Mail

Friendster's Footsteps

The rise and fall of Friendster is a great reminder of why we're entrepreneurs ["How to Kill a Great Idea," June]. When companies focus only on the money, they are destined to fail. And that can be an especially large blow for a founder who had true passion for the idea.

Friendster's founder, Jonathan Abrams, seemed very candid in admitting the company's missteps. But despite what went wrong at Friendster, I think a lot of things also went right--the problem was that they went right for MySpace and Facebook. As an entrepreneur who is walking down the online social networking path forged by Abrams, I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. He should be given credit for the success other sites have achieved, and will achieve, because without Friendster, the VCs would have never been this turned on about what could happen in the space.

Ray Doustdar
President and Co-founder
TeamDating.com
Los Angeles

Many entrepreneurs believe that a true benchmark of success is the point at which venture capitalists start paying attention to an idea. Jonathan Abrams's experience is an important lesson--part of the lure of being an entrepreneur is being able to work for yourself. When you take venture capital financing, you go back to being a small fish in a big pond.

Marissa Guanio
Owner
Ahead of the Curve Bridal
Austin

Friendster was not the first online social network. In 1997, five years before Jonathan Abrams founded Friendster, a group of us launched a social networking website, SixDegrees (it's now defunct), which was based on the six degrees of separation theory. Around the same time, another social networking site called PlanetAll was launched. (It too is now defunct.) SixDegrees actually filed for a patent on online social networking, and it was granted in 2001.

The main reason our company is not around will probably sound familiar to Jonathan Abrams: Although we were able to get millions of people to sign up, once they did, our users found little to do on the site. (MySpace and Facebook solved that problem.)

Although your article is a good cautionary tale about what can happen when a great idea gets subverted by money and instant success, I don't believe Friendster was a great idea. It simply raised a lot of money and got a lot of press.

We had attempted the same idea years earlier and failed miserably. Abrams just repeated the follies of his forebears.

Mark Salamon
Pleasantville, New York

Deal Breaker

Norm Brodsky definitely made the right decision to pull out of the deal to sell his business ["The Offer, Part Eight," June]. Frank's "negotiating style" is no style at all. It demonstrates his lack of integrity. But Nova's loss is Norm's and his employees' gain. There would have been problems down the road.

I have loved these columns. Thank you, Norm, for sharing and for teaching me so much.

Emily Huling
President
Selling Strategies
Terrell, North Carolina

I have thoroughly enjoyed Norm Brodsky's articles about the almost sale of his business. Brodsky's column is now the first thing I turn to when I get my magazine each month. It has been very interesting to learn about the sale process from an insider's perspective. This recent series touched on several key aspects of negotiating, buying, and selling that I hope will help me avoid mistakes in the future.

Greg Richards
President
Rung Industries
Seattle

Brilliant! What a completely unexpected twist. Are Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham going to start writing novels?

David Rappaport
Jerusalem

I give Norm Brodsky credit both for walking away from the deal and for letting Frank's actions speak for themselves. I would have been tempted to call a spade a spade. Or at least a trowel.

Julia Kline
Chicago

Norm Brodsky made a good call when he canceled the deal. People who waffle and make last-minute changes are negotiating in an untrustworthy way.

Reading this column has been bittersweet. It has been fascinating to see this process through Norm's eyes, and I have enjoyed every update. But I am sorry for the pain this ordeal has caused him and his wife. Norm, I pray that you will find the right decision for your business and employees.

Butch Sarma
Richmond, Virginia

A huge thanks to Norm Brodsky for sharing the gory details with us about selling (or not selling) his business. Since he started writing about it, I've been contacted by a couple of companies interested in possibly acquiring my company, and the things he has shared have made me much smarter about the conversations I am having with potential buyers.

Ron Welty
CEO
IntelliShop
Perrysburg, Ohio

The ongoing saga of Norm Brodsky's potential sale should be required reading for anyone who's considering selling a business. The last installment is one of the few business stories that has had a very emotional impact on me.

Norm did the right thing. If he had gone ahead with the deal, his company culture and family of employees would have been screwed the day he walked away.

Bill Palmer
President
Commercial Casework
Fremont, California

I have a ton of respect for someone who can turn down close to $100 million because he wants the best for his employees. I think that says a lot about Norm, and I can see why his employees weren't upset to hear that he will be sticking around.