31 Jan 2023
Anonymous employee
Gembah Response
3yLetting good people go is the worst part of running a company. It was certainly not anyone's goal to hire people, only to later let them go. I realize it's a frustrating and disappointing experience for the employee. Let me just address a few of the claims here and provide a bit of background.
Gembah grew very quickly in 2019 - 2021. We expected that to continue with 100% growth in 2022, and had hired consistently with that expectation, but when the economy turned, and e-commerce was hit especially hard, our growth slowed considerably. At the same time the fundraising climate turned frigid almost overnight, with VC funding down significantly year over year.
In a situation like that, a company really only have one option: to reduce cost to extend runway. in an effort to reach another funding event, or to get profitable. That's what we did at our company, just like thousands of other technology businesses did all over the world. I understand that doesn't make it any less painful for the individuals impacted, but dealing with this challenging reality was certainly not limited to Gembah.
Sincerely.
Henrik Johansson
Co-founder and CEO