Four self-contained homepage builds — each a complete answer to a different question about who MBO is on the web. Same hero copy, same content, four different visual postures. Open each one. Tell us what's working — pieces from any of them — and we'll combine those into the direction we build from.
Open each direction in a tab. Each is a fully built homepage — not a mock. Scroll the whole page. The token panel at the bottom of each shows the underlying system: palette, typography, button language, atmosphere note.
The hero copy is identical in all four. Same headline, same lede, same sections, same industries, same Cannabis ESOP Architect feature — pulled verbatim from your current site. The only thing that changes is the posture: how MBO presents itself visually.
You're not picking a winner. The most useful feedback is "I love the X from 02 but the Y from 03" — direction-by-direction approval is rarely the right answer. We combine the working pieces in the next pass.
An editorial-document register. Source Serif headlines, JetBrains Mono eyebrows, deep navy on parchment. Built for institutional readers who arrive informed and want substance, not sales.
Open direction →Charcoal canvas + signal lime. Fraunces 144 italic set big. Cinematic full-bleed photography from MBO's actual industry library, treated grayscale + lime-overlay. Built to feel like design press, not a financial site.
Open direction →Cream + forest + copper. Newsreader oldstyle italic for the editorial register. Eyebrow-anchored sections that read like a careful long-form publication. Built for the owner who isn't shopping; they're considering.
Open direction →Lavender + lemon + bone. Instrument Serif italic. Gradient mesh hero, soft floating cards. Built for the owner who is imagining what's next — and wants their advisor to feel like that, too.
Open direction →| Criterion | 01 / Modern Advisoryref · nfx | 02 / Cannabis Architectref · n49p | 03 / Editorial Warmth ⭐ref · vergia | 04 / Atmosphericref · anima |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Posture | Quiet authority | Bold manifesto | Warm editorial | Atmospheric · aspirational |
| Above-the-fold thesis | "We are the institutional read of ESOP advisory." | "We wrote the cannabis playbook. The book is the proof." | "This isn't a transaction — it's the next chapter." | "What an ESOP could feel like, not just what it does." |
| Best-for buyer | Institutional, seasoned operators arriving informed | Cannabis operators, contrarian founders | Family-business, multi-generational succession | Forward-thinking owners imagining next chapter |
| Type personality | Source Serif 4 — modern document | Fraunces 144 — heavy editorial drama | Newsreader — warm oldstyle italic | Instrument Serif — delicate aspirational italic |
| Color temperature | Cool · navy + cream | Charcoal + signal lime | Warm · cream + forest + copper | Pastel · lavender + lemon |
| Imagery dependency | Low — text-led | High — cinematic full-bleed | Medium — humans-in-place | Medium — organic / abstract |
| Build effort (CMS / framework) | Lowest — content-CMS | Highest — photo curation | Medium — eyebrow rails | Medium — gradient meshes |
| Differentiation in market | High — most ESOP sites are template-WordPress | Very high — no cannabis-finance site looks like this | High — almost no advisory firm risks the editorial register | Very high — almost zero finance sites in this palette family |
| Cannabis prominence | Featured (one section) | Lead — book + Darren is the face | Featured (warm rail treatment) | Featured (highlighted chip) |
| DW/Co. read | Strongest foundation. Lifts content authority. |
Boldest pitch Cannabis-led brand reset. |
Strongest warmth. Sells succession + people. |
Strongest differentiation. Risk: too far from current. |
Direction 01 is the firm's truth: MBO publishes a deep ESOP playbook (the article library on the current site is already substantial), and the institutional buyer arrives already informed. The 01 register honors that.
Direction 02 is the firm's edge: Darren wrote The Cannabis ESOP Architect, ran the first fully ESOP-owned cannabis company, and made 280E irrelevant. No competitor can claim that. The 02 cinematic + signal-lime treatment makes that edge unmissable above the fold and on the cannabis surface.
The build path: 01 architecture, 02 hero + cannabis page. Editorial document on the inside; bold magazine on the outside surfaces that buyers land on first. Direction 03 contributes a warm tone for industry-vertical pages that tell succession stories. Direction 04 is the strongest single visual differentiator if the firm wants to fully break from finance-services aesthetics — but it's a brand reset, not an iteration.
30-min call. Walk the four directions together, capture which pieces land for the team — "the hero from 02, the industry list from 03, the article cards from 01" — feedback is combinable, not a vote.
One direction merged from the team's working pieces. Token system locked. Photography sourced. Content audit against current article library + cannabis playbook positioning.
Production build on Eleventy or Astro with a lightweight CMS so the team can self-edit copy and ship articles independently. Vercel preview deploy from day one for live review.
Domain cutover, redirect map, handoff documentation. Editing guide for the team. SEO migration plan for the existing article library so rankings carry forward.