OCTOBER 19, 2023 — IT’S OVER! MASS LAYOFFS!
One of the most well-funded ventures has come to an abrupt halt as it shuts down its core business.
From: Dan
Re: Business Update
All,
As you’re all aware, over the past few days we’ve been taking actions to minimize disruptions to shippers and carriers by ensuring that all in-transit shipments get to their proper destinations. Thank you to everyone who stayed focused and got it done. As usual, you guys do amazing work. With that action nearing completion, Convoy will be closing down its current core business operations. Some of our team will continue on to handle this windup transition and potential future strategic options (all whom have already been spoken with), today is your last day at the company.
We hoped this day would never come. We spent over 4 months exhausting all viable strategic options for the business. However, none of the options ultimately materialized into anything sufficient to keep the company going in its then current form.
So, what happened? In short, we are in the middle of a massive freight recession and a contraction in the capital markets. This combination ultimately crushed our progress at the same time that it was crushing our logical strategic acquirer – it was the perfect storm.
Convoy’s tech centric approach to trucking created real benefits. It also created the conditions for a truly scalable technology platform and business model that would have yielded real financial gains when market conditions improve. But in the end, market forces were too strong for us to withstand on our own.
We moved all business levers possible. But we were running up the down escalator…. and it kept speeding up. So despite your excellent work on our product and service innovation, extensive revenue driving efforts, and the painful and sweeping cost cuts you have had to endure, it was still not enough to get us into the financial position necessary to withstand the increasing pressures of the industry, without the need for outside funding.
Alongside this unprecedented freight market collapse, the dramatic monetary tightening we’ve seen over the last 18 months has dramatically dampened investment appetite and shrunk flows into unprofitable late stage private companies. Add to that, amidst these freight and financial conditions, M&A activity has shrunk substantially and most of logical strategic acquirers of Convoy are also suffering from the freight market collapse, making the deal doing that much harder.
The perfect storm.
Following an exhaustive process, spanning many, many months during which we explored all viable strategic options for the business, the result is where we are today. Convoy is closing the doors on its current core business operations and exploring and evaluating strategic options for what might come next.
The work you’ve all done will leave its mark on the freight industry forever. This industry needs to modernize. Shippers want it, carriers want it, and the market wants it. We still believe that this will be the future for this industry.
As I just shared on our call, I think the world of you. Over the past few months I experienced some of the highest highs and lowest lows in business, but throughout it I remained motivated because of the incredible people at Convoy who gave me inspiration every day. You guys rock.
#TruckYeah,
Dan
FEBRUARY 20, 2023 — Original post…
Seattle, Washington-based Convoy, a logistics software company facilitating logistics operations from shipper selection to tracking, has announced it is transitioning to a new customer service business model that will see the closure of its Atlanta, Georgia, office and a reduction in force.
The company declined to list the number of employees targeted for layoffs.
According to Dan Lewis, Convoy CEO/founder...
"This shift represents a big step forward in how we operate, but it comes at a cost. Increased automation and tighter focus have changed our staffing needs.
As a result of this change we will have significantly fewer Atlanta based employees, and we can no longer justify maintaining our current office space in Atlanta. This is a tough decision, as this office has been the home for many of our customer support team members since before-COVID in 2019. We will still maintain a small team of Convoyageurs in Atlanta and we will be developing the right working model for this team over the coming months."
"Along with this change in direction, there will also be some changes to other functions and reductions to other teams around the company. Some of these changes tie to our customer service model changes, and some are tied to running a more efficient business overall and speeding our path to profitability."
While we know that these are the right changes for our business, change is challenging, especially when that change also results in people losing their jobs. Convoy and I don’t take this lightly. It comes with a sense of personal responsibility to make sure Convoy delivers better than ever for its shippers and carriers, and increases the positive impact we are having on the trucking industry and the planet."
"To the Convoy team members we lose today, your passion and talent has made a mark. I am grateful for each of you. And to anyone looking for highly talented individuals to join your team, you’ll find no one better than our valued Convoy alumni."
"I am very grateful for our Atlanta team and I still remember the excitement of getting started there. Sometimes things that are right for the business, like moving to this new service model and eliminating roles, still really suck to do in practice because they impact people that we care about. This is one of those times. Not only are we losing some great people, but with a smaller team we can’t justify the current office, which again emotionally takes a toll as so many great memories happened there!"
This is the third round of layoffs for the company.
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?
