Amid the crisis, Trell employees look for greener pastures

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“We are preparing just in case by putting out feelers and being open for work. There is no clarity as to how much or who the specific individuals are who have been laid off. The general feeling is that most likely, we have been laid off,” says a Trell employee, a sentiment that reflects the general mood at the lifestyle media company amid news of layoffs and financial irregularities by its founders.
A number of employees are already serving out their notice period and others are actively looking out for jobs.

Moneycontrol spoke to current and former employees, investors and industry watchers to understand the situation at Trell and also how the latest news has affected employees.

What happened?

Trell was founded in 2016 by Pulkit Agrawal, Arun Lodhi, Prashant Sachan and Bimal Kartheek Rebba as a community-based social network to discuss and exchange lifestyle trends. It pivoted to an influencer-led social commerce platform in 2021, entering the live commerce space where competition is heating up and the burn rate is high.

Moneycontrol reported on January 27 that the company was in talks to raise $150 million from a clutch of investors that would value the company at $1 billion. The company’s employee strength also grew over the last couple of years, from a couple of hundred to close to 800, according to a former Trell employee.

But an audit by EY last week found financial irregularities by the founders. This pulled the plug on funding plans, pushing the company to cut costs and lay off employees. The Economic Times first reported the audit by EY and Entrackr reported the news about Trell letting employees go.

According to an employee that spoke to Moneycontrol, after the EY report submission, Trell is now awaiting Board's decision and would be looking at restructuring internally.

A person aware of the developments told Moneycontrol that the company is still in the process of working out the roles that it will do away with and is yet to initiate the layoffs. An employee agreed that while there is a sense within the workforce that layoffs are imminent, they are yet to get official confirmation. “A clarification is expected from the company by the end of this week,” the employee added.

According to multiple sources, content developers and affiliate specialists in languages like Bengali and Tamil are likely the first targets, and many are already looking out.

In response to Moneycontrol’s query, a Trell spokesperson said, “As we have grown rapidly, our first priority is towards ensuring that we continue to work towards building an institution. In order to ensure that our internal systems and processes kept with our progress, we recently conducted a regular review. In light of the findings, the board has taken a decision to focus on a few core initiatives and strengthen our systems/processes before we plan to raise the next round of funding. Unfortunately, this also means that we will have to do some right sizing within the firm. This can entail some roles getting redundant while there will be new roles that will also be added. We remain deeply committed to our stakeholders and aligned to our vision.”

Negativity around the firm

According to investors and industry watchers, this is the most common response when a company is undergoing a turmoil. “The company is in a bad shape and the level of uncertainty is high. So looking out for jobs is the most common reaction, especially around situations like this,” said an industry watcher, who did not want to be named.

In a bid to assure its employees, Trell for its part said an internal communication to its employees said that there is nothing to panic about.

However these layoffs and skepticism around the company might pose long-term challenges. “This negativity will pose a challenge since not many people will be willing to join the firm. So not only will they have difficulty hiring new people, it will also impact their ability to retain the quality employees,” said the industry watcher who was cited earlier.

Helping employees get employment

An executive from a rival firm told Moneycontrol that they have started getting resumes from Trell employees. Staffing agencies Moneycontrol spoke to said that while they are yet to get resumes from Trell employees, they are expecting them in the coming weeks.

A recruitment manager said that while they have already started getting resumes from (US-based online mortgage services firm) Better.com employees, they have yet to receive any from Trell workers, given that the news is barely a few days old. “Unlike Better, Trell has not officially laid off employees. However, we are expecting to receive their profiles in the coming days. When it happens, we will match with the requirements we are already receiving,” he said.

On LinkedIn, many have collected profiles of laid-off employees to share with recruitment managers. Ashok Biswal, strategy manager, MoSahay, which is currently working with e-commerce partners to hire 100 people across sales roles, said in a post that trained employees laid off from companies like Better and Trell can participate in the process for a salary ranging between Rs 6 lakh and Rs 12 lakh for one to eight years of experience.

Akash Bhargava, entrepreneur in residence at Retail Pulse, which works with neighbourhood stores to get them online, in a LinkedIn post shared a form where laid-off employees can fill their details, which would then be shared with recruiters. This is in addition to the hiring Retail Pulse is doing. Miami-based human resources firm Founders Careers is also helping Trell employees get jobs in startups.