More layoffs at Fueled—internal turmoil or a contracting ecosystem?

When I started writing again,^[1] my focus was solely on the drama unfolding within the WordPress ecosystem, driven, initially, by Matt Mullenweg’s comments at WordCamp US 2024. This blog, then, has really been an outlet to share my thoughts on aspects of that drama. Because of my unique perspective having worked at both Audrey Capital and Automattic, as well as my involvement within the community, I’ve been able to mix my knowledge of the players and companies within the ecosystem with the unfolding legal and community fallout.

But, this post isn’t about that drama.^[2]

In 2017, after four years of working within the WordPress community, I flipped to the other side of the WordPress ecosystem. Instead of building WordPress itself, and supporting the community, I joined an agency that delivers digital experiences for publishers and enterprise clients using WordPress. My role was focused on account management, sales, and strategic guidance.

Client services are a very different beast—where before my “customer” was a combination of my boss (Matt Mullenweg) and the broader community, now I had real customers, people who would rate my company’s services (including mine!) and decide if they should continue to give us all money. Succeeding in my account management role could help the company expand—more business leads to more work. But, failure could lead to lost clients, reduced profits, and, potentially, layoffs. Yes, I was not alone—it’s the work of the entire company that ultimately matters to clients—but an account manager’s role is both to advocate for my client and advocate for our company, balancing what (at times) is two competing priorities, all in the name of customer satisfaction.

In 2020, I found myself joining 10up, which is now Fueled. There’s a lot to say about WordPress agencies—the ecosystem continues to adapt, ebbing and flowing with the changing landscape of not only WordPress, but technology more generally. Artificial intelligence, in particular, has become a prominent area of both pain and growth, as companies seek to do more with fewer employees, leveraging AI to deliver more efficient services with less human effort, and thus, reduce headcount.

Understanding the changing business ecosystem is key to understanding how WordPress itself will shift as major WordPress businesses not only contribute directly to WordPress, but also indirectly—their work to implement WordPress at scale, for enterprise, e-commerce, and publishers furthers the ecosystem, creating a feedback loop of growth. So, let’s look at the status of one of these companies and consider what this means for the people who work there and also the broader WordPress ecosystem.

I‘ve been on the fence about writing this post—I actually drafted it back in July, after the very public gutting of 10up / Fueled’s account strategy team. At the time, the words didn’t feel right.

However, this week, Fueled will conduct another round of layoffs. The layoffs have not been announced internally or externally. In publishing, I’m pre-empting the internal announcement. Thinking back to my own layoff, I would have appreciated knowing changes were coming, even if I couldn’t change my fate.^[3]

Given these impending cuts, it feels appropriate to share my thoughts about the broader implications of Fueled’s continuing contraction, and pull apart the narrative they spun after the last round of layoffs.

Before diving in, it’s important to be up front: I am not an impartial writer. In October 2024, I was laid off from 10up / Fueled, as they restructured the company and ultimately decided I was not going to make the cut. (Going forward, I‘ll be calling the combined company “Fueled” and the pre-acquisition company “10up.”) Last year’s layoffs, which went through November 2024, ultimately affected 10.5% of the combined company. In Q1 of this year, the company also opted to stop working with nearly all of its contractors, including some of the very best people I’ve ever worked with.

So, why cover this now?

At the end of June, Fueled gutted what remained of their account strategy discipline, a team that I was a part of for four years. A few people have spoken up, primarily on LinkedIn, but layoffs like these are usually kept quite internal. However, in early July, Justin Livesay, Fueled’s CEO, posted an update on LinkedIn about the changes. I am not sure I’ve ever seen such a public post from a CEO when so few individual employees were affected.^[4] As a result, the post came across as a bit desperate—Livesay appeared to be responding publicly to private questions, which I assume came directly from clients and remaining employees.

But wait, how did we get here? Let’s back up a bit…

An marriage arranged for two companies

In September 2023, 10up was acquired by Fueled. The acquisition was framed as a “merger,” and functionally there’s some truth to that, but practically speaking Fueled and a private equity firm called Insignia Capital acquired a majority of 10up, with the original owners of 10up maintaining a small equity stake.^[5] The thinking around this sale is obvious to outside observers: Fueled was a strong, design-led agency, while 10up was a strong, engineering-led agency. The combination of the two would be greater than the sum of its parts.

At the start, virtually nothing changed. Combining operations takes time—there’s leadership to restructure, tools to reconsider, compensation and benefits to evaluate, processes that need alignment, and, yes, a brand to rethink.^[6] Internally, I didn’t feel many of the changes over the initial year, post acquisition. Of course, the entire company had questions: What about benefits? What will the company be called? What will our structure look like? And, some of these questions started to get answered, little by little.

There was a key thing that did happen—the slow integration of the delivery teams. A Fueled design team might collaborate with a 10up engineering team, each bringing their respective knowledge to a client engagement. Even this ”light” integration raised some cultural differences between the two companies. One of the biggest: how should account strategy support client engagements and ensure success?

Throughout its decade-plus history, 10up carefully considered how to manage the client relationship, finally landing on the “account strategy” discipline, which was a mixture of account management, account growth, and digital strategy. At a high-level, account strategists at 10up were responsible for overall client satisfaction. But digging deeper, this team did a lot more, including: ensuring the delivery team met client expectations; ideating with clients and the delivery team to align the client’s roadmap and goals to new features and engagements; and balancing 10up’s needs with client demands. Some of us even stretched the boundaries of account strategy into what would be considered product management or business analysis, as skills and needs aligned.

Now, there are problems with this model,^[7] but the overarching responsibilities were clear, and account strategists oversaw a solid stable of long term clients, helping them grow (as budgets allowed) and broadly maintaining a high level of client satisfaction.

This model differed from Fueled’s.

A clash of models

Over its history, Fueled has been a dynamic company, finding high-value brands and working with them to deliver digital transformations. Much of their advertised work is quite impressive—their public case studies (pre-redesign) included brands like Albertson’s, Apple, Clear, IBM, MGM Resorts, Rite Aid, Victoria’s Secret, and Warby Parker. Superhuman, which was recently acquired by Grammarly for an undisclosed amount (but last valued at over $800 million), worked with Fueled early on to develop their namesake email app.^[8]

With a long list of major brands, you would expect an account management or account strategy discipline, similar in scope to 10up’s. But, Fueled approached projects differently. Often, they were “one and done”—large engagements that kickstarted a company’s product initiative, before being handed over to an internal team—in direct contrast to 10up’s approach of remaining engaged with clients over the long term. That, in turn, meant that a deep bench of account strategists wasn’t necessary; Fueled’s model didn’t require it.

To be clear, both models can be successful. Neither is right nor wrong. But, they are directly at odds with each other. How you structure a team, how you set your rate, how you engage with a client—the answer to each of these depends on which model you operate under.

With Fueled’s model, the focus is on net-new sales above existing account growth. Yes, once a client is through the door, your delivery must be exceptional—that’s true of both models. But your pitch to clients is about the next big thing you can deliver for them, the one product that will help them move to the next level. In this model, you know a client will spend big for the big ideas you’ll deliver. They’ll also bring everything internal once you’ve delivered because they have the team—what they needed was the vision. The case studies on Fueled’s site (again, pre-redesign) reflected this model—large, visionary projects, not long engagements with forever customers.

10up’s model effectively the opposite. The focus was on account management above sales. Of course you need new clients, which means you need a sales team that can close deals. But, once you sign those clients, you find ways to keep them active for years on end, supporting the ebbs and flows of their business with new ways of working and new services. The predictability of your business, built on a mixture of long term retainers and large projects also means stability in your rates, with some clients spending big and some small, but all of them relying on you. And, when client budgets flow, you’re already connected tactically and financially, making it easy to jump in and support.

These two models inevitably conflicted, and the combined company couldn’t continue to “choose both.” In completely dismantling 10up’s account strategy team in June, the new path has been chosen.

Farewell account strategy, a letter by Justin Livesay

While Fueled has conducted two separate layoffs affecting the account strategy discipline—one late last year and one a few months ago—both were fundamentally about a single vision for client relationship management, one that, ultimately, removed the role of account strategy altogether.

Let’s look closer at that July LinkedIn post from Justin Livesay, Fueled’s CEO, pull apart aspects, and talk about the tangible changes for clients and employees.

At Fueled, our North Star is clear: convert, grow, and retain outstanding clients by delivering impactful digital experiences. Excelling in customer acquisition and deepening strategic client relationships are fundamental to our entire mission and long-term success. While we're profitable and have healthy utilization today, my responsibility as a leader demands that I look beyond immediate metrics and make decisions that safeguard sustainable and exciting opportunities for our team in the future. That means, at times, navigating short-term discomfort to prevent greater long-term consequences.

Livesay comes right out the gate with some key principles that guide his overall thinking. Fueled’s goal is to “convert” clients (that is, bring in more sales), “grow” clients (that is, company Y should give more money to Fueled this year than last year), and “retain” clients (that is, fewer clients should fire Fueled). Of these three action words, it’s important to consider that 10up’s account strategy discipline focused on the latter two: growing and retaining clients, though it would often support the sales process, when it made sense.

Over the past few months, we've carefully reevaluated our account management and delivery leadership functions. While the dual structure of account management and delivery leadership created extra space for relationship building and provided multiple checks on the client experience, it has not consistently driven the customer success metrics, strategic client growth, or operational accountability we need relative to the investment in our people and systems. Additionally, this structure diluted executive accountability and fragmented reporting, limiting our ability to maintain unified oversight over client success.
 
To address these gaps, we’ve made changes to improve efficiency, establish clearer accountability, and create room for more strategic investment in both client acquisition and in how our teams collaborate to drive account success.

I’m fascinated by how Livesay frames the “dual structure” of account management and delivery leadership, arguing they should perform effectively the same roles—removing one (account management) will “improve efficiency.” But, as I’ve noted above, account strategists did fulfill broader roles—they acted as account managers, yes, but they also delivered additional value, both to clients and to the company, by providing support and oversight to delivery teams. Even focusing solely on the account management aspect, this role sits in between clients and delivery leadership, advocating for both the client and the delivery team. Livesay seems to brush past this, for reasons unclear.

This push to “improve efficiency” also hints at the goals of any merger—the combined company should be more efficient, with unified operations and leadership. But, improving efficiency at all costs—a trend we see from businesses with private equity ownership—can backfire, especially if the client experience is harmed.

Livesay argues that the supposed dual structure “has not consistently driven the customer success metrics [or] strategic client growth” expected for, effectively, the cost of these roles. That wasn’t my experience. 10up maintained a clear set of metrics that were regularly reviewed with every account strategist. Some strategists didn’t meet expectations and, yes, they were let go. Evaluating performance in this way is normal for account managers and it’s baffling, to me, to hear that these metrics no longer defined the discipline before its demise. At the heart of the metrics were… retention, customer success, and client growth!

In Q4, we reorganized our reporting structure, significantly reducing delivery leadership’s personnel management and operational burdens, and introduced a dedicated Project Management Office (PMO). This allows our management layer to focus on customer success and account growth. Practically, our revised delivery leadership roles blend elements of project oversight and staffing support with a renewed focus on client success, proactive business strategy, and account planning. They work closely with our business development (“Go-to-Market”) team for new business and renewals, as well as our expanding Product Strategy & Management team — a capability brought over from Fueled’s product design strength and now integrated to benefit all 10up clients post-merger.

(More about this ”management layer” of which Livesay speaks later in this post.)

There’s probably a corporate communications rulebook that says I shouldn’t say this, but I believe honesty matters more: I understand how these changes, and the timing of communication, may create space for uncertainty or speculation. It’s natural to focus on what’s lost, especially when it involves colleagues we respect. However, our previous client management model simply wasn't consistently elevating the impact of our work for our clients and generating growth, despite investments exceeding industry cost benchmarks.
 
Many companies provide digital services, but what sets us apart and will drive our success is the many remarkable people at Fueled, and their ability to collaborate with a sense of urgency, creatively solve problems, and go the extra mile for every client.

Livesay is right: it’s often hard to see the forest for the trees. In times of layoffs, it is natural to focus on the people who are being let go. But… why is that wrong? Is it somehow ”bad” or “inappropriate” to consider those who must now find new work to provide for themselves and their families? Is that the honesty Livesay believes matters most, that must be communicated at such a time?

Putting aside the human element,^[9] this team drove consistent success and growth at 10up for years. They acted as the backbone of 10up’s client services. In that context, laying them off could not have been indicative of the skills or successes of these individuals, but rather a shift in company strategy.

Whether the “previous client management model”—the one Livesay implemented in November 2024 as part of the previous round of layoffs—was working or not, real people lost their jobs because of real business challenges and failures, just six months into Livesay’s modified approach. And, with additional layoffs coming this week, it seems as though this new, Fueled-driven, client management model isn’t working either.

More than “people” were lost though. A culture of client success has all but vanished. Account strategists at 10up grew accounts, saved relationships, guided projects, and supported the delivery team in ways big and small. This isn’t to belittle the incredible work of everyone to deliver success—including engineers, designers, audience strategists, revenue strategists, support representatives, systems engineers, and more. It was the team, as a whole, who contributed to client satisfaction, but account strategists were a key piece of the pie, part of the winning formula that led to high retention and customer satisfaction.^[10]

But, hey, let’s brush past the results here, as Livesay asks. Let’s not consider why multiple rounds of layoffs have been necessary, nor how what sets Fueled apart is the many remarkable people… including those who have been actively laid off over the past 2+ years.

That’s also what makes moments like this hard for our team; but with clearer and more accountable roles, more focused investments – especially in critical demand generation capabilities – and enhanced structures, this incredible team is on track to improve success for customers, team members, and our business. These changes secure a future for our team in a way that our previous structure was not consistently achieving.
 
Ultimately, these decisions reflect a purposeful commitment to Fueled’s future. Our ability to create compelling, long-term opportunities will continue to come not just from the services we provide, but from an evolving team that continuously evaluates and improves how we deliver.
 
When I look beyond this moment, I couldn’t be more excited about the work we’re doing, the innovations our team is shaping, and the opportunity to bring our team, clients, and partners along on this journey.

This did not age well. Two and a half months later, the future is not ”secure,” and this new-new structure is not ”consistently achieving.” I have to imagine that this is not the ”journey” the Fueled team anticipated.

This week’s layoffs

Pre-acquisition Fueled employees have noted that the company underwent three separate rounds of layoffs in 2023. Last year, there was a round of layoffs (affecting 10.5%),^[11] followed by a smaller round about two months ago (affecting ~2%, and all of account strategy). A third round of layoffs is imminent. And, earlier this year, Fueled stopped working with a large number of contractors.^[12] Six rounds of layoffs in ~2 years. Six rounds. Two years.

My understanding is this week’s layoffs will be approximately the same size, percentage-wise, as last year’s (~10%), meaning around 30 people will be let go.^[13] But this time, as we’ve established, there’s no account strategy discipline to layoff in the name of “efficiency.” Thus, layoffs come for the delivery team, including engineering, the backbone of the pre-merger 10up, as well as the management layer that Livesay argued just two months ago was focused on “customer success and account growth.”

If you are a former Fueled or 10up employee who was let go this week or before, reach out to another former 10upper for some continued support during this time—we have a way to keep in touch.

What does this mean for WordPress?

I know, I know. You aren’t subscribed because you want to hear about 10up’s post-acquisition downfall.^[14] You’re here for my thoughts on the WordPress legal drama and deep dives into topics that have become front-and-centre due to that drama. But, hear me out.

When Mullenweg started his war against WP Engine, his entire thesis was built on the idea that WP Engine’s lack of contributions to the WordPress community were due to their majority owner, Silver Lake, a private equity firm. Mullenweg pressed on the idea that private equity was behind the lack of WP Engine’s contributions, and had uniformly been bad for open source. While I disagree with this framing—there are other plausible explanations—it’s interesting to consider this in the context of Fueled.

10up has been one of the largest contributors to WordPress core for the past decade, employing core committers, release leads, and (once upon a time) a lead developer.^[15] But, times are hard right now—10up, now Fueled, is going through its third round of layoffs in the past year, and agencies typically run relatively lean, meaning Fueled is very likely feeling financial hardship. As we saw earlier this year, when times were hard for Automattic, they pulled back their WordPress contributions, and eventually conducted a round of layoffs.

Fueled seems to be taking a different approach, laying off before pulling back on contributions, but one has to wonder how long this is sustainable. How much longer will Fueled remain a major contributor in the WordPress community, especially with its private equity owner?

From the outside, it’s impossible to know what’s driving these changes—we can speculate about financial issues, perhaps related to Fueled’s shift to a new acquisition and growth strategy. Are clients leaving as a direct result of the shuttering of the account strategy discipline?

There are other possibilities, of course. Has private equity oversight led to an excessive push toward “efficiency”? Is the shift away from the “10up” brand, and a push to diversify away from WordPress, driving a reduction in sales? Are businesses reducing their reliance on WordPress and finding agencies more suited for non-WordPress work?^[16]

Whether Fueled’s contraction is due to a softening of the broader ecosystem or their choice to abandon the 10up model of account strategy or another reason entirely—and we may never know the true cause here—the contraction is concerning for the WordPress ecosystem at large, as another major contributor begins to cede ground.