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Comment by suhail | Hacker News Reader

Hey everyone, I am one of the founders at Mixpanel. Layoffs were tough on us, we did over hire a bit, and wanted to make the company more lean. We are deeply sorry for those that are no longer part of Mixpanel - they were our friends and co-workers that we continue to miss.

I am happy to answer any questions that I can.

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Should the preverbal hit the fan, would you open-source the code and have a paid support plan... should all else fails to monetize this?

Not sure why the down votes. I don't know the balance sheet of the company. Also lots of other companies like Aerospike open source their code and make money from support plans.

We aren't having trouble monetizing the business. Our revenue projections remain the same even though we let some staff go and we are doing fine on that end. Mixpanel isn't going anywhere if that's your concern. If anything, we are investing a lot more in engineering, product, and design to make our products a lot better for all you.

It's too early to say what we'd do in an outcome like that. I certainly wouldn't want to see everything we've built go to waste.

How are you investing a lot more if you let people go?

The article says they mostly fired sales people.

So they are hiring other people? That doesn't address my question.

> He confirmed to TechCrunch that 18 people were laid off, mostly in sales.

From the original article

Which is odd. Sales people don't cost much. They either pay for themselves or they're let go quickly. They're not usually let go in a group like that. Usually engineers are cut early; they cost more. Not trying to pick a fight, I've just been through layoffs before and this is how the finance team always justifies their cuts.

If things are going bad, the engineers become assets for a potential aquisition. I've never seen engineers let go when things get dicey. Almost everyone else is let go first.

That's probably a sign of frothy (dare I say bubble?) times. The opposite is usually the case. Cut the engineers and outsource the work was the M.O. for a decade+.

Can you share the presentations you made to prospective investors? I'm particularly interested in how you estimate the market size for your product.

(Not related to them, just read the original source on VentureBeat)

presentation (2014): http://www.slideshare.net/metrics1/mixpanel-our-pitch-deck-t...

original source of the news: http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/08/mixpanel-starts-2016-with-...

Hey, all the numbers are redacted!!!

As I mentioned I just found the link in the venturebeat article, ask their CEO for more data.

About half of the numbers are redacted, but you can see if it's a single digit or a double digit number. And you can read in the 2015/2016 plan on page 10:

  * 3x sales headcount and rapidly race towards distribution
  * Reduce sales ramp time by 30-50% via sales enablement
  * Double headcount every 6-9 months

It doesn't add up with the "He confirmed to TechCrunch that 18 people were laid off, mostly in sales"

A company deviating from the plan they outlined 1-2 years ago. Shocker.

Are you the person to contact if we have potential job leads for anyone that was let go?

Yes - email in my profile.

Curious to know which Sales reps got let go. SDR's or AE's? or a mix?

Did you fire after they finished development or during? At what point did you realize that you did not have enough income to support that many? How much were you expecting to make by this time?

You seem freindly but these questions are often left unanswered. Im usually led to believe companies are looking for contract workers but hire sallery because what is available isnt what they were looking for. Nothing personel, just a pattern

From the article most of the people let go were in sales.

Hi Suhail! I love MixPanel and think you guys really know how to time your new features. I'd love it if MixPanel could offer prices adjusted to foreign currency (similar to Steam?) I live in Brazil and the recent devaluation of the BRL to the USD has made MixPanel prohibitively expensive.

what package are you giving to the laid off?

Likely under NDA. Curious why you're curious :)

It's easy to pay lip service like "We are deeply sorry for those that are no longer part of Mixpanel". I would be interested more in "Show me the money" like talks.

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