What startups can learn from Anjuna’s layoff is recovery

In 2021, Anjuna Security is growing rapidly, hiring aggressively, and chasing a seemingly limitless market. By the end of that year, the cybersecurity-backed company had grown to about 75 employees, creating sales, customer success, and support teams in anticipation of continued growth.

Then 2022 hit.

As the market turned, business customers became harder to land. Like most construction startups at the time, Anjuna was overworked and underfunded. As a result, the company was forced to make a difficult decision and lay off part of its workforce, then retrench a few months later.

Cost reduction was only part of the problem. The most difficult question was how to recoup and keep the remaining members motivated.

Ayal Yogev, CEO and co-founder of Anjuna, joined Isabelle Johannessen on TechCrunch’s Build Mode to discuss how the company survived a volatile market by acting fast, making cuts with compassion, and learning from early mistakes.

One of the reasons Anjuna was able to withstand two rounds of layoffs is that the company had already invested time in building a strong internal culture, rooted in a simple concept. “We have only one word when it comes to culture, and that is caution,” Yogev said. We care about our employees.

Rather than seeing culture as a set of unknown factors, the company focuses on consistent behavior. Internally, that meant being transparent and talking clearly about what was happening and why. Externally, it means supporting workers who have left through layoffs, from sharing job opportunities through business forums to making sure they get benefits like health care.

Fortunately, the company avoided common pitfalls that lead to distrust during layoffs such as long-term uncertainty, impersonal methods, or leadership silence. Instead, decisions were made quickly, and negotiations were conducted directly.

Even so, the results were real. A second round of layoffs made rebuilding trust difficult. But the culture that had already been established shaped how the rest of the group responded. Instead of focusing on blame, the emphasis was on learning: what went wrong, and how to avoid repeating it.

“There are two things that people do, like the worst kind of companies that look for someone to blame and that always ends up creating a culture of people trying not to make mistakes,” Yogev said. “It just creates a culture of blame, which is useless, right?”

Today, Anjuna is rebuilding with a different approach. Hiring is intentional. Trade growth is closely linked to real demand. And new tools, including AI, are helping the team to work more efficiently without expanding.

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Isabelle Johannessen is our host. Build Mode created and edited by Maggie Nye. Audience Development is led by Morgan Little. And special thanks to the Foundry and Cheddar video teams.