Blaming rocky public markets, S.F.-based Optimizely cuts 10% of staff
Mar 10, 2016, 2:44pm PST Updated Mar 10, 2016, 2:55pm PST
INDUSTRIES & TAGS Technology, Career & Workplace, Venture Capital, Jobs, Workplace
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Annie Gaus
Reporter
San Francisco Business Times
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San Francisco-based Optimizely, the optimization and A/B testing platform for businesses, said it laid off 10 percent of its staff, amounting to 40 people total.
The cuts affected all departments, CEO Dan Siroker wrote in a blog post.
Optimizely
Rank:No. 2, large companies
Score:93.95
Number of Bay Area employees:274
Top Bay Area executive name and title:Dan Siroker, CEO (pictured)
How would you describe your company in 30 seconds to someone you meet at a cocktail party?
Optimizely is the industry leading experience optimization platform providing A/B testing, targeting and optimization for websites and mobile apps. The platform's ease of use and speed of deployment empowers organizations to conceive and run experiments that help them make better data-inspired decisions. In 5 years we’ve grown to become #1 in the category with 8,000+ customers including Microsoft Bing, NBC Universal, and Bleacher Report. We've raised $88 million to grow both in the US and internationally, opening offices around the world.
Tell us three specific ways you ensure all of your employees know they are valued.
The key to building a great team is culture. A great team is based on a meritocracy of ideas backed up by data. What you know is more important than who you know. At Optimizely, individuals are empowered to make better decisions that are based on data, not the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion). A culture that is rooted in bottom-up data-driven decision making is critical as we grow and has been critical to our success.
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Optimizely Rank:No. 2, large companies Score:93.95 Number of Bay Area… more
"Given that employee-related costs are our greatest expense, we went through a very rigorous and meticulous process to comprehensively review every role and determine whether that role is essential to our journey at this time," he said.
Siroker cited difficult market conditions for cloud companies as a factor in the decision: "On February 5th, our entire industry got a wake up call," he wrote. "On that day, public cloud companies collectively lost $28B in market value on a single day. Some of the market value has recovered since then, but the market has clearly shifted."
Siroker added that the layoffs are part of the company's efforts to adopt "sustainable business practices" without taking additional venture capital in large amounts. Siroker noted that the company had adopted the sustainability mantle, which included a goal to break even in cash flow, in August 2015.
"Over the last six months we have collectively saved over $1.4M by more wisely investing our resources and we have also become more productive as measured by the revenue per Optinaut, which has grown 26 percent," he wrote.
The company has raised $146 million in funding to date from Andreessen-Horowitz, Benchmark Capital and Index Ventures.
Annie Gaus is the technology reporter for the San Francisco Business Times |
