What is four months in a life of a startup? An eternity I guess!
Four month ago Digg raised $28 million in a venture capital round and announced aggressive plans to expand globally, translate the site into other languages and move to larger offices.
Now, the San Francisco, Calif. startup – that let’s people discover and share content from anywhere on the Web – will immediately cut 10 percent of its 75-person staff in order to reach profitability in 2009.
Digg CEO and founder, Jay Andelson also said in a blog post that it plans to hire a direct sales team to supplement its revenues from its advertising relationship with Microsoft.
“I’m confident that with commitment and focus on these priorities, Digg will be an even stronger company in 2009 and will continue to create innovative features for our more than 35 million community members,” Andelson wrote.
According to a recent BusinessWeek story, Digg’s revenue was just $4.8 million in 2007, and $6.4 million through the first three quarters of 2008.
I think 10% is a very conservative numbers, especially as Digg relies entirely in its community for “digging” out content and has no editors on staff!
