Contributed by: ElyseRomano on Tuesday, December 23 2014 @ 09:44 am
Last modified on
Back in May, things were looking good for Zoosk. The company had just filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC and announced plans to raise $100 million in an initial public offering. The website had reached 26 million members across 80 countries, including 650,000 paying subscribers. Revenue was up 63% from 2012 to 2013, rising from $109.1 million to $178.2 million, and net loss had decreased drastically.
These days, the story is a little different for Zoosk. The company just announced major changes in leadership. CFO Kelly Steckelberg will be taking over as CEO. She is replacing co-founder Shayan Zadeh, who will become a member of the board. Zadeh will be joined on the board by co-founder Alex Mehr, who is currently president.
Along with the leadership shuffle, Zoosk is reconsidering its IPO. “Since the time we filed, the market condition around comparables that would be used to help value our company, like Angie’s List and Care.com, have not performed well,” Steckelberg told TechCrunch[*1] . “While the overall market might seem receptive to a public offering, subscription businesses have suffered.”
Zadeh agrees, saying that consumer subscription business are not currently fairing well in the market, forcing Zoosk to table it's plans for an IPO until a later date. He, Mehr and Steckelberg are adamant that the leadership changes have no bearing on Zoosk's decision and are merely coincidental.
Still, however, there is plenty riding on them. TechCrunch notes that Steckelberg is a logical replacement for Zadeh, because “She has experience building internet subscription businesses serving as controller and chief accounting officer at WebEx, joining Cisco as part of an acquisition and later serving as divisional CFO in Cisco’s WebEx consumer segment.” She has also held positions of power with Epiphany and PeopleSoft.
At a time when online dating, especially in the ever-evolving mobile sphere, is hotter than ever, Zoosk's changes stand to have a huge impact. Mehr explains that “Since day one of the company, we’ve been making product decisions over long periods of time. It created more of a top-down approach to design, where people were focused on decisions that Shayan and I were making. Kelly’s approach is more collaborative. She wants to listen to many more voices in the company when it comes to product decisions.”
Can that new collaborative approach keep Zoosk alive – and profitable – in the years to come? Steckelberg is confident. “Zoosk will be in a situation when cash-flow and current cash balance are going to be enough to carry this company forward,” she assures.