Eric Siu examines why startups spend recklessly after raising big funding rounds. Sequoia-backed companies like Ahrefs blow money on sponsorships and event stunts to grab SEO mindshare, but Siu questions whether that's actually the smartest use of capital.
I think it's a great product. I will say this too, when you raise a lot of money, you are inclined to spend that money too because they raised a lot of money from Sequoia and they go heavy when it comes to sponsorships, sponsoring events, and like having speakers there, having a big presence there. If they're not sponsoring MozCon, you know what they did when I spoke at Ahrefs? They sponsored trucks driving around telling people to stop using Ahrefs. The amount of heads they had there, I think it had to be 6 to 8 people or something like that for a 1-day event. I think that's quite a bit. They had a sponsorship booth. They're the marquee sponsors for that. They had a speaker there as well. I think that's a lot of resources that they have outputting for these things right now, just to maybe own the mindshare of the SEO space. You want to be frugal, even though you've raised a lot of money. I like how aggressive they are, but I'm not sure it's the best use of money. That's just my opinion.
