If you live in Humboldt County, chances are you’ve encountered Brio Baking in one of its forms, whether it’s Cafe Brio on the Arcata Plaza or Brio Breadworks’ wonderful local products. At this very moment, Brio is seeking investors in a Direct Public Offering (DPO). A DPO is similar to an Initial Public Offering (IPO), except that it is directly offered to members of a business’ local community. To attract potential investors, the company needed a website that both explains how a DPO works and functions as a place where investors can register. To that end, Brio Baking turned to EvenVision, which also designed Cafe Brio’s current site, to create a site that could effectively serve these dual purposes.
To capture Brio Baking’s visual brand identity, we teamed up with Scott Cocking from Sideshow Design. If you’ve ever seen the impressive branding of Lost Coast Brewery, then you’ve seen Scott’s work. Using his visual ideas and color choices as a starting point, our team based the new site’s look on Brio Baking’s existing visual motif so that the new site would be an effective extension of the company’s branding.
Matching the company’s existing visual design was only the beginning. The new site’s main purpose is to educate local residents on Brio Baking’s Direct Public Offering and what it entails, and to allow would-be investors to sign up. To do this, we created two different sections for the site. The first is an FAQ page, which includes a clean and easily digestible point-by-point breakdown of why the company is raising money and how investing in a Direct Public Offering works. We also embedded an promotional video produced by Lynette Nutter of Nutter Productions and Will Goldenberg of Goldenberg Film, which gives a solid overview of the company and the reasons people should consider investing.
Once a visitor moves past this introductory page, they are taken to the next stage of the site where they can sign up to invest. In order to host the nearly fifty pages of legal terms and conditions pertaining to the DPO, we implemented an easy-to-use PDF reader that made the information more manageable for visitors, rather than overwhelm them by making them scroll through 50 pages of legal documentation. This section also includes an e-signature feature through a service called RightSignature, which gives investors the ability to sign up right on the site. To make this feature as easy to use as possible, we created a pop-up window for the signature panel, and set up an interactive document that automatically compiles a PDF and sends it to Brio Baking to notify them once the application is complete.
Thanks to the site we created for them, Brio Baking now has the tools it needs for a successful investment campaign. If you’re interested in learning more about investing in the company, or just want to learn more about how a Direct Public Offering works, we recommend you visit the site!
Visit the site we helped make a reality.
