What to Build Before the Raise, and What to SkipWhat to Build Before the Raise, and What to Skip

An investor gives your site about ninety seconds, usually on a phone, usually with your deck open in another tab. Almost nothing you are currently worrying about survives that.

What the ninety seconds is for

They are not evaluating the product on your site. They are checking that the company is real, that the story matches the deck, and that the people are findable. A site that answers those three quickly does its whole job.

Build these

• The one-sentence description, identical to the one in the deck. A mismatch reads as a company that has not decided.
• Names and faces of the founders, with links. Anonymity costs you more than an imperfect photograph.
• Something that proves the product exists in some form.
• A page that loads in under two seconds on a mobile connection.

Skip these

• The blog. Two abandoned posts date-stamped eight months ago is worse than no blog.
• The careers page, until there is a role and a budget.
• Anything animated that delays the first paragraph.
• A pricing page you will contradict in the first sales call.

The instinct during a raise is to add surface area, because more pages feel like more company. The opposite reads better: a small site with nothing unfinished on it, and every page load fast enough that nobody notices it happening.

During a raise your site has one job — to make everything in the deck look like it was already true.