Katherine: The solutions we need to save the planet from climate and biodiversity crises are here, but they won't make a difference unless they are adopted at scale. We are Matt Jaworski and Katherine Keddie, and we have focused our careers on ensuring that this happens in time. Back in 2021, we started Adopter, Europe's first marketing company working exclusively with Scaling Green Innovation. Since then, we've supported organizations from pre-seed startups and Earthshot prize finalists to international Unicorns and global NGOs. We've worked with green technology solutions across FinTech, construction, food systems, nature and finance and more. We also mentor on some of the world's leading venture builders. We are on a mission to support 100 high integrity green innovation solutions by the end of 2025 and 1000 by 2030. This podcast is the next step on that journey. I am very happy today to be with Matt to pick his brain a little bit about websites. Today we'll be discussing the top five most common website mistakes that early stage or scaling green technology solutions tend to make and how to avoid them, and some examples from our work to give it a little bit of flavor. So, hi Matt. Very excited to kick off this conversation with you. And my first question for you is, why is a website important for a green tech company? And can you please explain it as if I am a 5-year-old?
Matt: Amazing. Yeah, absolutely. Classic question, isn't it? Imagine that you created a new type of toy that you want to share with others so they can have fun with them, they can make life better for them. And if you start a normal store, like a normal store toy store, only a very few people who live nearby will be able to come and see those toys, see how great they are, and buy them from you, bring them home and enjoy them. Website is like a shop window that is available to everyone on the whole planet, no matter how far they live, that never has to close because it never has to go to sleep. It can be open at all times and it can clearly show to others how fun, great and unique those toys are so they can buy them from you and you can have money for cookies and other toys that you'd like to have. How's that?
Katherine: Very good. Very good. And I think it's actually quite tricky to simplify things that much. So I think a good start. My next question then is, okay, so let's say I'm a little bit older than five and I'm a Green Tech founder who is developing a new solution. Maybe I want to start raising investment, get some early customers. Is there anything you want to add to that around why a website is a key part of the marketing process to start off with when you're in that position?
Why a website matters for green tech founders
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Just like with the example we just had, right? The website still acts as your digital shop window. When you meet potential investors, potential clients, potential partners, at networking events and conversations, you are introduced to them. They will go to your website to understand what is it that you do, who are you, what is your attraction so far and how interested in having this conversation they should be? Now, of course, you'll be also sending them your pitch deck and other resources. Many people will still be interested in having a conversation with you even when you don't have a website. However, for many of them, it's still the first place where they will go to check you out and see what are you about, get the initial understanding before they dive deeper. The website is also the part of your online presence that's typically easiest for people to share with others.
So let's say someone thinks what you're doing is interesting or would like to share it with other investors or their colleagues, they would typically send the website. Then again, it's also a part of your business attire, whether you like it or not, right? Because when you send emails, those emails have a domain in them. So if I get an email that is interesting from someone who I haven't spoken with about let's say having a conversation, I will of course go to their website and what I see there will affect my willingness or interest in that conversation. So there are plenty, plenty of reasons and they all tend to overlap with each other, right? So it's kind of, you could go to networking meetings and investor meetings wearing tracksuit with holes on it and stains from your last day's meal because you would say, I don't care about appearance that much. I'm a scientist, I'm an engineer, I'm a busy business person, I have a great technology, it's going to defend itself, stand for itself regardless of what I'm wearing.
In an ideal world, that's how things would work, right? Those great solutions would not be affected by what you wear to an investor meeting. However, if you went to any of those or we both went to many networking meetings, if we rocked up in a stains tracksuit with holes, they wouldn't go any well and they go much better if your attire is appropriate, it's a well tailored suit or anything else that's, smart casual, right? The same way it works with websites. So when people review your shop window, if it's sort of like crumbling, falling and poorly lit and there is no products available in it, they're not going to be as interested as if that shop window shows something that is really, really interesting and desirable.
Katherine: Yeah, exactly. And I think, to put a number on it, Gartner released a report just before the pandemic that found that over 60% of B2B sales before even the first meeting, the customer is visiting your website and checking you out. So I think, the approach to doing that has only grown and you know that if you are having an investor meeting or you are having a meeting with a potential customer, it's very lightly they'll be checking you out online and making that kind of negative first impression or not being clear about your messaging or giving them any reason to think, no, this isn't a great solution, seems like a disservice if you've developed a solution that could potentially, save the planet or tackle climate change or reduce biodiversity loss.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. And I remember a conversation with one of the investors at an event we went to in Newcastle a few years ago, I asked them about their perspective on marketing, on websites branding, and they clearly said that obviously, branding in the website is not going to make an investor invest in you. You need to have much more than that. However, for them it's a sign of your sense for business of your sort of like business acumen that you know how to present yourself, that you can present yourself professionally, because if you can do it at this early stage, it will also, from their perspective and in their experience, mean that you'll be able to carry yourself well in other business context and settings, knowing what is appropriate and how to behave and how to commercialize your technology of which showcasing it online is a part of in the current time.
Katherine: Okay. So we've talked about why it's important. Let's dive in. What are your five most common mistakes that Green Technologies make on their websites?
Matt: Absolutely. Well, let's cut right to the chase. So the top five mistakes that I've seen and shortlisted for today will be neglecting the websites overall, poor unclear messaging that doesn't convey the value proposition, vendor lockin being tied into a supplier, unfeasible unscalable platform that makes it so that you need to rework the websites every other year nd then missing real world images and other examples of traction, such as case studies and other authority, credibility, building or showcasing factors.
Katherine: Hmm, okay, perfect. I mean, I think that's a good summary, but let's dive into the first one, which is neglecting your website. What does that mean in practice?
Mistake 1: Neglecting the website
Matt: Absolutely. Great question. Let's keep it practical and crack on. So something I noticed is that quite often founders of companies who are extremely qualified, highly technical experts tend to neglect their websites. The website maybe doesn't exist, maybe shows that website is coming soon or if it exists it's extremely outdated, maybe have broken. When asked about it, such companies might say that, oh, we don't do marketing right now. Oh, we're just developing our technology, website doesn't matter. Or if one from a range of such answers, right? However, it's like that example of the suit, right? We're building our technology. It doesn't matter how I look at a networking event. While potential investors and clients who are at that networking event, they will be deciding whether they want to talk to you even before they come to see what you have to say. They'll be judging you from afar.
So even when a company is at such an early stage, even when it has very limited resources, it's still worth for it to have a basic website that's aesthetic, working, not falling apart and keep it reasonably up to date. I was recently having a conversation with a program manager at Venture Builder who told me a story of how they introduced a startup to an investor with a great fit between what the startup was working on and the focus of that investor. However, that conversation never even picked up. The investor never responded to the introduction. And when that program manager investigated, what's happening, they heard that the investor went for the website of that company and there was nothing of interest there. It was not relevant. They just crossed out the company based on the content of the website alone.
The program manager had to exchange a few more emails to explain what the company is currently doing. And then investor became really interested, but the whole question during this conversation was, okay, so if that's what they're doing, that's what they're building, why is it not on their website? So again, it's one of those cases where a company thinks that it doesn't need marketing, it doesn't need a website, but because of that it's failing to showcase what they're actually doing, their full potential and forgetting that whether you want it or not, you are always doing marketing and the lack of marketing is also marketing, just one that's not going to help you much.
Katherine: That's a very good way to put it. And I think talking about the website content itself and clarity issues there around what the company does or what the value drivers are, I think moves us on really nicely to your second point, which is having kind of poor messaging on the website. So do you want to maybe explain a bit further what that means in practice and how people can avoid it in their work?
Mistake 2: Poor messaging
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. So the second of the most common mistakes is poor messaging, lack of clarity on the value proposition and in other words, a website that does not make it clear and easy to understand what the company does and who is the customer, who is it helping, who does it do those things for. If you go to a website and see those aspirational mission statements like we make the world a better place, we solve problem of climate change or we make this particular industry more sustainable, that's great, but that does not give any really pointers on what to expect, what the company can actually help with. I will get a tiny bit away from Green Tech right now, just to give a very tangible example I experienced last week.
I was looking for a new accountant for our company. Sometimes happens, sometimes that's needed. And the websites of potential accountants I was reviewing were really mixed back. There were websites that were saying, oh, we provide financial support to businesses with all of their needs, but I couldn't find on the homepage information whether they can help us create annual accounts or corporation tax return, the core offering we need. What really stood out were websites that said that we provide accountancy services, then listed those services clearly and then provided a clear way to get in touch. That's the companies I'm having current conversations with and the others I didn't have half an hour to go through the entire website and unpack it. Although it was nice to see some examples of branding and the activities that they're doing in addition to their services.
Similarly for a scanning Green Tech company, it is important to answer those questions, what you do, who you do it for, and make sure that it's very easy and accessible. In websites design and development, there is an idea of a caveman test. So you review a website and think, okay, what would a caveman think of its content? Would a caveman be able to understand it? Now when we're looking at world's first Green Tech, well not just Green Tech, emerging Green Tech solutions made by people with sometimes multiple PhDs, we might be a tiny bit out of the caveman league, but still it should be something that people can understand and is explained in a way that is free of jargon, has a clear structure and answers those most common questions that your potential customer visitor will have.
Katherine: No, exactly. And I think being able to answer who is your solution for and how does it provide them value is really key. I think it's quite easy to get stuck into the specifics of the technology itself and what the technology does, which obviously is of interest, I'm sure to customers and to investors. But the core message has to be here is how we're solving your problems and that has to stand out. And I think particularly when it comes to first of their kind technologies where it's easier to focus on the technological aspects because that's what seems so exciting about your solution. You can't lose sight of that basic tenant of how you're actually creating value for the people that you're selling your solution to.
Matt: Exactly. Exactly.
Katherine: Perfect. So maybe let's go into the third one because messaging is a huge topic. Vendor lockin is a very specific topic that has come up many, many times for us. In different conversations we hear bad experiences about, so do you want to maybe explain a bit more of what that is?
Mistake 3: Vendor lock-in
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. It's an issue I've seen a lot of over the last 10 years that I've been involved in building websites. A common story is that a founder or a marketing person on a small team wants to update the website, make a new website, build a better website. So they bring in an external supplier to create it, that goes well, the website is built. However, then it turns out that only the person or the company who made it has the access required to update the website to expand it and is charging a lot of money for it.
Katherine: Yeah. So we've heard examples where people have built a website and then they've come back for a change on the website, which they can't make themselves for some kind of specific technical reason or because of coding. And we know obviously from our experience that the change that they're asking for is only going to take five minutes, but this organization or the supplier is charging a lot of money and kind of putting it across that this is going to take longer. And I think making sure that when you finish your website, which is a huge asset for your business and a key tenant of your marketing, you have what we call the keys to the website and you know how it works, how to make changes as your business scales. And that's extremely important for any business that is going to grow really fast, be pivoting, maybe be changing offerings, be developing, be growing. You need to have something where you're not locked into having to pay loads of money to a vendor for every small change that you want to make as your business starts to grow.
Matt: Absolutely. Every company that has a website needs to be able to easily and quickly update the text on this website, update the images on this website, add a new page when that's needed. However, in some cases, it might be obfuscated hidden behind, like allegedly some technology or just purely locked out. My view is that any scaling, including, especially scaling green tech companies need to have access to the website, to the CMS, be able to make changes in the sites content, add new posts, add new pieces, and with modern systems, modern platforms, that's not complicated. And the website doesn't have to be custom-coded from scratch in a way that only one person or one team knows how to edit. It should be made in a way that is accessible, scalable, and can be then passed on to the client who should have the flexibility of choosing who they then want to work with further on the website or whoever they want to continue with it fully in-house.
Mistake 4: Unscalable platforms
I think it brings us nicely to the point number four, which is having a website made, in a way that does not scale well, in a way that's difficult to edit. And that includes any cases in which the website was, as we just talked about, custom-coded in a way that nobody but its creator can understand or using platforms that don't offer the functionalities needed to grow a website alongside the company or that are maybe outdated. There are many, many great low and no-code tools and website building platforms that can be used. And what they have in common is that they give you this flexibility and scalability that you need as a scaling green tech, while also helping you avoid the vendor lockin. So you solve two issues with one.
Katherine: I think that brings us really nicely to our last point, which is not having any real world examples, case studies, images, which are obviously crucial for showing traction at an early stage. Do you want to maybe give us some examples of what that looks like?
Mistake 5: Stock and AI-generated images
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. So when you are an early-stage company, you have limited resources, you have limited time, you are making a website on a shoestring budget, or maybe you are a bigger company, you're just very busy and again stretched because you are juggling product development, sales, marketing, and all those different activities. It might be tempted to rely solely or in a huge part on stock images or to use AI generated images, especially with the latest updates to this technology and those images becoming better and better with every week. However, when you are a real business that people can do business with, invest in, work with, if you use those images, you risk that you create a perception of a business that maybe doesn't exist or is not as established. When I see an AI image on the website of a potential supplier service provider, it raises questions, right?
It triggers this spider sense that, is there something that they're not telling me? Are they not as established as maybe the rest of their website shows? Because If they existed, if they were real, they would have real images. And in the context of Scaling Green Tech, it's important to show your traction. It's important to show that you exist, not just that you exist, the scale at which you work, what you're doing, that your idea is real, that you have access to laboratories, workshops and the other facilities that you use, and that you are well beyond the stage of three undergraduate students in the parents garden shed, who wouldn't be able to show real world examples and would rely on stock images and on AI generated images.
Additionally, to add to that, you can further show yourself as a real business through case studies, through testimonials, through lots of different factors that we unfortunately don't have time to get into today that are captured well by the Stanford web credibility guidelines developed by Stanford University's persuasive technology lab. That's another topic for another time, but for any of you interested in this broader topic or working on your websites, I would really suggest checking this out.
Katherine: Great. Thank you so much, Matt. I think that was a really helpful introduction. I know that you could talk on this topic forever, so it's been fantastic to get a short summary of what that looks like. If you want to have a chat with Matt or anyone else from our team about what it takes to make a website that will scale alongside your green technology solution, then please reach out. The link will be in the show notes of the episode. And thank you very much for listening.
