What I Learned From Friendster

WN: So it’s a question of taking less so that you can retain more control of the direction of the company.

Abrams: It’s not just about retaining control. It’s about focus. It’s easier to be smart when you have less money.

Of course that sounds crazy because most people think that the risk is reduced and that you can do better when you have more capital. But I’ve seen that it’s easier to make more right decisions when you have less money. When you have a lot of money sloshing around a company too soon, you can blow a lot of it on dumb marketing things, hiring too many people, or the wrong people, or people that the company’s not really ready for — consultants, headhunters, all sorts of stuff. I think when you’re being more frugal it’s harder to do things that make no sense.

It’s all consistent with saying look, we’re still developing the site, we’re still working on our product, that’s our focus. You don’t need 10 million dollars to do that.

WIRED