Vendr
Vendr is a Series B SaaS buying platform funded by Tiger Global, SoftBank, Y Combinator, Sound Ventures, and Craft Ventures. Vendr created the SaaS buying category and is on a mission to build a better way to buy and sell software for high-growth companies, including HubSpot, Lattice, and Drift.
I joined the team as employee 130. Within 8 months, the organization grew to 250 employees. Vendr experienced tremendous growth during that time as a high-growth company and soon-to-be unicorn. It was clear the brand needed a refresh – to come out of the growth as a stronger, more mature business.
Vendr desired a cohesive, authentic, and unique brand that would continue to set them apart from growing competition. As the SaaS buying category creators, the longer they waited to perform this exercise, the harder it would be to continue leading the industry.
The existing website was hosted on Hubspot, but it was not well-suited for enterprise-level marketing websites. Hubspot sites have a lot of code and can be slow to load, and lack the flexibility to create highly customized websites. The design did not align with the business, and the technology was not sufficient for the business's needs.
I incorporated a new, Client-First, design system into the website structure by first conducting a site audit in Hubspot, then revising the site map for Webflow. The CMS content was exported, new pages were created, custom post types were added, animations and micro-interactions were implemented, and various integrations were incorporated to complete the process.
A complete revision of the copy was done by involving the product, engineering and sales teams to identify the key elements of the platform, its distinctive characteristics, and underlying market value. This was done to increase inbound interest, educate potential buyers and quicken the sales cycle.
Having completed the challenging task of establishing the elevated brand identity, redesigning the website was made easy by applying these new guidelines. The website's pages were redesigned first with a copy overhaul, then designing with our updated color palette, typography, and simple, purposeful product illustrations for each section.
All pages of the website were designed using Figma, a design tool, to create a cohesive design system. By creating components with different variables I was able to ensure consistency and ease of use across the site and product as well. The designs were created for both desktop and mobile devices, taking into account the different screen sizes and user experience. This approach allowed for a seamless transition of the designs from Figma to the final website and allowed for easy editing and updating of the website in the future.
I created our website components using the Finsweet's Client-First Webflow Style Guide, a framework for class naming that helps to keep our Webflow websites more organized and efficient.Combining this system with the new brand identity, I was able to build and launch a V1 site in a weeks time!
The outcome of the rebuilt and redesigned website was a sleek, modern website that was user-friendly and adaptable to different devices. Additionally, it also helped to improve the organic search engine optimization (SEO) of the website.
