Tags : seesmic
Seesmic lays off an additional seven employees
Social video service Seesmic has announced further job cuts today, in what founder Loic LeMeur describes as a getting “Seesmic ready for what most are anticipating to be a bleak economic outlook for the considerable time going forward.” Full video above.
LeMeur did not specify which seven employees would be looking for new jobs, but the announcement follows three employees working in content creation being put off by Seesmic mid September.
It’s a smart move by Loic, that cuts the cash bleed at Seesmic at a time where no one quite knows what the future may bring. Expect lots and lots and lots of similar announcements from startups in the coming days, weeks and months.
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On FriendFeed, this post was liked by 12 people and commented on 11 times hide-
Morning Duncan. :)
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I'm going to hang out with Loic right now for an hour or two. This is just the first shock in San Francisco. Many more to come.
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Robert: The lay-offs were coming long before the crash... Even *I* know this and I'm not a Social Media expert. :\
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Proactive layoffs. I know it makes business sense but to me it still seems harsh.
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Phil, it does make sense. Running a business like this isn't a charity, and likewise, there's nothing harder in the world than laying off people, so it's not something Loic would have even remotely enjoyed
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I am sure that Seesmic leadership made cost cuts in every possible way before making this decision.
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bummer, good people there
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he blames it on the "recession" but it is because he has no income, living off of vc's
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Gregory: there's a hint of truth in what you say, but that's about it. Yes, he's living off of VC funding, but he needs to have a shot at returning their money. That isn't going to happen with an "advertising" business model in the next two years. So, he needed to go back to the drawing board and that required making sure he had enough runway to do that. VCs don't care about income, if there were exits going on (there aren't right now, so that door is closed, which is forcing a different approach).
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I feel completely sick to my stomach. Robert's right. This is only the beginning. I left a blue badge position at MSFT back in 1999 for a startup called DataChannel. They had just gotten a $45M mezzanine round when a couple months after I joined, the dot com crash happened. Since then, I've survived 3 MA events, yet continue in my role as an 8.5 yr tenured Senior Systems Engineer in the enterprise software space. I fear for the current generation of startups fighting to survive. Godspeed!
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As someone who lived through the first bubble and has survived after being layed off of 3 previous dotcoms and avoided more layoff rounds than I can remember, I feel for all the folks that will be affected by this second coming. I don't think things will be as bad this time, and I'm glad that the current climate and social media has forced more transparency as Loic has so honestly demonstrated. We are a little wiser this time around.
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