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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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

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

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).

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???

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

ROFLCOPTER ??

The site even allows single letter searches.