Outside Inc layoffs

[Karvalo]

If you read Wade Wallace's tweets -CT was profitable before he sold it to Outside. That situation will undoubtedly have been hurt by recent falls in online ad spending but I think the general understanding is that Outside have wrecked a viable business.

That's the thing eh. CT is a well established business that was clearly successful and sustainable at its current scale before the takeover. Problem is now that the site needs to be profitable against both its own running costs and the money that Outside borrowed to buy it. And the people who get shafted are those whose work made it a profitable, desireable business in the first place.

[TobinHatesYou]

Various Outside financial failures certainly don’t help the situation…*cough* NFTs

[maquisard]

Indeed, anyone who thought 'investing' in NFTs was a good idea is a fool!

[LeDuke]

Various Outside financial failures certainly don’t help the situation…*cough* NFTs

Holy hell, really? The ol’ NFT ponzi?

It’s kind of amazing how many really dumb people find themselves with large amounts of money.


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[kode54]

I signed up way back just to support Dave Rome and James H.

Now, with Dave gone, I’d probably won’t read CT as much as I did…so I. Protest, I would unsubscribe. I forgot how and where I signed up…so if anyone can point me to how they unsubscribed, LMK.

[spdntrxi]

I signed up way back just to support Dave Rome and James H.

Now, with Dave gone, I’d probably won’t read CT as much as I did…so I. Protest, I would unsubscribe. I forgot how and where I signed up…so if anyone can point me to how they unsubscribed, LMK.

at the bottom right of the page there is the red&black CT emblem circle.. click that

I just paid in August.. so. I have a long. way to go, but my cc card is removed

[Stendhal]

I signed up way back just to support Dave Rome and James H.

Now, with Dave gone, I’d probably won’t read CT as much as I did…so I. Protest, I would unsubscribe. I forgot how and where I signed up…so if anyone can point me to how they unsubscribed, LMK.

at the bottom right of the page there is the red&black CT emblem circle.. click that

I just paid in August.. so. I have a long. way to go, but my cc card is removed

Thanks for the tip. Note that if you cancel, the cancellation is not effective until the next payment would be due, so you can read the site in the interim.

[Butcher]

Weird. If the company is losing money, should they wait till all the money is gone, then shut it down or attempt to right a sinking ship? I think we all do this in our personal lives. When times get tough, we usually adjust the budget or get a second job.

Good workers just shift gears. I can say for certain, I've been fired at least three times. Every time I have, I increased my paycheck and enjoyed my job a bit better. I eventually retired at 52 and run a small business. I keep my expectations low, when the money is good, I save it, when the money is bad, I use that savings. Fortunately, I have never dove into my savings.

Give it a few weeks or months, good hard working people still rise to the top. The person who signs the pay check is different, that is all.

Canceling subscriptions are just going to make things worst for the other employees. Rarely ever does that change upper management.

[maquisard]

I work in the technology sector, specifically in the semiconductor industry. Like you I have been subject to lay-offs earlier in my career. When this happened the board of the company chose to maximise revenue and minimise opex. In the engineering world when this happens you lay-off expensive engineers like me and try to sell off as much as the current product as possible. It is an attempt to ride out the current financial difficulty at the expense of the future viability of the company.

Outside have done the same with their titles, get rid of key (and expensive) editorial staff who made CyclingTips what it is today and who steered it to it's current leadnig position in the cycling news space. That will reduce opex for a while but risks the future of the brand. You are right that good people rise to the top, but humans are a finite resource. If the people who previously focused on content creation are now also required to steer the company, then the overall product will suffer. I have never encountered a situation when this isn't the case.

[spartan]

the issue with outside they own too many road based cycling web sites. velonews/cyclingtips/peloton ALL chasing the same ad revenue. they should have kept cycling tips and closed down the rest. instead of having one strong brand they have three dying websites.

[TobinHatesYou]

the issue with outside they own too many road based cycling web sites. velonews/cyclingtips/peloton ALL chasing the same ad revenue. they should have kept cycling tips and closed down the rest. instead of having one strong brand they have three dying websites.

Right, they didn't want CyclingTips. They wanted PinkBike. CyclingTips was just attached to the PinkBike sale. It's a shame they couldn't find someone else to take CT off their hands at the time of the sale.

[kode54]

I signed up way back just to support Dave Rome and James H.

Now, with Dave gone, I’d probably won’t read CT as much as I did…so I. Protest, I would unsubscribe. I forgot how and where I signed up…so if anyone can point me to how they unsubscribed, LMK.

at the bottom right of the page there is the red&black CT emblem circle.. click that

I just paid in August.. so. I have a long. way to go, but my cc card is removed

Thx for that. Like most websites, canceling a subscription involves some effort.

[TobinHatesYou]

Contact veloclub@cyclingtips.com and ask them to cancel your membership immediately. They will give you a pro-rated refund.

[kode54]

This is what I ended up doing. Got a friendly response the next day with pro-rated refund. Canceling on the website will just cancel the renewal.

[Bigger Gear]

The future of cycling brands with Outside will probably end up as two titles: Velonews doing road/gravel/CX and Pinkbike doing MTB/adventure. And anyone with experience and a higher salary will be ousted. The venture capital hawks are slowly picking away the corpse of bike industry journalism.

In his early days at VeloNews I was not a big fan of Caley, but grew to tolerate and eventually enjoy his content and takes and I think his editorial direction at CT was the only thing keeping it from becoming Bicycling. He made an effort to try to remain unbiased by advertising on the site (along with James and Dave R).