
Benefits table
Sometimes I find it necessary to share an owner benefits table that may describe how search funds differ from other buyers in the ecosystem, whether financial or strategic. The benefits table is common practice in the search fund community and concisely describes the business model. While you won’t differentiate from searchers using a table like this since many have a similar version, this resource is helpful when owners are unaware of the search fund model. Below is an example of my initial benefits table, also from my pre-launch days.
Business card
The business card may seem a bit old school, but you may consider getting one as an insurance policy. For those serendipitous moments, have a business card handy to share when networking throughout your search, whether at a search fund conference, owner visit, or out in public. While you may not use many, a business card can also add a nice personal touch to an in-person interaction that sends a positive signal. If not, no worries; don’t forget to share your digits and LinkedIn instead.
Today, I covered some basics in setting up your fund branding for the searcher getting ready to formally launch. With these resources at your disposal, you shouldn’t need to spend much to get your fund up and going. You can always make changes down the line, so don’t stress too much about achieving perfection before your first owner calls.
As a recap, here are the elements that lead to a successful search fund brand:
A simple brand identity with contrasting colors, easy-to-read fonts, and consistent usage
A mobile-responsive website that’s simple, carefully considered, and clearly communicates your story and fund strategy
A toolkit of resources you share with owners in different environments, frequently through email and in-person settings, each with a purpose
One final thought: I know a post on branding may sound a bit silly to some of you, but there is an increasing amount of evidence that shows businesses with better-designed practices create more value. With user experience design playing a more important role than ever before, it’s no surprise that this may be the case. And don’t take it from me. Here’s what Steve Jobs famously quoted about how he views good product design.
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs.
How has your one-pager changed over time?