[breaking] Xtranormal lays off 36; half of its staff (18)
Xtranormal (see beta review) which launched with much fanfare a little over a month ago has laid off today 36, which is half of its staff.
Xtranormal invested heavily in research & development efforts in the past year, understandable since they were tackling a new challenge, user-produced videos, but this mass layoff shows lack of planning, focus & guidance from its CEO & founder, Richard Szalwinski, who also did previously Discreet Logic. Many at xtranormal expected him to lead product development but he didn’t. As sources of money & funding disappear, Xtranormal is now forced to downsize its staff. I guess xtranormal’s investors are defaulting on committed payements due to markets crashing left & right, although you have to take that with a grain of salt.
Layoffs are hard times for a company, with remaining staff having lower morale. My thoughts goes to existing and ex-employees, hoping they’ll bounce back.
Richard Szalwinski, who also did previously Softimage
IIRC, Richard Szalwinski did Discreet Logic, not Softimage.
[...] Montreal Tech Watch is reporting that Montreal startup Xtranormal has cut 50% of their staff. [...]
Possible. There’s also the current and worsening Econopolypse affecting everyone, think that might have an effect? Are the Googlers slacking 1000 also showing lack of planning, focus and guidance?
when you layoff 50% or one third of your workforce, imo there’s a problem with the company’s leadership
also this section was not related 100% to the layoff, this has been talked amongst xtranormal companies
I think the next actions are more important than todays.
Xtranormal had three projects on the go: (i) the website, xtranormal.com, (ii) a desktop product planned for release next spring, and (iii) a longer term and much more technically challenging project that was in research phase.
Given the economic climate, we have to use our funding on projects with a shorter path to revenue. Therefore we decided to suspend the longer term project.
The layoffs directly reflect this decision in that the teams responsible for the web site and the desktop product remain intact and committed to meeting their objectives and bringing successful products to market.
Richard Gratton
Director of Product Management
Xtranormal, Inc.
thanks for the details. Good luck for you guys for the website and the desktop products.
First of all, a Montreal start-up without a true revenue model and without sales in the pipeline and a BETA stamp on their site simply can’t justify having over 70 employees on board.
Second of all, I can’t imagine why oh why would anyone in the world want to watch those crappy robot voiced cartoons that all look the same.
And now the economic climate is to blame? Come on! Like there is ever a proper economic climate for senseless burning of massive amounts of cash.
Richard, whatever you say, 35 people are without work because of their leader’s “mistakes” (to remain civil). If I were you I would study the Capazoo case near its end and try to learn from their mistake.
In other words, learn to swim, your ship is sinking.
I’m not sure this is necessarily a result of lack of planning.
As j2 said, cut-once-cut-deep is often the way to go, but it takes guts to make such a bold decision.
Look at slide 49 here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/sequoia-capitals-56-slide-powerpoint-presentation-of-doom/
Capazoo was a fraud from the start.
Xtranormal is a unique and innovative product. Ultimately the market will decide if it succeeds or fails, but it would hardly be a blight against Montreal if it fails.
It’s inevitable that we’re going to have failures if we’re going to have successes.
[Posted by Benny, November 26th, 2008 11:19 am]
Benny, your statement is pointless. As a member of the staff, as many others, I believe in Xtranormal’s adventure. You wrongly interpret the situation. Xtranormal suspends one of its activity to keep going to some others that are expected to better fit the market in a mid-term period.
Regarding whether I’m (as a remaining developer) “actively searching for something better, (…) Ubisoft”… ha ha ha, are you kidding my friend?
Before you answer a gratuitous answer, just to mention that I have strictly no option, no financial interest in Xtranormal, but technical interests.
“If you can’t read it, you can watch it”: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20081127000132429
this is just the sort of times i wished xtranormal had a public blog with more transparency on what they’re doing to defuse stuff like this.
comments closed
comments closed here http://tinyurl.com/6rgxtd 2nd time this has been done; hope it’s the last one
[...] Last week, Xtrnaormal layed off 36 of its staff, as reported in this article. [...]