For years, venture capitalists exuberantly assumed Fab, the online furniture store, could be worth $1 billion, despite mounting evidence that it was difficult to make money off of flash sales. Now TechCrunch reports that Fab may soon be sold to PCH International, an Irish supply chain company, for $15 million "and possibly as much as $50 million."
There hasn't been a single piece of good news from Fab.com in a very long time. Layoffs, mismanagement, plummeting morale, and executive reshuffles have erased Fab's early rep as a cheery decor startup with tons of money in the bank. Now, the bad can't get much worse: we're hearing Fab is already starting to shut down.
Fab will announce its fourth round of layoffs in 10 months tomorrow. The ecommerce company expects to cut 80 to 90 jobs, all from its headquarters in New York. A spokesperson confirmed the decision after Buzzfeed broke the news of an email from the human resources instructing employees not to come in tomorrow.
When Jerry Maguire sat down in front of his personal computer in 1996 to type out a longform business sext entitled "The Things We Think and Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business," did he know that it would take 18 years for another entrepreneur to replicate that kind of startup straight talk express?
When you've got a proven history of colossal failure as a startup founder, it's best to avoid silly, swaggering videos that make light of this fact—remember, you're playing with someone else's money. But three years ago, Fab.com's creators did exactly that—and with the attitudes you see here, it's no wonder they're failing again.
Yesterday, Bloomberg provided the world with one of the first peeks behind design bauble repository Fab's billion dollar curtains. It looked like, for the people quoted, an occasionally miserable place to work? Now Fab's co-founder has taken to his blog to set things right: he's not a scary boss, just a joker!
