Etsy Announces Its CEO Is Stepping Down; Plans To Cut 8% of Workforce (techcrunch.com) 34
Etsy is saying goodbye to CEO Chad Dickerson and CTO John Allspaw, and hello to former Skype and Evite CEO Josh Silverman and VP of Engineering Mike Brittain. "The Board decided that it was time for new leadership to take Etsy forward and I support that decision," Dickerson said in the announcement, later adding, "I have the greatest degree of confidence in the long-term growth opportunities for Etsy under Josh's leadership." The press release also outlined plans to "eliminate approximately 80 positions, which is approximately 8% of the total workforce." TechCrunch reports: Dickerson (as well as Allspaw) will remain at Etsy in an advisory role until the end of May. He first joined the craft marketplace as CTO in 2008, then became CEO three years later -- he held the role when Etsy went public in 2015. He'll also be stepping down as chair of the company's board of directors, with Fred Wilson taking his place. When it went public, Etsy stock was initially priced at $16 per share and rose to nearly $35 on the first day of trading, but it was down at $11.39 per share at market close today. Hedge fund Black-and-White Capital LP is urging the company to explore strategic alternatives, including a possible sale.
What? Who? (Score:2, Insightful)
What's an Etsy and why should i care?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It's pretty popular in the 25-35 crowd, especially women. Sort of an online crafts market. My girlfriend has bought jewlery, a cat "house", I bought some walnut building blocks as a toy gift for someone. It's like an upscale Cafe Press. Halfway between.. .Craigslist and Ebay I suppose? There's a place for it on the ecommerce spectrum for sure.
Re: (Score:3)
Careful with that edge there, you might nick yourself by accident....
Etsy is basically a marketplace for people to sell stuff they make themselves. Jewelry, clothing items, house knickknacks, 3d printed items and similar seem to be the more popular. A friend of a friend has a storefront on there and makes about $3000 a month in profit selling necklaces and various accessories through it so it's got some traction.
Re: What? Who? (Score:2)
A friend of a friend has a storefront on there and makes about $3000 a month
My guess is that either A) you're a shill or B} your friend has to resell $4000/month worth of slave labor from Alibaba to hit those numbers...
Re: (Score:2)
Well you guess is wrong. Check my post history and you'll plainly see I couldn't give two shits about Etsy either way. Was just trying to answer someone's question seeing as a lot of people on this site, especially the 7 digit members, had few clues but lots of snark.
As for the "slave labor" bit, who knows. I did say friend *of a friend*, so I've never spoken with her directly but my friend alluded to her creating at least some of what is sold herself. Regardless, I don't really care.
Re: What? Who? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Etsy fee is Twenty Cents per listing for a 4-month listing period.
Re: What? Who? (Score:2)
Hijo de verga. (Score:2)
Tough day to be a Dickerson [cnn.com]
Shocking! (Score:5, Interesting)
The most surprising thing here is that 80 people only comprise about 8% of the workforce. I figured 80 people would be a surplus. What he hell are all those people doing? I realize that websites don't run themselves, but Etsy should mostly be robots, eh? Yeowch.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of these companies seem to have way more people than they need. Craigslist has about 40 according to their current FAQ. Etsy just cut two Craigslists worth of people who are way less productive than CL.
Of course CL hasn't changed its UI in ages; but that's a good thing. As somebody who used to enjoy Yahoo and Flickr, I find myself wishing they'd just revert all the changes in the past 10 years and fire the people who made them. CL doesn't have to do that, because they never hired dead weight in th
News for nerds (Score:2)
Not Suprised Since Many Artists Got Kicked Out (Score:5, Interesting)
I have heard that they kicked out many struggling artists and craft people from their merchant roles and favor those who are resellers.
Apparently Etsy has been inconsistent in enforcing their terms of service and end up kicking out small artists and letting the larger sellers get away with rule violations.
Some friends later tell me that being kicked out of Etsy has been the best thing that has happened to them because they were forced to go out on their own. Going out on their own ended up saving them the 10 to 12 percent commission that Etsy charges and freeing them from Etsy's capricious rule enforcement habits.
If you are an Etsy merchant, get your own setup going - get yourself a merchant account so that you can accept plastic on your own. Get your own website. Learn to market using social media on your own. Then if Etsy kicks you out, you have nothing to lose.
It would be interesting to find out if those being laid off are the ones that are capriciously enforcing the rules and randomly kicking out artists.
Re: (Score:1)
I certainly wouldn't argue against setting yourself up to be less reliant on a single platform, but I'm not sure that going it alone is 'the best thing that could happen' to many users; social media marketing is just putting a different party between you and your potential customers which is going to want your money just for eyeballs instead of sales, being part of a marketplace increases your products exposure to casual browsers which is important if you're not already an established business and/or what y
Why float? (Score:1)
You just take the emphasis away from doing what you do best to making money. And you are no longer in control of your own future. Crazy.
Etsy has a workforce? (Score:1)
I figured it was just run by a few people. This is surprising.