Completed the website for Sured, the surety bond agency.
Here, the primary focus was to ensure that bond buyers trust the product and the startup, which will lead to more bonds being processed by the startup.
For a small team, it was essential to cut out fluff and give prospective bond buyers the information they need to trust the business and process a bond with them.
Trust signals, copy and intuitive flows will ensure users do not drop-off, so the team can focus on bigger things.
Link to the site in the comments
How should smaller startups approach showcasing their company details? Unlike larger companies, startups need to be straight to the point. Tell your core users what they need to know to trust you, and that's it.
As your startup scales, you can tell the founding story. How the idea started. Details about the journey. All the things founders care about because they lived them.
But as a small or new startup, cut it all and answer one question: what does a first-time visitor need to see on this page to trust a company they've never heard of?
Make it original, and unique to your product.
Here's what that looked like for Sured, a surety bond agency
Completed the "How it Works" page for Sured, a specialist surety broker.
It started with the questions: what does Sured actually do between the visitor clicking submit and their bond arriving in their inbox? Why should bond buyers choose Sured?
The answers became the page.
Beginning with a step by step process explainer that stays with the visitor (tell us what you need), and everything after showing how Sured is the better choice. We shop every carrier, handle the underwriting, and you get your bond the same day.
I also added some compelling statements to gain buyers' trust. One application to every carrier. The lowest rate available. Specialists who answer the phone on weekends.
By the time the visitor reaches the CTA, they already understand what the process looks like.
I went through some surety bond quote flows this week. Saw these mistakes reoccurring:
1. Bond Agencies ask for almost all details before showing a price estimate. The user knows what that means. Someone's going to call before they see a number. So they drop off.
2. They profess a quick bond buying process, and a few start out simple, but quickly get more complex. Bond buyers settle into a rhythm, which is broken by the complex step and so does their patience.
3. They ask for critical user information (government IDs etc) at step 5, after the user has already completed 4 steps and handed over their contact details.
I designed the Sured quote flow the other way around. Price estimate first. Simple, consistent steps throughout. Eligibility questions upfront so nobody hits an unexpected wall.
As a surety bond agency founder, If you haven't gone through your own quote flow as a customer this month, do it today.
The wall your users are hitting is usually obvious from that side of the form.
Completed the Homepage for Sured, a surety broker agency.
- Ensured the company's credibility was front and centre
- Rewrote the copy to differentiate the product from competition
- Bond buyers know what they are getting every step of the way
- Answered user questions and doubts with targeted testimonials and FAQs
Link in the comments ↓
When auditing websites, I focus on the product's positioning. What is the product's ideal customer looking for? How does this product show them what they're getting?
For Sured, a surety bond agency, I wanted to drive home the fact that bond buyers can trust the product to get the job done.
In addition to copy that explains this, I worked on custom illustrations and animations to create small supportive narratives that build trust in bond buyers' minds.
Continuing the redesign for Sured, a venture-backed surety bond platform.
The original testimonials were fine, but were saying the same thing. Three versions of "great service." So I swapped them for three that each answer a different buyer fear:
- Overpaying? Sured has the lowest price on a $155K bond.
- Slow process? someone got bonded ten minutes after payment.
- Getting rejected? A subprime client, denied elsewhere, bonded here.
The stats had the same problem. 5,000 bonds and 4,500 companies are just volume. But the gap between them is the actual story: businesses come back.
Small reframes like this are the difference between a section people scroll past and one that actually builds trust.