Market-wide designers prosper creating web pages for advisers

An investor wouldn’t hire a financial adviser who knows nothing about mutual funds, so why would an adviser hire a website designer who doesn’t know a price-earnings ratio from return on equity?

That’s the question Jonathan Bentley thinks advisers ought to be asking. He is one of several entrepreneurs who have carved out a niche in a new segment of design.

His New Port Richey, Fla., firm, Lightport Advisors Inc., caters to companies that want World Wide Web designers who know finance as well as html. Principal competitors include AdvisorSites Inc. in Jericho, N.Y., and Advisor Square. com in Hermosa Beach, Calif.

“When you are talking about posting portfolio results, you cannot afford to have anyone hack in,” Mr. Bentley says. “People who provide financial services like to have professional validation. It has to be serious; it has to be bulletproof. ”

Mr. Bentley was a stockbroker for 18 years with Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. before starting the firm in 1997.

“I was feeling like, with the Internet, I didn’t know how to give good advice anymore. I felt a disconnect, so I decided, instead, to do this for other brokers,” he says.

driven by consumers

Indeed, the financial services sector is thought to be one of the fastest-growing segments of e-commerce, a market driven by consumers.

In fact, New York research firm Jupiter Communications estimates assets in online brokerage accounts will increase to more than $3 trillion in 2003, from $415 billion in 1998.

The number of households trading online is expected to grow to more than 20 million in 2003 from 4 million in 1998.

Many planners who want to get on the web, however, don’t know where to start.

For 13-member Sand Hill Advisors Inc. the thought of launching a website was “overwhelming,” says Connie Robles, manager of corporate administration for the Menlo Park, Calif., firm.

“We’re in the heart of Silicon Valley and we have many tech-savvy clients. They want access to us 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” she says. Sand Hill, which manages $240 million, hired Lightport to design a website for the firm. It built the site in less than 30 days.

By having lots of customers, Lightport can also afford to offer extras, like stock quotes from quotes.com, a service for which it pays $10,000 a month, out-of-reach of most individual advisers.

Lightport focuses on midsize financial planning firms that have relatively similar demands for a website and limited Internet budgets.

By creating a template for the site, Mr. Bentley says, he can charge far less than a designer who would create an adviser’s site from scratch.

When Jim Denney, president of Mohawk Asset Management in Schenectady, N.Y., priced web designers, bids ranged from $25,000 to $30,000; Lightport’s was $3,000 to $4,000.

But the template approach isn’t right for everyone, says AdvisorSites founder Andrew Gluck, a journalist.

AdvisorSites, which has six employees, creates websites for planners with links to financial news sites, as well as delayed stock quotes and other information.

AdvisorSites has 50 clients, many of whom pay a $2,000 annually, and 50 sites in development.

This year, Lightport expects to earn $1.3 million and projects an increase to $4 million for 2000. The 40-employee firm has 300 clients, who manage $110 billion.

Next year, Lightport plans to change its software to permit more customization without significantly increasing the cost. AdvisorSites plans to create templates to help streamline web page creation.

But Mr. Bentley says creating websites that look different from the rest is just one online concern.

“Like a book, the cover will get people’s attention, but they won’t read it unless it is well written. The content that goes on the site has to be there. It’s not about being flashy.”