

Automattic expects to make $45 million in revenue this year - krogsgard
http://allthingsd.com/20120425/automattic-grows-up-the-company-behind-wordpress-com-shares-revenue-numbers-and-hires-execs/

======
freshhawk
How on earth do they keep such low turnover when these people have to work
with the wordpress codebase?

Black Magic? Holding their families hostage?

Seriously though: I'm very interested in how they manage this company and the
distributed employees as they are obviously doing a lot of things right.

~~~
krogsgard
Every employee at Automattic has a trial period before they announce they've
been hired. It usually includes a test project for designers and programmers.
I'm sure that's a helpful filter. Then, when the employee starts, they spend
some amount of time (I think a couple weeks) doing support, no matter what
their actual job is.

'm sure working from home helps limit turnover too. Also, they work in teams,
and I'm sure that's fun. And I've never noticed anyone mention things like
logging time either - I think they get assigned work and as long as you get it
done, time isn't an issue.

And finally the people that work for Automattic tend to be really really
passionate about WordPress in the first place, so I'm sure working for the
most influential company to the WordPress.org project(Automattic / wp.com),
doing WordPress stuff all day, is pretty awesome.

~~~
cfinke
As an Automattician: yes to all of the above.

Also, I get to work with really smart people that are driven to improve
themselves, their co-workers, and the company's products. That's the #1 reason
for the low turnover.

------
sudonim
"The company is profitable, and expects to bring in $45 million in revenue
this year, according to CEO Toni Schneider and founder Matt Mullenweg."

What's hiding behind that revenue number. The co. is "profitable". Is the
company going to make $10 in profit or $10 million in profit this year?

~~~
krogsgard
Well, they're completely distributed with little physical overhead. With 100
employees and the only other primary cost being servers, I'd guess they're
doing alright.

~~~
codinghorror
Isn't employee salary the #1 expense for most tech companies? And isn't the
rule of thumb about $160,000 per year per employee on average, and that's
assuming high-end engineer types? By that metric they'd need $16 million per
year just to pay salaries. $45 million income is 2.8 times what's needed for
salaries, which leaves plenty for profit.

~~~
krogsgard
I almost went down that route. I interact with a lot of Automattic employees,
and all of them are extremely talented.

I'm not sure what they get paid, but I tend to doubt it averages $160k,
because if I were Automattic I'd probably pay relative to where the employee
lives. And even though I'm sure most of them could command top dollar where
they live for what they do, I'd bet in most parts of the world it comes out to
less than $160k / year, because most parts of the world just are not as
expensive as SF.

Also, I'm pretty sure they have thousands and thousands of servers. I have no
idea how much that costs, but an uneducated guess would be that it's not as
much as the $16 million in salaries you mention. So... $45 million - $32
million for salary and servers is indeed a hefty profit.

------
webwanderings
I highlighted their difference with Tumblr here not too long ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3809374>

They both use Quantcast, so the numbers have to be pretty accurate.

~~~
krogsgard
A lot of Tumblr pageviews are dashboard based, whereas WordPress.com's tend to
be much more front facing. Also, I imagine the amount of time a Tumblr user
spends per page is less than those on WP - just by typical nature of the
content. Just guessing, but that's my assumption.

Mullenweg has said before he pictures Tumblr as more of a social network than
a blogging platform. I wish I could find that right now. Either way,
WordPress.com is definitely learning some things from Tumblr. The new wp.com
dashboard and quick posting mechanism is enough proof of that.

~~~
webwanderings
You are right, hence the reason they redirected the dashboard stats to
wordpress.com. I think they're gunning for an IPO or sale.

~~~
krogsgard
I personally don't think so based on my observation of the company over the
past few years. I think they're in it for the long haul, as are their
investors. However, I don't have much to back up my statement, other than
Matt's ideals.

------
huggyface
That's a magnificent $0.65 a blog...per year...in gross revenue.

~~~
zaidf
Silly semantics.

You could also see it as a magnificent $0.65 per page. After all, a blog is
just a dynamic page outputting database records, right?

~~~
huggyface
_You could also see it as a magnificent $0.65 per page._

Well...no. Not at all. It isn't semantics at all, anymore than saying that The
McClatchy Company operates 30 newspapers.

Further the other comment opines that they're focused on growth. That seems
incredible given that the blogging industry is on decline.

