The topic of SoundCloud’s shaky financial future has been covered here often in the past. And the latest news to come out of the Berlin-based music/podcast distribution company doesn’t do much to improve SoundCloud’s outlook.
A Hacker News user known only by the username throwaway-sc posted this question to that website’s message board:
SoundCloud has deferred salary reviews until the next funding round is complete.
Over the last few years, travel between offices has been restricted to business critical travel only. More expensive food items have started disappearing from our kitchen.Employees used to get a small bottle of champagne on their birthdays & employment anniversaries. This doesn’t happen anymore.
All of the above feels reasonable.
However, they recently announced that the July 1 salary review that everyone was promised will be deferred. There is no information about back pay or a date about when the next salary review will happen.
Salary increases are predicated on the next round of funding. They anticipate that the round will close over the next couple of months, if not weeks.
I’m sure that everyone here will have been in similar situations before.
What did you do? And, how did you decide whether to continue working or start looking for other opportunities.
It’s worth noting that this is an anonymous post on the internet. There’s no way to confirm its authenticity. In the replies that follow the original post, other Hacker News users condemn throwaway-sc for even mentioning his employer’s name.
But if this post holds any voracity, it proves what we probably already knew; SoundCloud is still struggling financially and will need to raise more funding in order to keep going. The company’s already gone thru multiple rounds of venture capital and debt funding. How much longer can SoundCloud continue to operate on borrowed cash?
Probably the worst kept secret there is. 😉
It’s an amazing platform for DJs. Surprised YouTube hasn’t started up an audio-only version of its service to compete with them. Licensing is different, of course, as is serving ads, but whoever figures it out and can monetize it is going to win big.