Brandon Brown |
CEO & Co-Founder of GRIN
Last Updated: November 30, 2022
Earlier today, GRIN’s CEO Brandon Brown sent the following note to GRIN employees
Today we have very difficult news to share. We’re reducing our workforce and in the process letting go of many talented, hard-working, and high-character GRINners. As founders, this is the toughest decision we’ve had to make in GRIN’s 8 year history. For this outcome and the decisions that led to it, Brian and I take full ownership. We’re very sorry to take this action.
All team members will be notified via email shortly confirming whether their position was affected or not. For those affected, you will also receive a meeting invite with your HR Business Partner to address any questions you have and help with the transition.
Below, we’ll share details on how we got here, how we will support those affected, and how we will move forward.
The pandemic brought a boom for ecommerce and social media, and GRIN by extension. We doubled revenue in 2020 and tripled in 2021. Inspired by years of significantly beating our targets, we created big plans for 2022. As a company that prides itself on taking big swings while competing in an emerging category, we felt it was the right move to make big investments and try to capitalize on the momentum.
Unfortunately, the economic downturn, challenges in execution, and industry disruption all negatively affected our results in 2022.
The outcome is that our cost structure is not in line with our revenue. While we have reduced as many non-headcount costs as possible, we also needed to make today’s reduction in our workforce to put our business back on strong footing.
To those leaving GRIN, know this is not your fault. This was an action of last resort. We want to thank you for your time, energy, and contributions to GRIN, and for being an important part of our journey.
We’re doing as much as we can to support those affected during this difficult transition, including but not limited to;
Each person affected will meet with their HR BP today to get all of their questions answered.
This year brought a new, tighter, and tougher macro economic environment. Our customers are feeling the bite of inventory challenges, shipping costs skyrocketing, social ads becoming less effective, difficulty raising financing, consumer discretionary budgets reducing due to inflation, and more. Overall, it is much harder to create and grow a business. As a consequence, our target customers are much more discerning with expenses and so we have to adapt. The tough decisions we’ve made today are necessary to control costs and will set GRIN up to succeed in this new macro environment.
This transition is incredibly hard. But the decision was carefully made, looking years ahead. We are part of a massive shift in consumer attention from companies to people – the shift that is driving the creator economy and our category. The long-term opportunity for GRIN is huge. While we must weather the storm over the near term, we must also build innovation and excellence for the future. I’m confident that if we work efficiently together, we’ll come out of this downturn stronger and more resilient than ever.
Today we are focused on ensuring the GRINners that are leaving us are well supported. I’d just like to say one more time how thankful I am to those of you who are leaving for everything you’ve contributed to GRIN.
Tomorrow, we’ll reconvene as a team for our all hands meeting. There will be an opportunity for everyone on the team to ask questions or share their thoughts in an open forum. We’ll also outline the strategic decisions that got us here, discuss the lessons we’ve learned, and how we’ve adjusted our business moving forward to ensure that we’re set up for success in 2023 and beyond.
