Mahalo Lays Off 10 Percent of Workforce
By Anna Johnson on October 24th, 2008Mahalo, the editor-driven-search-engine-and-wiki-all-in-one founded by Jason Calacanis has laid off just under 10 percent of its staff. It has also cut other expenses and made other changes in an effort to give ‘Mahalo another year of ‘dry power’ (or runway) to complete our mission.’
Writing about the cost-cutting measures in his blog on Wednesday, Jason said the cuts were based on the challenging economic environment, and his view that the advertising climate will be severely depressed for the next two years.
He said that although Mahalo had a significant amount of cash on hand (presumably a lot of the $20 million the company originally raised), and was ahead of schedule in terms of traffic with 4 million unique visitors per a month, the measures would allow the company to operate past 2012 even if it never made any advertising revenue.
According to Silicon Alley Insider, Jason wants Mahalo to be generating 10 million to 15 million unique visitors per month before it sells ad inventory.
While Jason said 10 percent of Mahalo’s workforce were let loose, a former employee told Silicon Alley Insider that 11 of Mahalo’s editorial staff and two developers were laid off, with some of the positions to be rehired in the Philippines.
Silicon Alley Insider calculated this to be a third – not ten percent – of Mahalo’s staff. Evidently the variation is based on a misunderstanding of how many staff Mahalo actually has. According to Jason Calacanis, post-layoffs, the company will have 70 permanent staff, as well freelancers.
Sources: Jason Calacanis, “Tough times, hard decisions”, Calacanis.com, October 22, 2008, Nicholas Carlson, “Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo Fires People”, Silicon Alley Insider, October 22, 2008
