Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today
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@tonyshowoff said in Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today:
Me too, and on the user base issue, I've noticed some of the simplest feature requests have been in the queue for many years, that's pretty pathetic, even we aren't that lazy and I'm known for being pretty apathetic toward user desires.
That's a tough one about the queue because officially that's not a queue, it's a feature request system and 99% of the time they turn down the requests. There is no system for telling people that that stuff has been denied, though. So people think it is a queue and feel that it is taking a long time when, in reality, it was probably denied quickly.
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Which is two different issues, of course. One of not producing what customers are asking for; and two of not communicating clearly.
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Similarly they started denying all kinds of regions from getting SpiceCorps starting about a year ago. I know that major regions like Buffalo, Albany and the Hudson Valley were all denied SpiceCorps even when they had people lined up and ready for meetings. It happened in other regions too, I just know that they were turned down in those because I was paying attention.
It was strange because in most markets, people would start new ones where old ones already existed and kill them off by having two competing in one spot. But Albany's closest one is NYC which is two entire regions away, like four hours of travel time and very costly to get into NYC for a meeting (and NYC hasn't met in a long time.) Or in the other direction they only have the Rochester group hundreds of miles to the west. Yet they were denied because those two groups were "so close." Yet others were allowed that were all in the same town. Strange.
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@aaron said in Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today:
This is really tough for me to hear. I know affected people and wish the whole team the best.
Yeah, it's not just layoffs but a lot of people that we all know... many that we've known for a really long time. People that I hung out with at my first SpiceWorld in 2009 have been let go.
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That's hard for those who has been
firedlet go. And 12% is something to take seriously.Is there something more going on?
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@thwr said in Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today:
That's hard for those who has been
firedlet go. And 12% is something to take seriously.Is there something more going on?
Right now the main thing going on is... letting them know if there are any jobs that any of us know about. It's a lot of people, all in Austin, that are going to need work. Toughest part (logistically) is figuring out what skill sets were let go and where they would fit. SW wasn't an IT company in any way, so it isn't IT people hitting the market but managers, content people, writers, media, marketers, etc.
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The obvious question is... is SpiceWorld Austin still going forward? I assume so, but it takes a ton of their staff to put that on. It's a major deal and very costly. It seems like there might be risk there that it won't be feasible with so much shift in staff. Of course, they have four or five months to absorb the shift between now and then, but that's a lot of time for additional things to go wrong too if people are exiting.
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@scottalanmiller From a costs perspective, they send too many of their people to that event. In reality, only the support staff, a few salespeople to meet with clients like Scale and McAffee, and the event staff required to help with the event itself are really needed. They have always sent the whole company there, and that's an added 300 meals or so, 300-900 beers per evening, etc. which all adds up.
A more stramlined and focused company is really what they need. Listening to the user base is still something we can dream about.
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How many people to they have?
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@Grey said in Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today:
@scottalanmiller From a costs perspective, they send too many of their people to that event. In reality, only the support staff, a few salespeople to meet with clients like Scale and McAffee, and the event staff required to help with the event itself are really needed. They have always sent the whole company there, and that's an added 300 meals or so, 300-900 beers per evening, etc. which all adds up.
A more stramlined and focused company is really what they need. Listening to the user base is still something we can dream about.
But do they have the needed staff is more the question. Lots of key people gone.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today:
How many people to they have?
I think that they were in the 400 range before yesterday. They lost a ton more than 12%, but the layoff was only 12%.
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Blimey. I didn't realise they were that big. I thought there would be about 50! What do they all do?
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@Carnival-Boy said in Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today:
Blimey. I didn't realise they were that big. I thought there would be about 50! What do they all do?
That's a great question. I've been there a lot and honestly, I have no idea! And I'm guessing at the number, but they have had huge growth in people since they were 250, so 400 is very reasonable and we know that 76 left yesterday according to an inside source. But that number included the 12% laid off plus the number that quit as well, we think, and isn't just the 12% that was laid off since they had a lot of both.
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They are a marketing company and so a ton of the staff are marketing roles. Whether it is physical stuff like graphic artists that make ads to marketing consultants for vendors. Then they have a massive media department that does full TV style production with studios, editing, writing, etc. Then there is the normal IT staff, but that's like three or four people. Lots of management. Community management I feel was five or six people last that I was there. There is a content generation department. Sales was a huge department. There is a group that does conferences. Account management. Regional management. And then there was a group that made the software too and that team was enormous. You'd think that it was just one or two people but they had dozens of them; even almost ten years ago. What they all do we could never figure out, but there were tons. Then there is product support teams, Q&A and stuff like that.
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Amazing when you think that WhatsApp still only has 55 employees (according to Wikipedia).
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@Carnival-Boy said in Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today:
Blimey. I didn't realise they were that big. I thought there would be about 50! What do they all do?
App & software development
Marketing the app
Marketing the community
Community software development
Vendor management/relationship building
Content creationNow, add to that the support staff. Secretaries, bug testers, support techs, graphic designers, accountants/legal.
My biggest worry about Spiceworks was posted here:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/post/5006409"Why do you need so much money?
At Spiceworld London, as part of the CEO presentation they talked about the huge funding you received previously and recently you confirmed another huge set of funding.
Is Spiceworks in profit? Why is money still being poured into it? Has it not yet reached a self sufficient level?"
Not even a year has passed since I asked that question and look what has happened.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Spiceworks let go 12% of their workforce today:
Not even a year has passed since I asked that question and look what has happened.
That question has been brought up every single year since day one. Why so much money, so much debt, so much external ownership when they had clearly grown as big as they possibly could (their numbers were showing bigger than the entire potential marketplace so there was truly nowhere to go) yet kept taking it on as if there was more growth to be done... but there was nowhere to go. No idea where they thought sustainable revenue would come from. But VCs like to just up the ante, go IPO and let the buyers deal with sustainability. But you have to survive to IPO.
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What I can't believe is that when something horrible has happened to loyal, long term staff without any warning, and in the most awful way with no options.... they have users congratulating them for how well they handled it (as if there was ANY option to not be public about this as it was going to be public minutes later from the laid off staff anyway), and people talking about how reorgs are natural in healthy companies and stuff. The degree to which people will bow down and worship that company... even to the point of what feels like open mocking of the poor people who just got the shaft... is a big sickening. Did they do something good by admitting in the eleventh hour that they were doing layoffs when their back was to the wall and had no reasonable choice not to... not in the slightest. Is this a strategic move to take the company in a new direction? Not at all, they are out of money and suddenly need to contract in the hopes of revenue not falling short of expenditure.
And it isn't like they were fully transparent. Yeah 12% were laid off, but they leave out that they've been firing before this group; major people were let go recently. Then the 12%. Then a large walk out (no one is mentioning that one.) Then more let go hours after this announcement. Um... transparent? People will say anything to make it sound like something good has happened. It's really upsetting the things that people will say to praise them when they haven't even looked into the situation. Bottom line, a lot of good, hard working, loyal people just got the shaft with zero warning and absolutely no transparency when people on the outside knew this was coming for a long time.
It's adding insult to injury to have all these people "hurt" and the company that mistreated them for years by keeping this all a secret and then a zero warning layoff when they were told everything was going great being praised for how well it handled it. It's honestly pretty mean spirited, IMHO.
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There are a lot of good replies too, people sorry for the state of things and sad that so many people were let go. But there are just way too many trying to spin this into a positive thing making it another "SW can do no wrong" moment when clearly, this is just a negative that could not have been avoided at this time. Companies contract, it happens, but it sucks especially for those made redundant through no fault of their own. People are acting like they were dead weight that was dragging the ship down. It's as if they want SW to be so blameless that they will attack those already hurt in order to make SW look good. Argh, makes me very upset. Especially when someone was fired after the layoff round just for telling the truth to the remaining staff! They literally fires someone for being transparent last night... and continue to get praise from people that they are duping for being so transparent!
