The layoffs at Spot Runner are a lot worse than we expected. Instead of 50 to 75 people, Spot Runner is cutting much deeper—eliminating 115 jobs. Co-founder and CEO Nick Grouf characterizes this as “under 30 percent” of the company’s total headcount (which he declines to specify, but must be at least 384 people). We’ve added them to our Layoff Tracker. The majority of these cuts, he tells me, will come from the company’s local-search advertising business, which came out of the acquisition of Weblistic back in March.
That acquisition turns out to have been ill-conceived. Just because Spot Runner sells TV ads to local merchants does not mean those same businesses want to buy search marketing ads from Spot Runner as well. Grouf is now looking for “strategic alternatives” for the business, meaning he wants to dump it on another buyer.
That is probably for the best. He has his hands full trying to build a technology platform for TV advertising at a time when all advertising is going to take a big hit. Although Spot Runner’s main appeal is to local businesses with limited advertising budgets, it has been trying to scale up by signing on bigger national accounts. Those national sales, however, are not doing so great. One reason for this may be because Joanna Bradford, the high-profile executive Grouf hired from Microsoft to oversee the national sales team, jumped ship in September to go work at Yahoo. That’s right. She preferred taking her chances at Yahoo than stick around at Spot Runner after only six months on the job.
On the bright side, Spot Runner still has plenty of cash in the bank, after raising $51 million last May. But rather than spend it on acquisitions or geographic expansion, it might simply turn out to be staying-alive money until the economy rebounds. Grouf hints that one area he is investing in is his Media Platforms group, which is developing technologies to “improve the way TV advertising is bought and sold.” Making TV ad campaigns as measurable as Web ad campaigns is certainly a nut that has not yet been cracked.
Cracking that nut is a matter of survival for Spot Runner. Otherwise, it is nothing more than a broker of TV ads.
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i never understood that if a company can function minus all those employees why the hell did they need so many to begin with
I think the company was just posturing as a fast-growing successful startup company to attract money and a buyer, msft or goog. It also implied going public by hiring a new cfo.
That’s not to say that many employees didn’t work hard. I know of engineers who spent long hours to meet unrealistic deadlines to deliver their new system. Management claimed customers were already lined up, engaged and ready to integrate. But it soon became clear no one was on board.
Is this company still in business? sounds like a steady stream of bad news, from Joanne bradford leaving after 2 months to numerous rounds of layoffs to a very recent, failed acquisition, how in the world does this ceo, groof, possibly keep his job? This sounds like a FAILED company. Add them to the deadpool!
Seen a mile away, was already watching folks jump to better jobs before the cut. Best of luck to those displaced today.
Lots of great ppl got sent packing today through no fault of their own. I’ve worked with some of them for over 3 years. Others as little as 2 weeks. The whole situation got paired with a message about re-focusing the company again. And on yet another completely different thing. No vision. Founded by a couple of dicks.
Anyway to get intouch with anyone in the Denver area.
I worked there for about a year, moved seats 7 times, went through roughly 4 different managers, never saw software glitches fixed. But i was able to see Nick Grouf roll in at around 11 with his racket and gym bag 3-4 times a week.
I think the one thing that really annoyed me about the last layoff and this one, in addition to the “coffee with Nick” crapsessions, is that it was almost always a glorified finger pointing session.
Lots of good ppl at SPot Runner, Lots of Smart ppl at spot runner. worst managers, directors, and i have ever seen. no clue.
Its crazy how a company was built by such people. Best of luck to those affected.
Btw
Check out http://www.jobstaxi.com
New Jobs. Facebook. Pontis. Digg. Zipcar. Brightfire
…just goes to show, hard work and sweat equity rarely pays off when you have incompetent people at the helm with little to no integrity.
I guess the recession has nothing to do with SpotRunner’s restructuring. Yes, it is the stupid directors and executives. The engineers were simply brilliant, really. If only they ran the company, the company would have a lot more revenues. All of the real rank-and-file employees are great and awesome, but it is the management. What exactly did the real employees do? Apparently build an ad server and not generate sales. Great work. They should layoff 250.
It’s true - there is enough blame to go around. But there were major accounts sold that the company did not have the management to keep. I know this for a fact.
Jennings
Sales did not generate business as the message of what Spot Runner had to sell was changing day to day. You can close sales all day long but if the sales is not backed up with good service and results they are not coming back. Spot Runner did not renew 90% of business.
I agree with much on this board and also agree that Grouf seems like a pump and dump type person.
If SP becomes a technology company, it will indeed have a small chance of survival. But if it continues to be an ad sales broker, it will fold by mid to late next year. Project Canoe along with Google TV will eat it alive. I met Grouf while he was pitching SP to my company (I work for a cable operator) and he’s a technology guy with little understanding of how advertising/media. Good luck to those to were and will be laid off.
Did the business justify an organization of that size? Seems like a big group.
Significant head count was the sales teams distributed across the country. To grow the biz, they were adding sales staff to grow the revenue lineally. Next biggest groups were a sizable engineering group that was mostly untouched in the two rounds of layoffs, but it’s been documented here and other blogs about the massive brain drain there–and finally the creative team that built up all the ads you see on the website.
Mike Metz touched upon a key issue at SR, the ongoing struggle for its identity as either a spin on an ad agency, a technology company through and through, or some amalgam of the two. I’m not sure they know still.
It really is a shame that the folks in the driver’s seat are so clueless when it comes to really running this company. The whole thing about cutting and re-hiring because of the lack of skill-set was never bought by the employees and it’s widely known that the company has a significant burn rate. Regardless of the current economic status, these two rounds of cuts would have happened sooner or later.
of the lack of skill-set was never bought by the employees and
Thank you for your comment
http://www.alqaly.com
would have happened sooner or later.
honestly, the problem at most of these companies is that they have too many engineers. But business-types can never tell what any engineer actually does and other devs won’t throw other devs under the bus. So there is a silent union at most companies that protects engineers even though most don’t have any work. How could 100 engineers have work to do at SpotRunner if there are no revenues.
I’d like to respond to your comments. First of all, there were never a 100 engineers at Spot Runner, so that number is greatly exaggerated. Also, the engineering team always had work to do and stayed very busy for the majority of the time. Whenever they were called on to deliver they did and worked many late nights and weekends to do so. Its a fact that Spot Runner’s engineering team is one of the most dedicated and talented group of people in the Southern California tech community. Please refrain from taking cheap shots at them.
“Really!?!?” is correct in saying that 100 is greatly exaggerated. The point I’d like to add is that when company strategy changes every six weeks, priorities are shifted weekly, and unreasonable demands are made daily, you can have a massive engineering force working 60-100 hours per man, per week, and still have a disastrous tech company. i was not an engineer, but i watched these guys bust their asses, get crapped on, and still stick it out because Nick kept spinning his BS. They deserve better–fortunately, now many are freed up to go find it.
I think they don’t have nearly as many returning clients as CheapTVSpots which is the most award winning internet-based discount TV/web ad agency in the world. Cheap TV Spots has self-funded its international expansion and is hiring while the blog-hyped SpotRuiner is firing. Proof enough that 100 million dollars in funding does not always trump actual quality and value.
You can’t run a creative company with tech geeks and accountants. It’s a cookie cutter approach to advertising and it won’t work. You can’t slap stock footage from getty images and then go after local markets in the US. It’s a wake up call to investors. Make sure you have at least some really great creative folks at the helm and not just business tech geeks looking for fast returns…