This is the hardest news I’ve ever shared on LinkedIn. We’ve seen extraordinary growth since launching ZOE membership in the UK two years ago. We spent the last year desperately trying to catch up with demand, as we welcomed 100,000 new members. Unfortunately, it’s now clear that in doing this, we over-expanded our team over the last six months. We now have to make difficult decisions to reduce our costs by around 20%, which will impact some of our team. I take full responsibility for this. When we started ZOE seven years ago, I wanted to build a company that reflected my own values. My son was seven, and I realised that if he was going to understand what was important to me it didn’t matter what I said - what mattered was what I did. Which is why I co-founded this incredible company with Tim and George. A company where people have a strong sense of community, can be themselves and feel proud to work towards ZOE’s mission to improve the health of millions. The impact on our close-knit team will be very hard. And yet, we must face this hard reality because our mission is important, and it’s clear that we can succeed at it. Building a startup isn’t easy, and success is rarely a straight line. It is often two steps forward and one step back. This feels especially true right now, as despite this difficult decision, we are also far more confident in what we’re building than a year ago: from the members who tell us amazing stories of how ZOE has changed their lives, from the many thousands of new members joining each month and from the groundbreaking scientific discoveries our team is making. I will always be grateful to every single member of our amazing team who have taken us so far, so fast. Each of them should feel immensely proud of how they have helped so many people transform their health. I have attached my full announcement to our ZOEntists here:
Hi Jonathan Wolf sorry to hear this. I'm a big Zoe fan. I signed up last year, felt the benefits, and referred 4/5 others who all signed up (without a referral link, doh!). My renewal came around and I was offered £160 for another 4 months of access to the App. I declined as all I was using the app for was recipes and logging my food still. I thought I'd learned enough so didn't need any of the lesson features anymore. I'd imagine others do the same and you have high churn after customer's initial term. If you offered a simple monthly payment option at renewal, I would have taken this and still been a customer today.
As a (small) investor - who cringes at some of the TrustPilot reviews - I would love to see Zoe, if only temporarily, lose less headcount and instead, move more humans (who can answer the telephone and post personalised/NON-TEMPLATED TrustPilot responses) into Customer Service. Customer churn, is not a customer base (unless you sell double glazing, BMW's, tanning products or similar) and reading some of the (Zoe Customer) comments here - it does feel like the current sales model is more back-filling than retentive.. This is fixable, you are trustworthy, a nice bloke, a great Evangelist and really caring. It must be a horrible time for you - and all Zoentists. Stay strong, you've got this.
I’m an early adopter and still a Zoe member today, even though I agree with many of the previous members comments on monthly costing. Zoe has had a huge impact on my own and my family’s health. Jonathan Wolf It takes bravery to admit you were wrong and to do it so publicly. I hugely admire the ambition of the company and hope you can bounce back from this. I expect you will have a lot of people wanting to help you succeed. Myself included. Use the knowledge of the community.
Jonathan, as an investor , I am sorry to hear your news and I feel for those being let go. As a former subscriber, I feel misled by the initial pricing and consider the renewal costs excessive. Please let me know when you update your pricing model so that I can consider rejoining. Thanks
Difficult position to be in, my sympathies are with those being made redundant. I wish your over expanded team had been able tor respond to my 4 data access requests over the past 6 months (merely asking for a copy of data submitted through the app to support health investigations which were ongoing at the time). The lack of reply over this time means you're now in breach of ICO regulation, however I haven't mustered the energy to raise it with the ICO. Perhaps you'll reach out here Jonathan Wolf and put me in touch with the right person.
It is very easy to offer suggestions/solutions from the outside with regards to the product and pricing. We have not met personally (yet) but the way the Zoe leadership has taken responsibility and ownership of the situation and is making changes and treating people with respect is exemplary and admirable. We always have to make tough decisions, it is how we emerge from them that also matters. Hopefully, Zoe will stay in “zoe” - alive.
Jonathan Wolf, I'm sure a lot of european startups would be happy to provide [temporary / part time / long term / full time] employment to your team mates. I've sent you a connection request to help connect you with benelux startups. In the meantime I'll already tag some of them here: - William Declerck M.D. - William Detry - Dr David Dunne - Manon Rodriguez Mate - Brent Luyckx - Olivier Kleynjans
“The leadership team and I commit to treating you with the respect you deserve.” Like parenting, parenting a company involves tough times as well as celebratory times. Your transparency about this process speaks volumes about what you are building. Not just better products for a better world, but also better business behaviour. Jonathan Wolf I wish you and all affected the very best now and for the future.
Experienced executive and non-executive director with a senior level business background in listed, privately-owned and PE backed companies and in various sectors including property, financial services and clean tech.
3moAs an early adopter and (small) shareholder, I have recently terminated my membership because on a maintenance basis it is simply too expensive. (As another commentator has mentioned, no one reached out to enquire as to my reasons for leaving.) The pricing model needs to be reviewed if you want to retain long-term associations. I joined the National Trust nearly 50 years ago on a wet holiday in Cornwall and I am still a member (joint member, actually, you might about more than individual membership, and now a senior joint member, you might think about age as well). Also, I originally joined the Covid 19 database in order to contribute to the science: where has the membership-based science gone? A bit of a whinge, for which I apologise. I wish the company well and hope that the leavers quickly find another valuable postion.