And then
> We even took all of our employees to Hawaii to celebrate
This is an interesting juxtaposition within the same paragraph. I hope I'm not out of line for reading this as, "Let's celebrate our thriftiness that led to people becoming suddenly unemployed by splurging on an extravagant vacation!"
I'm not sure I see where this "year later" is derived from in the article.
This is what the relevant section of the article says as I read it now:
After 4 months of failed pitches (in a process we organized poorly) the only option we had left was to cut expenses and break
even (here is how to organize a good process). We let a lot of good people go and doubled down on generating the advertising
dollars we needed to stay alive. Within 2 months we went from burning $250k a month to making $100k a month and we ended the
year at $8m in revenue and $1m in profit (Suhail, co-founder of Mixpanel, describes that tactic in a great tweet). We even
took all of our employees to Hawaii to celebrate
If t0 was in late June, the delta between the 6-month ordeal and the celebration would have been zero. If t0 was in early January, it would've been six months. (Plus/minus a month depending on calendar/fiscal year.)
I still wish the article was more clear about the timeline.
First was hard time where they had to let go people.
Second was for people who stayed and worked hard to make it profitable.
The article stated a 2 month difference toward profitability, and provided no other frame of reference for the (immediate? eventual?) Hawaii getaway. They do mention at "the end of the year" but there is no information stated about when this 6 month "get out of the tailspin" process began in the [calendar/fiscal] year, so that's non-helpful.
Without additional context, that's a single digit number of pay cycles between, "Surprise! You're laid off to save the company" to "We can afford a lifestyle of excess".
I mean, I would hope that it didn't go down this way, and the paragraph was just written awkwardly. If the author wants to make that clearer, I'd be happy to listen.
But as that blurb stands now, it reads as a casual dismissal of the "good people" let go at best, and a slap in their face at worst, which isn't a good look.
> 1. staff up
> 2. let your employees go
> 3. profit
> 4. give tips on the internet that you shouldn't staff up
> 5. stop to look into a mirror because you don't have any integrity whatsoever
I hope he just forgot to mention that there was a <minimum time to let it seem reasonable and humane> duration between the firing and the holiday.
- Founders?
- Venture Capitalists?
- Startup Employees?
- Internet commenters from all over the world?
- All of the Above?That doesn't mean it isn't bad to lay people off in a startup; it's horrible. And it means the founders did something wrong (hired too many people, didn't have a good business model, etc).
But it should be understood that the entire company can disappear in 6 months if its a new startup.
I agree.
> I joined a Big-whatever company because of the stability. If I was going to join a small startup, I'd be aware of the instability.
I concur with your reasoning.
> That doesn't mean it isn't bad to lay people off in a startup; it's horrible. And it means the founders did something wrong (hired too many people, didn't have a good business model, etc).
100%
> But it should be understood that the entire company can disappear in 6 months if its a new startup.
That's fair.
But just because something should be understood, doesn't mean it necessarily is understood by all parties. Assuming "ought implies is" is how a lot of dangerous mistakes happen.
I'm sure it's possible that there are people who have never heard any of the statistics about how many startups fail, who have never worked at a startup, don't know anyone who has, never talked about a coworker who left to work at a startup, and who go through the recruiting process without anyone mentioning it.
It's understood by everyone else, though, so I think that qualifies as "well understood" generally.
For a B2C company, you can usually find out about the number of customers, growth rate, etc. if I am coming in on a senior level, I ask those questions.
Well not really, in the current technological climate, I really don’t worry about job stability. Jobs are a dime a dozen for developers and I get benefits through my wife.