Sequoia Capital's redesigned website: a search bar | Hacker News Reader

Sequoia Capital's redesigned website: a search bar

sequoiacap.com

59 pointstlrobinson57 comments

This is possibly the most unusable website I have ever seen. I can't even get to an "about" page. It keeps sending me to a Chinese version of the site.

Yeah all search that doesn't autocomplete seems to redirect to a China version and then use Google search (which has inaccurate links now). On a side note I wonder if they are giving Google an accurate index.

Not me it doesn't. And I found out all about Sequoia Capital by simply typing 'us'. As in USA...the country comes up to the left of the search results to tell you what domain you're searching in.

Incidentally, since SC doesn't have a 'Europe' division, I nominate myself to create it. Well, you never know.

I disagree with your view about the design; it may break all kinds of rules, but I found it eminently usable and intuitive. The only thing I'd add is a history queue, so you can see where you came from rather than going outside the interface to hit your browser's 'back' button. Overall I found it a lot faster to navigate than most sites, including the older one. I approve of this minimalist trend.

I imagine it's usable and intuitive if you know what Sequoia Capital is, but since I didn't, it made no sense at all. How would I know what to search for?

Are you saying there are people who live outside of San Fran/the valley that aren't Apple worshiping, turtle neck wearing, VW driving hipsters? I demand proof.

how about 'what is sequoia capital'? Not being snarky, but I think people underestimate how often a natural language query will work, and how often non-techies use them (although if you don't know who they are, you probably aren't likely to have a relationship with them).

It seems like that would make sense, but when I type in 'what is sequoia capital', I end up at the google results page. Fortunately, it has a link to the Sequoia website as the first result! Unfortunately, that link brings me back to the blank search box page.

The 'us' page does have a (somewhat) helpful snippet, but I can't get to it easily by typing 'about' or 'sequoia' either. Not a bad concept, but I think the execution needs a bit of work.

Well, there's another problem too. If I open a blank text document with the intent of writing some code but I have no idea what I'm developing, I'm not going to get anything written. If you give me a search box, and there's nothing I want to find, why would I type anything at all?

Search is a very crowded space. And someone should ask Sequoia what would prevent Google from doing this?

I don't think this is a defensible model. I think I'm going to pass.

Please tell me you are not serious.

You struck out too.

A better reply might have been:

"No, I think they're onto something. I feel it in my bones. They should grow this thing and worry about a business model later."

Ah crap, I struck out too? At least I got the joke :)

That kind of thing doesn't happen much here. Try reddit. :-)

OK XD

They have obviously reached the point where their reputation exceeds their accessibility.

I had to design a website for a law firm that deals exclusively with high net worth clients. They need to be accessible but they do not wish to be approached by 99% of the population. It's a difficult balancing act.

One of my favorite websites like that is http://www.baupost.com

If that doesn't say "we don't need your business... unless we already have it", I'm not sure what would.

Well, most hedge fund web sites are like that, even the ones that do accept new investors. They're prohibited by law to advertise to the public, so you generally need to email them for a password.

I guess their target audience is simply anyone who manages to find what they need to find and do what they need to do on the site, but still...pretty weird. I'd love to know why they did it? How does making their website into a search engine look-alike help them or their brand?

Because now we're talking about it, and 3 minutes ago, I didn't know what Sequoia Capital was or if it even existed. And look at me now, spelling their weird name correctly and all.

Might not be your world, but they are probably the best known tech VC fund on the planet. They don't need more attention (they probably wish they had less).

Sequoia's new an experiment to dissuade the technically challenged.

I suspect that they will change their website back to something more useable in a week or so.

Requires javascript?

I like it, it's an incredibly good way of determining what the use cases are - what are people coming to the site for? Well we have a couple of weeks of data showing exactly what people are trying to find.

I'd be very interested to see bounce and pages per user metrics from before and after (and during).

Going generally against the grain, I really like it, but this may be because my background is in the arts and architecture. @nir (post below - "incredible pretense and complete incompetence rarely seen until now outside fields like art, fashion and architecture")

Maybe as some posters suggest they want you to know what it is your looking for answers about, I don't have a problem with that.

More interestingly though, has anyone submitted a business plan to SC? How many do you think they get a day? Do they read them all? Do they run through 20 plans in an hour over coffee at 7.00 am each morning?

If you follow their plan submission guidelines, you'll probably end up with a very different plan than the one you've already written. You have already written one haven't you???

The search bar isn't bad, kind of ties in with the business in a cute way.

I'm just sorry to see the old grid design go. It was super spartan, just 50 or so logos and faces of the companies and entrepreneur they backed. It was amazingly impressive if only because EVERY name was a household (at least hacker led household) name. It was almost like looking at a time line of consumer tech.

To boot it was a nice swiss style grid with super restrained graphics and limited color palette. Most VC firms have giant self important photos, crappy flash galleries. Those are the good ones too! The low end look like Front Page monstrosities.

I don't think this will hurt their business an iota, but it's sad to see a classic go.

They might get away with this in their community because the people who actually have business to transact with sequoia will know what to do. However, what about non-digeratti who just want to find out something? Are they now some irrelevant person that no one cares about, awkwardly standing outside of your imposing building?

This is ultimately a throwback to the high-design, austere, textless sites that hit the scene just before Google thankfully became relevant.

I assume that sequoia will revert back to a more sensible approach that conforms with the rest of the world wide web. How long it takes depends on how much kool-aid the relevant parties have sipped.

A broken search bar, at that. I typed "tell me more" and hit enter, and it resulted in a search for "tell me mo." I tried it again, and it searched for "tell m."

I suppose the reasoning behind this is that you don't need to know anything about Sequoia, they just need to know about you. With this black box of a website, they've succeeded in ensuring the former.

and may i ask, why?

probably got tired of being spammed with business plans, so they hid it

Just search for "deck."

Free beer to the first entrepreneur to send the following image saved as a PDF:

http://quinnell.us/sspb/wiki/images/gnomes.png

+1 from me too. I love the SP episode.

Though if you enter "business plan" into the search box you get a pretty relevant page.

Heh I just typed "submit a bus.." and it autocompleted to a really nicely designed page on submitting a business plan (http://www.sequoiacap.com/ideas).

Am I the only person who clicked on the little menu at the bottom?

Almost certain that wasn't there earlier.

Ah now I know why - I was on my laptop earlier which doesn't have a massive monitor and you can't see the bottom menu then.

They're sequoia. They could use animated fire gifs, flashing text, and under construction bmps if they wanted.

Is this what you had in mind? http://tlrobinson.net/misc/sequoia.html

That's missing marquees and a noisy background. (And background music!)

In addition to the bad music (something hamster-dance-related perhaps), you also need a variety of pop-unders.

What the hell is with the lowercase text transform for the entire site? Who thought that would be a grand idea? I guess the same person that made the bottom menu say "clients" but typing clients in wouldn't bring you to the clients page. Or "start" for ideas instead of "ideas."

I thought Sequoia was a bank. After poking around for a moment I realized they were VC. If I didn't know about VC firms, I never would have figured it out. I guess their target market is only people who already know who they are and what they do.

Very unconventional. I wonder who they consider their user base.

I didn't even see the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen, need to scroll down. So I kept refreshing the page because I thought it was broken.

http://www.sequoiacap.com/us/search?q=login

It couldn't find the link in the bottom navbar (https://partnerlogin.sequoiacap.com/)

And these guys are supposed to determine if my web app has a market and chance at succeeding? Sequoia is a joke.

One important difference I noticed, is the focus on the team of Sequoia responsible for each company.

I think I see a startup idea ... build your own Sequoia-like, search-only, barely-usable website

sequoia capital goes lowercase.

capitalization is obsolete: http://jmtame.posterous.com/capitalization-is-obsolete

I like it when people attempt to declare things they don't understand obsolete.

ROFLOL this is horrible, at first glance it looks nice until you try to use it

Why is he downmodded? Try using the site. It really is horrible. Auto-complete occasionally takes over the text box and most search results seem to lead to missing pages.

Looks like the only function of this website is to attract coverage in Wired, TC and the rest of the hyposphere. This is the Bruno of websites (the character, not the movie), a unique combination of incredible pretense and complete incompetence rarely seen until now outside fields like art, fashion and architecture.

I'll downmod 99.999% of all posts that contain 'ROFLOL'. Not trying to be an ass, but we can do better. ;-)

"we can do better.;-)"

ROFLCOPTER ??

Way to accidentally the whole usability!

The site even allows single letter searches.

I came searching for lulz. I found none. :( http://www.sequoiacap.com/us/search?q=lulz

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