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14 October 2008 3 Comments

Startup Layoffs — The Unkindest Cut

Last week, Seesmic let seven of its 21 employees go — a full third of the company. Were they in a crisis? Depends on how you look at it. CEO Loic LeMeur had raised $12M, a Series B $6M of which came in June. But do the math: 21 employees, fully loaded is around $200k/month. Tack on bandwidth, storage, other hosting costs, legal and other services, marketing expenses, T&E . . . expenses are upwards of $300k/month. And with negligible revenue, that’s pure burn. At that rate, Seesmic would hit the wall in just over a year.

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3 October 2008 Comments Off

Chapter 11, Pt. 1: To File, or Not to File?

It’s a timely topic, but when asked to detail my experience with Chapter 11, the line that came to mind was from the end of ‘Misery,’ when James Caan is lunching with his agent: “Gee, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were asking me to dredge up the worst horror of my life, just so we could make a few bucks.”

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