Sunday CEO Christine de Wendel is deciding how she should talk to employees about her startup's layoffs, as job cuts spread across the U.S. tech sector.
Sunday is reducing its team in response to constrictions in the market. Those cuts also include refining its geographical and product focus — a new business model for her team.
Despite the layoffs, de Wendel is trying to remain positive.
"We’re going back to a much more healthy, sane pace of growth where you grow incrementally,” she said Tuesday, as she prepares for a retreat with Atlanta-based employees. “The team is excited because there’s less complexity, less noise, less languages.”
Sunday’s shifting focus from growth to profitability is a growing trend among technology companies and startups. Last year, company valuations skyrocketed based on business growth projections. Many companies rapidly expanded their workforce.
But now valuations are crashing, as investors prioritize revenue. Layoffs are becoming more common to cut costs. In Atlanta, high-growth companies OneTrust, Stord and Terminus have all reduced their staffs.
It's unlike anything de Wendel has experienced, after more than a decade working at successful startups.
“How do you go from being in a bull market where the main thing that matters is gaining market share to being in a bear market where everyone around you is saying shift to profitability?” de Wendel said.
It comes down to a cash management, she said.
Employee layoffs are the first way she's cutting costs. De Wendel declined to comment on how many employees were affected because the process is ongoing. The Atlanta team is minimally affected, she said. As of October 2021, the startup had 170 employees around the world with plans to double its headcount in a year.
Sunday is narrowing its geographical focus to the U.S., United Kingdom and France before expanding into other markets, de Wendel said. It’s also reducing product innovation efforts and instead focusing on its core offering — QR codes for restaurant payments.
“We’re 15 months old,” de Wendel said. “We’re going back to the basics before we start adding extras.”
De Wendel had an explosive entrance into the Atlanta technology ecosystem. Sunday simultaneously launched its product in Europe and the U.S. and raised $124 million within five months. Atlanta Inno named Sunday a Fire Award honoree.
Now, de Wendel needs to make her cash on hand — which includes venture capital investments and revenue — last for the next three years. That’s when her team set a deadline to become profitable.
Despite the market shift, de Wendel hasn’t seen a decrease in demand from restaurants for Sunday’s product. There also hasn’t been a dip in consumer spending.
Rapid inflation is also stressing restauranteurs, but Sunday tends to be in higher demand during difficult times for the industry, de Wendel said. The QR code model allows restaurants with staffing shortages to operate at higher capacities.
